.277 130 vld

[bab029]

Howdy all,

I am looking at a new rifle some time soon, and (surprisingly or not) am agonizing over the caliber. I have set the parameters of a sporter to medium weight rifle suitable for southeastern deer inside 600 yards 99% of the time. I do know I want a standard caliber of some sort, avoiding the flash and drama of the magnums and hopefully enjoying longer life of both my barrels and the ligature of my shoulder. I also want to avoid obnoxiously rare calibers so that I can run to a store and be relatively assured of coming home with a box of something to blow off every now and then. I do and will reload for the rifle, and that is where our fun begins. I am coming to be in the "light and fast' school, especially for hunting our frail whitetails. Having always been a .30 caliber slut I was immediately drawn to the 30-06. Timeless. Ubiquitous. Many choices in projectiles, and 110 years of load data. Gentle on the barrels, while still being a rifle for anything on this continent. It seemed like a true front runner, especially since a Remington 700 CDL SF in this caliber has been gathering dust at the local gun shop for several months now, and I was promised a good deal if I come asking for it.

So like any good scientist, I go to the data for answers. I have always been of the opinion that the 270 winchester is the great round that was forgotten by the progress of the last couple decades. It seems like only a few years ago you couldn't find anything in .277 with a BC higher than a refrigerator, so naturally I completely overlooked this cartridge in favor of joining the clamoring over the 6.5s and 7 millimeter rounds so popular. However I now think the 130 berger VLD (and some of the other options available) may have changed the game a bit.

I have an Excel based ballistic calculator that I have found to be pretty accurate in past work, so I scoured the interwebz for a little load data for three of my contenders: the .270 winchester, the 30-06, and the 7mm-08. I looked at three pills in .277 (130, 140, 150), the 140 in 7mm, and the 155 and 168 in 30-06. I don't have personally verified data for velocities, so approximations were extrapolated from what I could find in a brief google search (including this site).



As you can see from the graph above, it would seem that these are all fairly close performers. max PBR is 300-325 for each round. However my main interest is in performance at 5-600 yards, if not more. So I looked closer, and there is a significant difference between the three rounds after the 400 yard mark.



I chose one pill from each round for the above graph. As you can see, the 277 130 remains flatter after 400 despite having a lighter weight, and a lower bc than both the .308 155 and 7mm 140. It is worth noting that the energies at 600 were all still over 1000 for sure, in the 1200 range for .277 and 7mm; 1400s for the .308. There was about a 10" difference in drop between the 130 and the 155, and a 6.5" difference between the 130 and both 140 offerings (7mm and .277)

So the question becomes, within the parameters i set out above (non-magnum, common cartridge for skinny, southeastern deer inside 600 yards), is there any round that can top the flat trajectory of the .270 without sacrificing KE on target? I did not run numbers on any 6.5mm rounds (.257 bob to 600 yards?) since I was under the impression that most were overbore and therefore a little hard on barrel life.

Backing up a little, are the velocities I used for the calculations reasonable? Can you think of any reason for the excellent performance of the 130 in this simulation?

Whew. Sorry for the long one there. Look forward to hearing what you guys have to say on it. We may be splitting hairs and agonizing over minutiae, but without such exercises, this site and many like it would see far less traffic. (LOL!)

 

[CogburnR]

3200 fps out of a plain 270 is optimistic. It will kill any whitetail alive though.

A 270 WSM would be good as would a 270 AI OR 270 Sherman. The 130 Berger is a good hunting bullet in either the VLD or Classic Hunter.

 

[JOHNNIE WALKER]

I fully understand where you're coming from with this. I also understand having a love for .30 cal but being interested in something smaller but faster. And, like you, I prefer to be able to run to the store to buy ammo if needed, as well as reload. The 270 win is an amazing cartridge. 30/06 necked down to .277. Flat trajectory, and very good killing performance. Many hunters prefer this round for whitetail. With bullet technology rapidly increasing, I really don't see how anyone could say anything bad about this round, especially for what you're wanting to do with it. If you study charts and search the web, you can always find the next greatest thing. But something that has been around as long as the 270 win, has been there for a reason.

 

[MOJO67]

Johnnie,

I think 3200 fps is overly optimistic for the 270. 3000-3100 is more realistic.

As for Bergers, they can be finicky in regard to finding accuracy. Of the 130 VLD's, I would start with the Classic Hunter. Due to it's design, it should be easier to find an accuracy node with. In addition, it has the higher BC of the two 130 VLD's at .497.

If you want 3200 fps with minimal fuss, I would look at the 270 WSM. Don't let the Magnum name scare you. It's a real sweetheart to shoot. My favorite part about it is the short action. It just handles so well. It's super easy to load for too.

I own all three 270's...WCF, WSM and Weatherby. Let's just say, since buying the 270WSM, the 270 WCF has been collecting lots of dust.

 

[bab029]

Mojo, I think I used the other, lower bc bullet for my numbers. 0.452 I believe. I see Berger lists a G7 bc for their bullets. I assume this is an updated method of some sort. Need to do some reading on that and see if I can modify my ballistics macro. I'll rerun the numbers for the 130s at more reasonable velocities and have a look at it. And since I fn love graphs, I'll probably have to make one. May compare some other options (amax, matrix, et al.).

Also, I haven't completely ruled out the wsm. However, it would seem that the wsm platform would enable you to run the heavies with little to no drama. Maybe to the point that a 300 makes more sense. I shot one and it seems like a real nice cartridge in a rifle with the heft and stock design to make it pleasant.

Would there be gains to be had in cutting a factory chamber to ackley dimensions? 100 fps, maybe?

 

[skyfish25]

I agree that 3200 fps is "optimistic" for a std 270. But it is a great round. I've hunted with the 257 Bob, 7mm mag mostly. Now I've settled on the 6.5 Creedmoor. Almost any sporting good store has that now, just not Walmart.

I think for recoil and barrel life, the 6.5 is hard to beat. The 7mm-08 is great too. The 257 Roberts can get 3000fps with a 117, but the 257 Weatherby can fly, okay for a Hunter. But will burn your barrel out if you shoot hundreds of rounds a year.

My son hunts with a 270 WSM exclusively. We use 130gr SST on deer through that. Just a hair over 3300fps. Seems to be a great combo. I would think that 3100 would be about it on a 270 Winchester. But no deer will complain.

 

[Pa Grizz]

I have shot the 130 vld's using 60grs of h4831 and at 200 m I get dime size groups.My speed averages 3090.At 500 m I am getting 3 inch groups ,but this was with a out of the box Remington 700.

 

[davkrat]

I think you just proved the fact that for deer out to 600 yards there is no magic cartridge. We tend to split lots of hairs looking at data when the truth is that any deer standing in the way of one of those bullets at reasonable ranges will not be long in this earth.

I recently converted my .270 Win to a 7mm Rem Mag. The .270 realistically couldn't do anything that my .308 could do as far as pigs/deer. The 7 Mag is a slight tick up in performance and since my brother shoots one we can consolidate components and hopefully have backup ammo in case one of us forgets to pack the boolits. Doh!!!