270 Win. vs 6.8 Western & 6.5 PRC

good old 270 winchester it has been a workhorse in the game fields around the world for 95 years but now a couple of upstarts have come along to try to displace it the 6.5 prc and the 6.8 western can they do it well let's just find out on this episode of ron spomer outdoors [Music] winchester released the 6.8 western its newest cartridge now is this earth shaking is this the latest and greatest is this finally the salvation of the 270 caliber or is it just another whole home right in the middle of the pack cartridge that we really don't need so while i was researching the 6.8 versus the prc 6.5 i found that the good old 270 winchester might just hang in there so i looked up some ballistics on it and then i thought well wait a minute what about the wsm that 270 wsm after all is the parent cartridge of the 6.8 western and i think i've got one right here look at that looks fairly similar they just shortened the shoulder push it back a little bit and then they put it in fast twist barrels so you can stabilize bullets up to 175 grains so far and they may even come up with some longer ones so what exactly does that do to improve the performance we're going to look at those hard numbers here pretty quickly but one of the advantage advantages i think of the 6.8 western like the prc is that it's a short action and for some reason shooters these days especially young ones have this notion that a short action cartridge is so much better than a long and here's a long action cartridge right here in fact where's that 270 no i don't have any amount this is a 280 actually improved but that is the same length as a 30x6 that would be considered your long action or your standard length action and yeah you can get a lighter rifle with a little quicker bull throw on it so it cycles a bit faster but for hunting who cares but some people really don't on that short action and i think one of the things winchester was doing when they made the 6 8 was catering to that that's also why they called it the 6.8 instead of the 270 super short or something because young people these days are really into the millimeter designation for their cartridges so there it is it's a 6.8 which is really a 270. is it so much better than the old 270 winchester or the newer 270 wsm does it do things that those two do not this is where you might be surprised but you'd also be surprised at how close that 65 prc hangs in there but one thing you probably won't be surprised about is the good old 6.5 creedmoor has met its match and then some but you just look at it and you can tell it's not going to hang in there with these other guys it's a great little cartridge for mild recoil great gear cartridge and obviously long range shooting is its specialty but that's mostly because of his high dc bullets you can shoot those same bullets on this prc and it'll push them about 200 to 250 feet per second faster so you get a little more recoil out of it before hunting who cares and maybe even for target shooting who cares because you can use muzzle brakes and a heavy rifle and calm it right down but there is that concern about burning out barrels now a little aside about burning out barrels exactly what is it a lot of people imagine that those bullet dripping down the rifling are wearing it out it's not exactly what's happening barrels burn out from the flame when that cartridge ignites so the cartridge is sitting in the chamber and boom all of that powder turns to a gas at extremely high temperatures and that then heats up the metal right in front of it at the lead that slides up into the rifling and that hot hot area if you continue to shoot and keep it really hot will break down some of it's got to do with stretching you know you heat something and it expands and then it shrinks down when it cools and you do that again and again things are going to crack and then there's a little bit of chemical composition going on in there that changes things and interacts with the steel and the different metal energy that's in that steel so there is where it breaks down and it starts to look like a busted up old sidewalk some guys will say it's like alligator skin and you can see it when you look into the bore scope that's where your barrel starts to burn out the bulk of that barrel might be fine it's not like friction friction's wearing it out but if the bullet hits that rough area and gets ripped and torn a little bit or destabilized there goes your accuracy for hunting a burned-out barrel can probably still be suitable for hunting for maybe twice its life for target shooting so don't get too freaked out about barrel burnout and the other thing i always say about barrel burnout is barrels are like truck tires if you want to go fast you gotta get a good tire and when that tire wears out you buy some new ones and you can do that with your barrels on your rifles they're not cheap but 300 to 500 dollars is a lot cheaper than a whole new rifle and the target shooters even the 65 creedmoors they're they're switching out barrels sometimes as many as four a year so don't get too freaked out about barrel if you want a bullet for hunting that does what it's supposed to do you've got to pay the price and the price is not just the ammo and the rifle but sometimes it's a new barrel so do consider that when i'm looking at that prc and the 68 western looking really similar but there's a little more power capacity in this one is it going to burn your barrel out sooner well maybe not because the barrel's diameter is larger and if you've got a larger diameter bullet that balance between powder and bore size ameliorates the burnout so it's not just all powder it's got to do with the diameter of the bore as well i would imagine these two are probably equal on barrel burnout potential because that difference is right there so i don't have any hard numbers on that because obviously the 6a is just out and the prc isn't all that old either so who knows how long those barrels are going to last but they're definitely going to burn out sooner than the creedmoors um boy other than that i guess i could tell you about the water capacity and the volume in these powders what i did was i poured water into an empty case on each of these and the numbers i came up with with