180gr in a .270 Winchester?

Is it practical? Probably not, I doubt most 1:10 factory barrels will stabilize it. Besides with today's modern bonded and mono-metal bullets who needs an super heavy lead to get good penetration? Saw a BG test of a 30-06 180gr TSX it reached a staggering 42" of penetration with full expansion!

That's odd. Never seen it that heavy either. If they shot well seems like it would be close to a 30-06

The biggest .284 bullets are 180gr, so a .270 bullet that heavy would be very long and hard to stabilize. Plus, it would have to seated either so deep that typical powders for .270 would have to be re-evaluated (smaller volume for gas, etc.) or seated normally and thus too long to chamber off the lands. In short, not feasible.

Why would you want to do this anyway?

Added thoughts: One of the reasons we have such a wide range of cartridges is to allow us to shoot bullets of many types and weights to meet many applications. Loading any of the various cartridges on the ragged edges of their capabilities (either really light or really heavy) is therefore unnecessary. I recognize that not everyone can afford to own a range of rifles, but if you really need to shoot 180gr bullets, you should consider going to a .30cal round. If finances are an issue, you could shop around and probably find a $200 30-06 or even someone who'd swap you even for one. Then a 180gr bullet would be midrange, right in the cartridge's sweet spot.

It looks like a semi-spitzer so the more blunt ogive will add some weight. Chances are that it is a flat base bullet as well. The overall result is that it probably isn't much longer than a 150gn spitzer. Using the bullet data for the 180gn Woodleigh bullet that Midway sells (the doubletap load is also a Woodleigh bullet) and 2600 FPS MV, the stability factor from a 1:10 barrel is 1.44 at sea level standard day.

That bullet has been around quite a while. It does in fact shoot well from most .270's. Whether or not it's what you need or want is the question.
Most likely application is what they listed... close range use on Moose, and bear. It will perform like a 220gr from a .30/06 or 160gr from a 6.5x55
I can see where locals in Alaska and Canada would find it useful.
However, like others mentioned, I can't see most hunters needing it where a Nosler or Barnes will do just as well with a flatter trajectory.

Anything heavier than 130 grain in a .270 is going to be ballistically inferior to a .30-06. If you want to shoot 180 grain and sub .30 cal your answer is 7mm rem mag

Back in the 80's I shot metallic silhouette with my hunting rifles. In one match I used a nice 270 Win. For chickens and pigs I used 130’s. I got fussed at because those 130’s left craters on the chickens. For 500 yards, the limit of the range, I used 150’s. There was barely enough energy left in a 150 to knock over a ram. Might have left some standing, hard to remember, but I was not impressed with the power of a 150 gr bullet in a 270 at 500 yards.

You go heavier and the bullet will be going too slow to be much of use.

Yeah, like someone suggested , get you a 7mm RM . It will shoot 175 gr all day with no fuss.

adelbridge said:

Anything heavier than 130 grain in a .270 is going to be ballistically inferior to a .30-06.

Click to expand...

Without specifying a .30-06 load, you can't make that statement. Once you get into the heavy .30-06 loads you're right back to the .270 shooting flatter.

If you want to shoot 180 grain and sub .30 cal your answer is 7mm rem mag

Click to expand...

The .270 and .280 would be just as up to the task. You just lose a little range that 99% of hunters would never miss anyway.

back in the day, Speer made a 170gr bullet for the .270 with a blunt ogive: a lot like the 156gr used in the 6.5x54 Mannlicher, which was famous for performance on heavy game all the way up to elephant! I loaded and shot some of these in my BSA Monarch with a standard 1-in-10 twist, they were very accurate and had amazing penetration. Good to hear the concept is back, Scandinavians have been using similar long slender bullets to take moose for decades.

The complaints about ballistics are bogus, you are not going to be taking heavy game with any small caliber rifle, including the .30-06, at 300 yards, and because of the high sectional density the B.C. Is better than the nose shape would suggest.

IMHO

Woodleigh heavy bullets

The OP's link is to a Double Tap Ammo semi-custom offering loaded with Woodleigh bullets. I've always been fascinated with heavier rather than lighter bullets. Woodleigh apparently caters to big game hunters who also like that concept. A lot of their bullets are round nose soft point or what they call "protected point" (see below).

Woodleigh (Australia) has some web pages about these:
http://www.woodleighbullets.com.au/products/protected-point
http://www.woodleighbullets.com.au/bullet-lists/traditional/264q-333q
http://www.woodleighbullets.com.au/info-a-reference/loading-tips#LOADS

Here's a summary of the heavy bullets Woodleigh offers for specific calibers/chamberings:
6.5 x 55mm Swedish.............. .264” 160gr PP SN #80A
260 Remington..................... (same as above)
270 Winchester................... .277” 180gr PP SN #73A
270 Winchester Short Magnum (same as above)
30/06................................ .308” 240gr PP SN #65G
303 British.......................... .312” 215gr RN SN #68
8 x 57IS............................. .323” 250gr RN SN #64D
8mm Remington Mag............. (same as above)
8 x 68S mm......................... (same as above)
338 Win Mag....................... .338” 300gr RN SN #58
(same as above)................. .338” 300gr FMJ #59
338/06 A Square................. .338” 300gr RN SN #58
(same as above)................. .338” 300gr FMJ #59
35 Whelan.......................... .358” 310gr RN SN #54
375 H&H............................ .375" 350gr RN SN #46B

