The .270 WIN is a wonderful open country hunting cartridge.
Target shooting ...... not so much.
Anyone here ever tried the .270 out past 400, 500...?
Yes.
Works on deer.
@Brian P: colorful charts, but it looks as if you used a flat based 150gr .270 WIN bullet in your example: There are boat tailed .277 150's with G1 BC's over .500 .....
Makes me wonder what all the debate is sometimes with regard to "flatness"
For most folks, it is akin to arguing how many angels may dance on the head of a pin ....... for me, it is important, in that with my rig, any good sized deer that appears on the hayfield in front of me and begins feeding* is mine if I want and he gets within 500.......
At 500 yards, even with 9x magnification, 6-8 inches more holdover is harder to judge .... and the rangefinding has to be much more exact...... with my rifle and load, my bullet will drop just over 18 inches ( top of the back to the bottom of the heart on a large deer ) between 400 and 500..... zeroed for 300, I can use the horizontal crosshair to underline the deer's chest at to 250 (poi will be +4" at 100, +4 3/4" at 200, and begins falling to dead on at 300, 11" low at 400 (spine hold), and between 400 and 500, I'll need between 6" and 18" holdover- easily figured using the animal's chest as a guide.
With an -06, and 150 grain bullets, I'd want target turrets or a mildot scope- which would make eyes open, snap shots at short range harder.....
.... I can't speak to wind drift, as I won't take long shots on game if there is any wind to deal with- I don't have that skillset.
I don't believe there is any inherent accuracy edge of one cartridge over the other.
Some are (shorter, fatter cartridges of modest velocity are inherently more accurate than longer, hypervelocity cartidges.... they are more efficient, too, allowing more bangs for the buck) ..... and benchrest shooters have proven it ...... but to most people, benchrest guys are "preoccupied with inconsequential increments"..... much the same way as high plains hayfield hunters, or southern beanfield guys are.......
A .270 of most any brand will shoot custom ammo like a varmint rifle, and that's how it should be treated-like a varmint rifle.
While it does a fine job on varmints when loaded with 90 to 110 grain varmint bullets, it is not ideally suited for that- pink mist is pink mist, and a .223 will make it at 1/4 the cost..... plus 300 rounds of 55gr @ 3000 f/sec won't make your shoulder nearly as sore as 300 rounds of 110gr @3000 f/sec .... I know this from experience...... though that
will sure sharpen your skills for deer season ....... prairie dogs @ 300 yards from field positions is good practice for an animal with a 12"x18" vital zone.....
If you've got plenty of room to run a blood trail, fine. The bigger hole and energy of the .30 cannot be denied.
I have yet to see a deer hit well with a .270WIN that went very far .... then again, "far" can be a subjective term....... I also have yet to see a deer that was hit with high powered rifle bullet that anybody could tell what diameter the bullet was that struck it, unless they found the bullet (assuming it held together and did not exit) and measured the un-expanded portion of it.
Were I to take up a "long range" target game, I would not choose either the .270 or the -06 ..... I'd want somthing more efficient that would not beat the hell out of me on the bench......
*with a flight time exceeding .5 sec, you have to be sure your target does not move: when deer are feeding, even if they go on alert, the head will come up, and they will look for the threat, but the chest won't move....