bringing the water right up to the top of the neck which isn't a real accurate way to determine how much power you're going to get in there obviously because the bullet fills that but i couldn't precisely tell where my water level was inside of that case so i just filled it to the top and the prc held 67 grains of water and the 6.8 western had 74.7 grains so there's quite a bit more there's about seven grains more capacity get rid of the neck and who knows what you've got left well then i decided to do it with powder and i put in a ball powder and it was us-869 a slow-burning ball powder and the prc held 72.8 grains and this 6.8 western believe it or not held 80.1 grains so again that's clear up to the top of the neck right up to the mouth of the cartridge so obviously we're looking at probably six seven seven and a half grains more powder potential inside of this 270 the 6.8 so that's going to give it a little bit boost and handle those heavier bullets which is a good thing because you can push up to 175 grain bullet in that 6.8 right now and who knows down the road they may come up with some slightly heavier and slightly longer ones so let's go to our famous tale of the tape now and just see how this 6.8 handles the ballistics compared to a lot of our other popular deer nail cartridges all right here we are with the tail of the tape i've decorated the tape a little bit with some of the cartridges we're going to be talking about but look at those numbers and tell me you're not surprised at how consistent they are this i think is what a lot of hunters don't realize we make such a fuss over this cartridge versus that and how much better one is than the other and when you look at the actual numbers they are really similar especially at yards look at the drops they're all going to be zero obviously because that's where we zeroed the rifle but when you get out to 500 yards you start to notice the difference and it's not much obviously that little creedmoor is going to be the weakest one it's going to drop the most but you once you get into the 270 winchester and on down the line look at how close those are obviously the wsm 270 pushing the same bullet as the regular 270 drops less six inches and less wind deflection because of the velocity increase and of course it has more energy once it gets there that's why they make magnums now the prc hangs right in there not as good as a wsm but it doesn't recoil as much as well so i don't think any elk is going to complain about getting hit by 16 22 foot pounds versus 1916 but if you do there's a good way to make a decision so how is that 6 8 western hanging in there look at the numbers it's got more energy than the prc but a little bit less than the wsm even though the wsm is shooting a lighter bullet so there's going to be a shocker for a lot of people i think now the 175 you would think would have more energy at 500 yards but look at that it does not the 270 wsm is actually putting out more energy at 500 yards so i opened it for some of us was for me go on down the line now i threw the 280 ai in because a lot of people asked me to they were pretty sharp and they figured you know that's not too far off from what that ai is doing 175 grain bullet in each of them this is a long skinny cartridge it's right here obviously this is the fat one from winchester the 6.8 so you're getting your powder two different ways but they're fairly similar look at the velocities 2 800 28 30 175 grain bullets look at the differences not a lot those two are just running neck and neck so for fun and games i threw a 300 win mag in because a lot of folks are gonna figure well that's a big 300 my gosh that's gonna wipe everybody else out and it's got a lot of powder in it and of course it pushes that big 180 grain bullet that fast what difference does it make well not a lot on the 250 yard but out here it actually drifts more than the 280 ai the 68 western it's it's got the worst deflection what's going on with that deflection problem with such a fast bullet right there ballistics coefficient is pretty weak the stodgy of bullets just can't resist the drag so they slow down more and that's why they drop and drift especially drift and they're going to lose some energy too but still there's a lot of energy to start with and it holds on to it pretty well now step up to a better more efficient bullet with that 597 bc 190 grain bullet you're gonna slow it down a little bit but the result is more energy downrange a lot less wind deflection a little bit less drop that's probably the load you would want to go to so study that chart and you will see that the six eight western while it's uh a nice way to enhance the 270s performance with heavier bullets it's not knocking it out of the park you could make a strong argument for the six five prc or the standard 270ws am and if you had a good old 270 winchester i really don't think you've got too much to complain about look at the differences you know the best one here 31 inches of drop and the old one only two inches difference at 500 yards if you're like most hunters you rarely shoot past 300 yards let alone five and as you can see with the 250 numbers it's not worth even bothering but if you don't own a rifle and you're looking for one i gotta say that these short action fat cartridges with the high twist rates and the heavy long bullets are the wave of the future and just because you buy this one right now that only has 165 grain bullets and up to 175 you can look for lighter bullets coming down the pipe in fact i heard winchester is already working on 160 grain and there's no reason why a hand loader couldn't put 150s in it or even 130s i'm pretty sure they would stabilize just fine in there so you've got a lot of options with that western that you don't get with the standard 270 and wsm just because of the twist rates but if you're kind of a custom builder or you've got a good gunsmith who can put a barrel on for you you could just get a barrel with faster twist rates and chamber for 270 or 270 wsm so look at the numbers and make up your own mind the important thing to notice of course is that there's not all that much difference between these they're really pretty similar and what our manufacturers are doing like so many people said and they complained