.270 Winchester

As far as a medium game killing cartridge, there's none probably as popular and as old as the .270 win.
Like others have said here, you can load it with light bullets and evaporate varmints, and load it with heavy bullets to take most of if not all of the North American game species.
I prefer bullet weights between 130 and 150 in my .270, and because I had mine built with a 1:9" twist, I'm going to have to try the 165 category also.
So far this rifle likes, ( and shoots well) four bullets in the 130 grn range, and more testing is ongoing with high bc 150's.
It also is super consistant with 140 grn weight bullets also, and the Partition has stood out so far with minimal testing at this point.
If I were to get a chance at a mule deer and elk combo hunt I would use, (with what data I have seen so far) the 150 grn Accubond Long Range bullet, I wouldn't be hesitant in that choice.
If I were to have a chance with an antelope hunt, then the 130 grn Btips and Partition loads would go.
For my deer hunting range here in Missouri, all the bullets and bullet weights I've tested would work wonderfully.

The .270 Winchester is a flat shooting, easy to find ammo for in a pinch, moderate recoiling delight...
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So would a .270 be all that effective against a grizzly bear? Some people who go bear hunting take rifles of much bigger caliber and would consider the .270 Winchester to be suicide.
 
Grizzly hunting it depends on the terrain I'm hunting in, but in open country for mountain or barren ground grizzly I'd be perfectly happy. Hunting grizzly or brown bear in heavy brush and alder thickets where ranges will be close, I'd prefer something a little larger. Jack O'Connor killed a few grizzly with the .270 Win.
 
You can get 30-'06 ammo loaded with 220 grain bullets; a load that was relied upon for coastal Brownies in Alaska back in the 1950's. There is nothing you can load in a 270 Winchester that will compare to it. However, with comparable bullet weights, the 270 Winchester is a close match to the '06, having some minor trade-off in trajectory and ballistic efficiency. So getting back to the opening statements in the OP: On the contrary, the 270 Winchester pretty much does have the punch of a 30-'06, until you get into the heavier bullets that are beyond the 270's capability. Each caliber has advantages over the other, but there is a fairly wide range of overlap between the two.
 
The 264 Winchester Win Magnum is a standard length cartridge and it is flat shooting. The basic problem with all of these sub caliber, high pressure cartridges, is barrel life. A bud I know said his 264 Win Magnum was key holing after 700 rounds went through the barrel.
 
For deer and elk, it's pretty much six of one, half-dozen of the other for .270 and '06. They've put plenty of meat from both into freezers.
 
In that case, while I prefer and own a 270, I say to just get a 30-06 and be done with it. If you go with a magnum, you will be sacrificing magazine capacity. Consider reading Wayne Short's books about their years spent on Admiralty and Baranoff islands. They had several run-ins with big bears.
 
25-06 velocity's are in that neighborhood your looking at. Do to its ability to shoot lesser bullet weight than a 270 even and too the 06. Got some hand-loaded 75s & 87 Gr. 25s here that are fill to their cartridge case capacity with 4831 and are so fast their shooter will observe his nickel case's turned into yellow brass one's upon there ee-jection. :D

I shot a doe once with the 87 gr SP. Point blank at a distance of around 15 ft. I'd say. Scope was useless. A shotgun aim was required. Right into its brisket as she was walking straight to me. {Maybe her intent was giving me a good hoof whooping for being a sneaky old deer hunter.:o} Anywho.

I was sitting in-between two Balsam trees on a 5 gal plastic bucket at the time watching a old deer run passing through a small grassy knoll opening maybe a 1/4 acre in size someplace in the middle of a State owned 40.

Well gents that little bullet passed thru her body stem to stern and hit one of the rear leg ball sockets squarely. Lost better than half of that Doe's rear quarters. Up front what meat was left was so blood shot it had to be soaked in salt brine for a week to make it somewhat palatable. The worst thing of all. That doe had been eating corn for quite sometime prior to her demise and shot the way she was. I kid you not. STINK Uff Da!!

Having a family of 4 hearty venison eaters here at that time. Yup! "I was the sole dinner of that doe over the winter."
One word I think that best describes those light weight 25 cal bullets terminal performance> "gruesome" works for me.
 
If you want a similar round, of the roughly the same (projectile) size, that is faster than .270... well 7mm rem mag is what you seek.

What you actually get with the 7mag is the ability to shoot 150 gn bullets about the same velocity as 130 gn bullets from a 270. And a whole lot more kick, muzzle flash, and ammo expense. You will get about 8-10% more foot/pounds of energy, and this is throughout the trajectory as their muzzle velocity and BC are very similar.

I had a Savage 110 in 7mag. I scrapped everything on that gun and built a nice target/coyote rifle in .270. There are no grizzlies where I am, but I would say that the 7 mag is only marginally more effective on a grizzly than .270 would be if you're staying with lighter weight bullets that match the .270 trajectory. You can certainly find 175 grain bullets that will be more suitable... but it won't match a .270 trajectory. I would still want a larger diameter caliber. .338 Federal, .300 magnum, or .338 magnum with 200+ grain bullets would be my preference.

As always, though, do as you wish
 
If a fellow has a 270 and the need for speed while still using a sturdy effective bullet, consider the 110 gr Nosler Accubond. It can be loaded to the same MV as the 110 gr bullet in the 257 Weatherby Mag, about 3500 fps. As my Dad would say, "that's stepping on out there".

Folks talk about flat shooting Calibers, but you can only get to a certain point. A 270 with a 130 gr bullet and a decent BC, if sighted in at 200 yards, will be down by 7 inches at 300, 20ish at 400, and 40ish at 500. My 220 Swift, loaded to 3850 fps with a 55 gr bullet will have drops of 5 inches at 300, 15ish at 400, and 35ish at 500, if also sighted in at 200. So whatever you buy and however you stuff the case with powder, you will be somewhere between those two trajectories. That's why I mentioned the 270 with that 110 gr Accubond. Not that I'd shoot a grizzly with it, but for deer it would be about as good as it gets. But, I'll stick with my 130 gr Ballistic Tips. That's plenty good enough.
 
603Country said:
Folks talk about flat shooting Calibers, but you can only get to a certain point. A 270 with a 130 gr bullet and a decent BC, if sighted in at 200 yards, will be down by 7 inches at 300, 20ish at 400, and 40ish at 500. My 220 Swift, loaded to 3850 fps with a 55 gr bullet will have drops of 5 inches at 300, 15ish at 400, and 35ish at 500, if also sighted in at 200.
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If you're concerned about inches of drop, you're thinking in the wrong measurements. Inches of drop is pretty irrelevant, you need to think of drop in MOA or Mils. Your scopes don't adjust in inches, they use some form of MOA or Mil adjustments.

If you start thinking that way instead of inches, you'll start to realize how close in performance a lot of cartridges are. Most of the time just about anything popular is within 2-4 clicks on a scope at most ranges when using similar constructed bullets at nearly the same MV. So why worry about inches.
 
Taylorce1, if a fellow isn't turret twisting, he'd better think in inches for holdover purposes. I've been a successful holdover hunter for 50+ years. And that's why I tend to favor Calibers that have trajectories similar to a 260/270/280 and MV's around 3000 fps. I don't have to think about holdover when the critter shows up. If I know the distance, I know the drop to adjust for.

That said, your comment about how close in trajectory many Calibers are is well said. That of course is why scopes that have BDC lines or dots are close to correct at standard distances for so many Calibers. That was my point in using the 270 and the 220 as examples.

My primary hunting rifle these days has a mil/mil turreted scope on it. I don't dial turrets unless I have a coyote or pig out past about 300 yards. Inside that distance, holdover is all I need. And, a fellow needs a rangefinder.
 
A hunter should not be taking very many shots past MPBR if they aren't turret twisting or using a BDC reticle of some sort. About all the holdover I'll do with a standard duplex reticle is top of the back hold. If you've taken the time to range the animal or other known points in the shooting lane then you more than likely have time to adjust a knob. Subtensions on scope reticles are done in MOA or Mils so even more reason to quit thinking in inches IMO.
 
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Except for some old Leupold 2x7's, I no longer have a scope without turrets or BDC. Hunting on our place, I know distances to prominent objects in hay fields or ROWs. At 300 yards or less, even though I have turrets or BDC, I just use holdover. Been doing it for half a century and I'm really good at it. Started out lobbing in punkin balls from my old 35 Remington, then moved on to the 270. For deer, out to 400 yards, I'm good with holdover if I know the actual distance, but with pigs and coyotes at that range I'll go to the BDC. But these days I'm never going to take a 400 yard shot at a deer.

I grew up in Louisiana, hunting on narrow pipeline ROWs in heavy woods and briar thickets. Shooting distances were normally 350 or less. When you see the big buck in the ROW, you have seconds to make the shot. No time for RF use or twiddling on turrets. No time for binocular use. Five seconds is about it. BDC hadn't been invented. That's why I moved to a 270, for a flatter trajectory to simplify holdover. I probably killed 200 or so deer with a 270, and holdover was used every time - though it really isn't a factor at 100 or 200 yards. I'm an old holdover guy, I'm very good at it, and old habits die hard. But it's good to have BDC too. And at 500 yards in the hay field, I'll turret twirl as required.
 
Berger came out with 170 grn Elite Hunter, they said the faster your twist, more BC it has. My barrel is 1:9" and it isn't rated high enough for that bullet according to Berger.
Just wondered if any of you fellas have laid eyes upon them yet?
 
Hooligan1, I can't imagine trying to shoe horn a 1.49" bullet into your 1903 magazine. Those 150 Accubond LR bullets you have are plenty long in a 06 length magazine. I'd build a .270-284 wildcat or .270 WSM on a long action if I wanted to run bullets that long without giving up powder room.
 
hooligan1, I have order in to get a box to try and they are pretty long from ogive forward .829" vs base to ogive .636". I know you asked about the Matrix 165gr and they use Berger jackets.

The 170gr is not the typical VLD it's new Hybrid design.
 
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