Chuck R.
Member
I'm a huge .270 Win fan, been using a couple for years, killed many, many deer (mulies, whitetails and a couple blacktails), 5 chamois, and a couple Russian boar.
I don't believe it's the perfect deer caliber, unless you assign a whole lot of parameters to eliminate other useful cartridges. For instance, it's in no way, shape or form the perfect woods caliber for whitetail. IF shots are also limited to around 150yds, it offers excessive energy and velocity that aren't needed. While it's accurate enough for hunting, it's not known as a target caliber.
Then there's the rifle set up. My .270s were both set up for open country 24" barrels, high magnification scopes. This past season I hunted from a ground blind a couple times. My compact M7 in .260 was still at the smiths, so I dragged my long action, 24" .270 into a ground blind. It freaking sucked maneuvering that thing when compared to either of my short action, 20" barreled guns. My 20" barreled 7lb Rem M7 in .260 offers the same capability with less recoil and loses about 30 yds in effective range IF you go with the MPBR way of doing things.
The .270 Win has a "niche" in the deer hunting world, but with the newer cartridges and associated twist rates that "niche" is getting much smaller, if it even exists. IF I was looking for another "open country deer rifle" tomorrow, and wanted a .277 it would be a .270 WSM with a fast twist barrel or a 6.8 Western (which will come with the faster twist), both are shortish action cartridges, both are or can be set up to take advantage of long high BC bullets and both offer a velocity advantage over the .270Win.
I don't believe it's the perfect deer caliber, unless you assign a whole lot of parameters to eliminate other useful cartridges. For instance, it's in no way, shape or form the perfect woods caliber for whitetail. IF shots are also limited to around 150yds, it offers excessive energy and velocity that aren't needed. While it's accurate enough for hunting, it's not known as a target caliber.
Then there's the rifle set up. My .270s were both set up for open country 24" barrels, high magnification scopes. This past season I hunted from a ground blind a couple times. My compact M7 in .260 was still at the smiths, so I dragged my long action, 24" .270 into a ground blind. It freaking sucked maneuvering that thing when compared to either of my short action, 20" barreled guns. My 20" barreled 7lb Rem M7 in .260 offers the same capability with less recoil and loses about 30 yds in effective range IF you go with the MPBR way of doing things.
The .270 Win has a "niche" in the deer hunting world, but with the newer cartridges and associated twist rates that "niche" is getting much smaller, if it even exists. IF I was looking for another "open country deer rifle" tomorrow, and wanted a .277 it would be a .270 WSM with a fast twist barrel or a 6.8 Western (which will come with the faster twist), both are shortish action cartridges, both are or can be set up to take advantage of long high BC bullets and both offer a velocity advantage over the .270Win.