about is that they're trying to get your business well of course they're trying to get your business that's why they're out there and i always tell people complain about that oh they're just trying to take your money well that's why they're in business is to stay in business i don't want our gun and ammo makers to go out of business they can't keep up with ammo demand the way it is so i sure as heck don't want them to go out of business because people are getting bored with the old cartridges and just using grandpa's rifle and not bothering to buy new stuff so it's like any other manufactured good you've got to stir the pot keep the excitement level up so that people keep buying trying new things and you know if you're an aficionado of shooting and ballistics and all the rest you want to try the new stuff and see if you can't just find the ultimate load for your style of hunting now before we sign off i gotta flip this page over because i've got something cool on the back side i'm gonna max out the six five and the six eight and we're gonna see just what they're capable of doing let me straighten this out and i'll get right back to you okay head to head the 6.5 prc on the left versus a 6.8 western on the right before we dive into the numbers look up here at the water capacity and the powder capacity i quoted those earlier there are the numbers for you to study now what i did was i picked the highest bc bullet i could find for each of these there may be some higher ones out there but this is the burger eol 156 grain bullet loading data is a little bit scarce on that right now but i extrapolated and came up with a probably a little good i don't know if i'm being generous or not but 28 50 feet per second with that bullet seems to me like it's pretty generous there are some people who are going to claim they can get another 100 feet per second out of it or maybe even 200 but there are always folks out there who are pushing the envelope and i'm not going to suggest that anybody do that and blow up their gun and their hand in the process so keeping it safe i think we could probably pick up that much muzzle velocity with the western and 170 grain we know what we can do there because i have shot some 170 grain bullets not the burger eol but a um a nozzle a ballistic tip and i got that velocity so we know we can do that so here are here look at those bc's just a tiny difference between the two a little more velocity here but look at how similar they are out to a thousand yards now this is where some long-range shooters might be interested the extreme range shooters are going to be saying well now wait a minute they're not so concerned about energy as they are getting there and if they can reduce the wind deflection it's to their benefit you're going to gain an inch here with the 6'8 western and a little less drop you know almost 10 11 inches they can compensate for drop with a good ballistics program and dialing their scopes they got a range finder they know exactly where they are so they don't worry too much about that so if you're thinking of entertaining some long-range shooting and you're looking for a little bit of an advantage i think you'll get it from that 6.8 western well there it is the the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth at least uh based on the calculator i used to figure out all these numbers but you know this is the way we need to look at our cartridges when we're deciding you know it doesn't matter what grandpa said or dad said or your best friend said about what a super cartridge he has it's basic physics you know it's just gun powder that turns into a gas and creates a pressure inside of a chamber and out the barrel goes the bullet and then at that point it's the weight of the bullet and the shape of the bullet it's ballistics coefficient and that's going to determine what happens downrange so it really pays to study ballistic tables and figure out exactly what your cartridges are doing for you then you can start thinking about barrel length that's required and the recoil you're going to suffer and the cost of the cartridge and the powder that you're burning and the availability of the bullets and all sorts of things that are secondary to figuring out the actual ballistics performance and once that's done and you determine the kind of hunting you do and where you do it you can make an informed decision about the perfect rifle for you and obviously if you're a serious target shooter you probably already know more about this than i do and you've got your your decisions pretty well in hand but if you're just getting into the game again study it you just need to know what is going on out there it's a combination of the cartridge the bullet the rifle and you and you put them all together in a perfect package and if you really are high on that cartridge again i've said it before and i will always say it the person who has faith and loves his cartridge and rifle is the person who's going to shoot the best that's going to be the ticket you've just got to have your your pet whether it's a 270 wsm or the 6.8 western or 6'5 prc or the good old 270 winchester it's not so much the cartridge itself it's the it's the whole package and the man or the woman behind the gun beware the woman with one rifle she probably knows how to use it so this is ron spoelmer once again thanking you for watching and inviting you to subscribe to our channel so we can continue to make gun and ammo and ballistics videos like this i would invite you to join our patreon community and support us there that really helps our patrons are doing just a wonderful job of supporting us we have some some interesting discussions and i answer their questions as well so you can get a little bit of advice there for what it's worth and you can always find us a little bit on instagram and facebook as well so thanks for tuning in ron spooner signing out as usual with honest and shoot straight [Music] you

Channel: Ron Spomer Outdoors

Views: 455,088

Keywords: outdoors, ron spomer outdoors, ron spomer, hunting, firearms, guns, shooting sports, rifles, big game hunting, hunting gear, hunting gear review, rifle review, gun review

Id: rCMrI_sHvz0

Length: 20min 3sec (1203 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 22 2021