Fast Twist 270 Win vs. 6.8 Western

[ButterBean]

My love of the 270 caliber happened back in 1986 with this really dusty, Savage 110 rifle on the wall for $125.00. It was chambered in 270 Win. I never really was in love with the 7MM, honestly I hated the dang thing from the minute I read about it. I knew little about the 270 win except that I had read lots of people/gun writers hating on it and some singing it's praises. I am not a main stream caliber guy so I like the odd ball calibers. 270 Win turned out to be very accurate, extremely deadly to deer, pronghorn, and it exploded ground squirrels. the 7MM R/M is a magnum class case. the 270 Win is not, the only drawback to the 30-06 based case until you neck it down to 257 caliber. that went away when some really great wildcatter put the 270 slug in a 264 W/M-7MM R/M case. then the 270 and the 7MM became equals. In the gun I had made up in Montana that wildcat was more accurate than any of the 7MM R/M cult's guns could offer up. the deadliness of the 270 versus the 7MM is negligible in actuality. the slugs are 0.007" difference. Not much at all. the 7MM was hyped by the gun writers for a huge payday for the writers. it gave the 7MM more exposure than the 270. this same thing happened between the 243 win and the 244 Rem (now the 6MM Remington). One big mistake Remington did was they did not offer the 244/6MM in a 1:8" or 1:7" twist barrel that would have made it far superior to the 243 whom did offer their cartridge in a heavy twist.
I really fell in love with the caliber once I found piles of it on the shelf at the sportsman's in Rocklin, CA. I found it all over the place.. 7MM R/M, 30-06, 308 win, 30-30, and 243 win were all out but 270 was plentiful.
Now with the resurgence of the 270 caliber; the bullet manufacturers are making longer, heavier, better slugs to compete and in some cases exceed the 7MM bullets. now we, the 270 crowd, have a fighting chance to make the 7MM as obsolete as the 7MM made the 270 back in the 1980's, 1990's, and up to 2015. I might get to be the "trendy guy" on the block for being a 270 fan for the last 35 years.
Other than that, 270 and 7MM are virtually identical in most every way; lethality, stopping, down range kinetic energy, and BC are all very comparable. My suggestion is you love the 7MM, stick with it. If you are open to a reviving an old very maligned caliber, then try the 270.
BTW, I built that 270-264 Win Mag up in Montana as a huge middle finger to the guys regurgitating the line, "the 7MM R/M is the only caliber that will take down deer, pronghorn, elk, and bear effectively." Which we all know is utter horse manure. My go to gun for Deer and Elk was my 270-264 Win Mag or my 270 Winchester. my go to gun for Moose is my 338 Win Mag. My go to gun for Bear is my 375 H&H. I do not use an inferior caliber to do the job. I go out with something I trust to do the job. I have seen a guy with a 7MM R/M take 7 rounds to put down a rather tough inland brown bear. that is too many shots. The guy nearly died on that mountain. If I had not put one or two rounds of Hornady DGX out of my 375 H&H that guy would have been dead.
In all honesty; 7MM does not work for me. It never has, it never will. If it works for you then I am happy for you. Like I said with the new advances in 270 slugs with more selection, more weights, and more development, the 270 and the 7MM are so close to being equals it really does not matter which one you have. all that matters is bullet selection and shot placement.

Sorry Y'all. this got away from me.

I'll never be without a 270

 

[Fallguy]

Thanks to all for the great info. I need to go back through the replies and give this some thought. Much appreciated!

 

[Mike Matteson]

Jack O'Connor brought the 270 to the world. He shot about everything in the world with his 270. He wrote for Outdoor Life. I read about his trips, as a kid, and he lit my fire for hunting, not that I didn't have in me already. Finally got to Africa twice. What place! It take about $15,00.00 to get there and back. Getting the game mounted too. The bottom line is shot placement!!!!. It works every time.

 

[skipglo]

I'll never be without a 270

Just one Bean?

 

[ButterBean]

Just one Bean?

I may have 2

 

[Muddyboots]

On order?

 

[vancewalker007]

As P.O. said, up to a point more powder equals more velocity.

I find the sudden love for the 270 amusing. I forsee more orphan cartridges to join the SAUMs, WSMs, 325, 307, 356 and so on.

When someone can tell me what any of these "new" 270s can do that cannot be equalled by the boring old 7mm RemMag IN REAL WORLD PRACTICAL HUNTING SITUATIONS I'll listen.

Its mostly marketing. The gun industry has to have its new thing every year just like Bow companies. Relative to 90% of the hunting shots in the country I'd bet there's not a huge difference in most cartridges potential with everything else being the same.

 

[ButterBean]

On order?

In Bound, It's a good story in the making,there are still some genuine folks left

 

[yorke-1]

I think the easy way to compare the 6.8 Western and 270 Win is to look at numbers from a 6.5 SAUM and a 6.5-06. I bet the relative performance would be very comparable. The trick will be to compare handloads in the 270 Win to handloads in a 6.8 Western. I'd like to see the pressure data on any load from a 270 Win which will match or exceed the performance of the 6.8 Western in the same length barrel with the same bullet.

What I don't really understand every time a new cartridge comes out, is the need to compare a new cartridge designed around factory ammo in factory guns to an existing cartridge with handloads in a custom barrel. The 6.8 Western seems like a great idea for the factory ammo/factory gun crowd and a way for them to get on board with the heavy bullet trend without rebarreling an existing rifle or handloading.

 

[RedDirtRifleman]

As P.O. said, up to a point more powder equals more velocity.

I find the sudden love for the 270 amusing. I forsee more orphan cartridges to join the SAUMs, WSMs, 325, 307, 356 and so on.

When someone can tell me what any of these "new" 270s can do that cannot be equalled by the boring old 7mm RemMag IN REAL WORLD PRACTICAL HUNTING SITUATIONS I'll listen.

7mm Rem Mag is probably the best do-it-all cartridge available, especially in terms of on the shelf ammo availability. That doesn't mean us .277" folk can't have our fun and stretch out the performance in our caliber. Cartridge design is all about finding niches and incremental changes and improvements.

 

[73driver]

My love for the 270 didn't happen recently. I have a Rem 700 bedded into a Bansner stock that is a true .5 gun with 130 Grain Accubonds. It however will not shoot anything above 130's very good. I've always wanted to go to heavier bullets but the 1-10 twist doesn't permit that in my gun. Just looking for real world velocity numbers with the heavies in an 8 twist 270 Win with a 24 inch pipe.

Thats a shame that your rifle is limited to 130's. I have a 1-10 Lilja barreled 700 in a HS Precision stock and was able to get 140 Bergers into 1/3 inch holes.

 

[Starlite]

Thats a shame that your rifle is limited to 130's. I have a 1-10 Lilja barreled 700 in a HS Precision stock and was able to get 140 Bergers into 1/3 inch holes.

I'm pleasantly surprised that I can shoot 150gr RN; will be the round that's used for bears and moose out to ~150M

 

[budlight]

R-26 and 150's actually does exceed 3000 fps on my chrono. I also worked up loads with r-25 and accurate MagPro to exceed 3100 with 140 spbt without pressure signs

Alliant Powder - Reloader's Guide

www.alliantpowder.com

 

[Starlite]

R-26 and 150's actually does exceed 3000 fps on my chrono.

Alliant Powder - Reloader's Guide

www.alliantpowder.com

Around here alliant powder is known as unicorn dust. I can't remember off hand what powder I used. Likely Hybrid V 100 or Staball 6.5. Maybe VV N-160