80-180gr .227 Bullets

[longshooter99]

Hi guys, last fall I finally got into reloading and started with the .270 Winchester. Thanks to help I got from some of you guys on here I took a really nice buck (5x4) during rifle this year. As of now, a Barnes 130gr TTSX on top of 56gr of IMR4831 is my go to deer load .

Now that I have a good deer load to fall back on, I'm thinking of playing around with the various bullet weights for the .270 before we get busy planting in the spring. By playing around I mean i'm looking at the extremely light and heavy for caliber bullets.

Originally, I was looking at Barnes 85gr MPG bullets. Now, I know these are the frangible type and will only be used for paper/varmints/coyote. After some more digging I found Hawk bullets. They list an 80 gr and 180 gr bullet for the .270. As I said, the light bullets are not intended for deer but the 180gr might make things interesting.

So, does anyone here have any experience with any of these three bullets? Good, bad, powder charges, who to call?I don't have anything ordered yet but when I do it'll probably be the lighter bullets for now.

Thanks

 

[gamestalker]

I've never gone heavy with the .270 win. but I have loaded a good deal of light varmint bullets.

I've been using a Sierra 90 gr. HP for about 3 decades for coyotes and such, IMR-4350, but there are other powders that do just fine.

The first yote I ever shot with those 3700 fps 90's blew the yote literally liquefied him. He was standing about 150 yds. up hill of me, about a 40 degree angle under a juniper. When I climbed the hill to see what it did to him, I and my nephew saw some blood, but couldn't find him at first. Then as we were looking, some blood dripped down from the tree on my nephew, he just said, uncle Mike, look, and pointed up, and when I looked up, the yote was literally smeared to the under side of the tree, it was absolutely awesome!! That was back in the early or mid 80's, I haven't changed my varmint load since.

GS

 

[rbernie]

I've tried some vintage Barnes 180gr .277 bullets in a couple of different rifles, many years back, and accuracy was never as good as most any 150gr load. It might have just been the bullets, but I always wondered if the industry standard 1:10" rifling twist just wasn't stabilizing them at the velocities that I could muster in the rifles. It was many years ago, but I don't recall seeing keyholing as much as I remember just getting horrible accuracy.

YMMV, but be prepared for the potential of bad accuracy when going super heavy for caliber.....

 

[gamestalker]

So true, not all .270's will like bullets heavier than 140, mine never shot them well. My most accurate big game hunting bullets have always been the 130's. But the little varmint bullets have all shot very accurately, even when driving them real hard with IMR-4350.

And I never was happy with the accuracy I got with solids either. I've tried developing an accurate load with Barnes multiple times, but they just haven't shot well through any rifle I've run them in.

GS

 

[longshooter99]

Thanks for the input guys. I've heard lots of good things about those 90 gr Sierra's for varmints and if you can push those to 3700 I wonder what 5-10 grains lighter will do.

And yeah I wondered how well those 180 gr bullets would stabilize. I'm tempted to order some for the heck of it but Hawk lists those as a "custom" order and requires you to but at least 4 boxes. They might be just the ticket if I ever build a custom 270 wildcat though, as I have yet to add a magnum to the collection.