The "RN" round nose soft point bullets look pretty standard. The "PP" Protected Point bullets may be unique and look like this:


Here's the OP's bullet, with Woodleigh comment about twist rate:

SAMPLE LOAD & BALLISTICS DATA:
270 Winchester
Woodleigh 270 Win .277” 180gr PP SN #73A

Powder Type.................. Powder Weight (grains)........ Velocity (fps)
ADI AR2213SC/H4831SC... 47 gr................................ 2360
................................... 50.5 gr............................. 2500

ADI AR2217/H1000.......... 50 gr................................ 2405
................................... 54 gr................................ 2540

Comments. This bullet just stabilises with a standard 10” twist. Some rifles shoot quite accurately with this bullet. Rifles with a barrel twist faster than 1 in 10” are fine.

Click to expand...

Woodleigh is making a 200 grain right now too, but you aren't going to be stable with a 1/10 twist.

A 115 gr and 200 gr .277

Woodleigh make nice bullets. Little pricey for what they are but in the larger offerings, probably worth it. 180 gr at 2500 fps. What's all the hullabaloo? It's a semi spitzer, doesn't seat much longer, or deeper, than a true 150gr spitzer, (unlike that 200 grainer!) and gives the shooter comparable performance to factory loaded 30-06 ammo in the same bullet weight. I'm not sure what it's intended for. It would do well for black bear at < 200 yds.

But it does sort of detract from the .270's strength by shedding velocity relatively quickly and altering it's famously flat trajectory accordingly. Solution in search of a problem?

68wj said:

Woodleigh is making a 200 grain right now too, but you aren't going to be stable with a 1/10 twist.

A 115 gr and 200 gr .277

Click to expand...

How long is that bullet? Like an actual measurement.

helotaxi said:

How long is that bullet? Like an actual measurement.

Click to expand...

Not my measurement, but 1.447". The other bullet pictured, I think a 115 SMK, is 0.960

68wj, what are those rounds? 6.8 Rem SPC?

That's a whopper of a bullet for any 270. What's it for, a 270 Wby with a slow burning fuse?

bobnob said:

68wj, what are those rounds? 6.8 Rem SPC?

That's a whopper of a bullet for any 270. What's it for, a 270 Wby with a slow burning fuse?

Click to expand...

Yes, 6.8 SPC. It is for subsonic use with 1/7 twist barrel.

Ok, so you have a 180gr .270 Win cartridge that costs almost 2x what a box of Federal Premium or Hornady 180gr (choose your bullet of preference) costs and that performs slightly poorer than the 30-06. You may be shocked, but I'm not terribly impressed.

Don't get me wrong, I like the .270 Win. Like the .308 Win, with 150 gr bullets, it's a very capable big game cartridge... but you loose a lot when you try stuffing too heavy of a bullet in there. If you want to push a 180gr pill fast, go for a 7mm or .30 cal magnum of some sort.

IMHO, those huge bullets are totally unnecessary unless it is for subsonic work as 88wj was explaining.
The "lethality" level of a bullet is not determined by its weight or caliber alone but rather by its terminal design and characteristics. Sectional density and solid bullet structures are preferred to go through heavy bone but most hunting bullets do just fine. Barnes, Nosler, Sierra and Hornady among others have great options for hard heavy animals.
A 150gr bullet is probably as far as one wants to go with the 270. It will take care of any species the North and South American continents.

68wj said:

Not my measurement, but 1.447". The other bullet pictured, I think a 115 SMK, is 0.960

Click to expand...

Based on that, assuming that you can get a paltry 2400fps out of it, it will be stable in a 1:10 barrel.

Now whether or not you need it is a totally different story. I would put it in the performance category with the 220gn .30-06, which no one seems to question the need for. So why 200gn in a .270...you have a .270 and want similar performance to a 220gn .30-06 without having to go out an buy a .30-06, maybe? Larger bears. Moose.

There are ton's of ways to kill a large animal and if it all came down to "need" we'd still be all shooting .45-70s and .30-30s. Don't need anything more than that to kill most anything.

I shoot the odd 160g Partition out of my 270. Its hard to imagine needing a lot more bullet than that.

The extra long and heavy ones are interesting though. If you were the one-gun man, you would have the scope to go from little 90g HPs, loaded hot for long range varmints and loaded light for close in pest control, right up through the 130-150 range for deer, goats and pigs, to these 200g whoppers for buffalo and whatever else.

Now if you could get all those to shoot to anything resembling a similar workable point of impact, you would really have something!

A buddy of mine back in the day loaded the .277 170 Grain Sierra Pro Hunter RN in his .270 Winchester for hogs. Several hogs shot in the 300 pound range, all were DRT and no bullets were recovered, pencil sized entrance, quarter sized exit. Textbook performance.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

A buddy of mine back in the day loaded the .277 170 Grain Sierra Pro Hunter RN in his .270 Winchester for hogs. Several hogs shot in the 300 pound range, all were DRT and no bullets were recovered, pencil sized entrance, quarter sized exit even when both shoulders were hit. Textbook performance.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr