270 Winchester in 2021

let's go kev yeah the girl covey you're not carrying much you're gonna drive i hope so [Music] we're getting there bud not ready to go yet we got a little more up more brush yeah come on you can help come on come on don't be such a wimp [Music] whoo man it is hot and dry we're having a drought so covey and my wife and i were out clearing brush and just in the chance that we might get a wildfire around here so we're clearing it out and i thought it got a little bit too hot for afternoon work i'd come in and do a video and one that i want to do is the 270 winchester even though i covered it a little bit last year in a video comparing it to the 6.5 trademark the problem with that one was a lot of people said you didn't talk enough about the history of the 270. you just talked about the 6.5 a little too much so let's give the 270 it's due in this video we're going to focus on our good old 270 winchester hey before we cover the 270 winchester i would like to say thanks to our patrons who help support the making of these videos you know we get a lot of questions here at ron spulmer outdoors and i try to answer all of them but sometimes they get a little overwhelming well patrons are always first in line so if you get a chance and can join us at patreon the address is right here we would sure appreciate it give me a call or write me and uh pick my brain shouldn't take very long now this is a cartridge that's spraying from the thirty odd six and i should have a 30 out of six on the table right here and as you can see they're just about the same except for of course the diameter of bullet that they're handling and winchester took the 30 odd six some people will say they took the 3003 which was the predecessor to the odd six but really the only difference is they just took 0.046 of an inch off the neck when they took the 303 down to 30 odd six and ever since i can remember we'll take 30 uh six cases and we'll neck them down to 270 and and we're shooting 270 so that little bit of neck difference really doesn't make much difference so whether they started with the 30 out of 6 or they started with the 3003 it ended up being the 270 which is 0.046 of an inch longer in the neck of the case than the 30 at six but their cartridge overall length is still at 3.340 standard stuff so they both fit in a standard length action and back in 1925 when the 270 came out it wasn't really taking the world by by storm it just the 30 odd 6 was real popular at the time and it wasn't a heck of a lot of difference and they didn't have a lot of scope center rifles back in the day to take real good advantage of the flatter trajectory and the longer reach of the 270. and it was touted as being suitable for 300 to maybe 500 yard shots and if you set it up with a good high bc bullet you can get your maximum point blank range on an 8 inch diameter target out to about 325 330 yards and that covers most hunting situations so after world war ii when uh rifle scopes really started to come into favor that's when the 270 took off and it was aided of course by the old famous jack o'connor i don't know if he thought it was all that great of a cartridge or he just thought that he was making a lot of hay by talking about it all the time it really doesn't matter because he took off and it took off and because of his writings in outdoor life he was like the premier outdoor writer of the day he really got that 270 popular and justifiably so because it has the ballistics to live up to its reputation so for years and years there were the old routine story in the magazines was how does the 270 stack up against the 30 odd six i mean people got sick of those comparisons but by having those frequent comparisons i think it educated shooters and hunters because the more you talk about this stuff and show facts and figures and numbers and ballistic charts the more we begin to appreciate what these cartridges and bullets are doing this isn't all just an educational program and i've got to admit that's what i'm doing now you know and i learn a lot when i research this stuff too so don't feel like you've you've known it all these years and you've heard it all before so have i but it seems like i need a refreshing course every once in a while so the 270 after 1950 was really popular until the seven rem mag came along and gave it a run for its money that became even more popular i think because it could throw heavier bullets now this 270 started off with 130 grain bullets and then they move it up to uh 150s and down to 100s and there's even a 90 grain hollow point from sierra i think still around um and there were a few 160 grain round nose bullets out there and i think even a few 170s but you're getting to the ragged edge of stability with those heavier bullets because they're longer the longer the bullet is the faster your twist rate has to be standard in the 270 winchester is one in 10 twist and the best you can do with a really sleek long ogive nose bullet in a boat tail is probably 150 grains you start going up any higher than that you might not maintain your stability and your accuracy so i ran some numbers with 150 grain just to see what the 270 is really capable of and i was pretty impressed you know i've seen this stuff before but never hurts to look again so let's do that what we're going to do is take the data from uh nosler latest hand loading manual i think it's number nine or ten at any rate they had a 150 grain accubond long range bullet in there which is a great maximum bc bullet at 150 grains and they were pushing it surprising to me 2 900 feet per second well they were using a 26 inch barrel but i went with their numbers anyway and it was really impressive what this thing is doing now to put it in perspective i want to compare it against that 6.5 creedmoor and same book same data source and that one they were pushing the 65 treadmill with 142 grain accubot long-range bullet to 2733 feet per second now a bunch of 6.5 lovers are going to howl at that and say ah you can push it a lot faster but i have pretty much always found that factory ammunition comes in pretty close to 2700 feet per second in that bullet weight and that's with your 22 to 24 inch barrel so yeah we're cheating a little bit by having a 26 inch barrel on that 270. so if you want to bump up that 6'5 a little bit obviously these numbers are not locked in stone because different rifles and different barrels will produce different velocities with different loads etc etc but this gives us a pretty good idea of what we're up against so if we zero both of these about three inches high at 100 yards that's gonna really reach out there for our maximum point blank range and that's when your bullet is going to drop four inches below your point of aim that's for an eight inch target so you can go four inches up drop four inches below well with a three inch sight in at 100 yards neither one of these gets over about three and a half inches high at any range so you're well within your eight inch target zone then when they drop four inches you're out of it so look at the 6'5 creedmoor at 300 yards it's dropping almost 4 inches that's about it 300 yards is your maximum point blank range but the 270 with 150 grain bullet it's not getting to 4 until almost 325 yards so you're picking up about 20 yards more reach on your maximum point blank range with the 270 and 150 grain bullet it's not a big difference guys but don't try telling me that the 6.5 craigmore is vastly superior to the old 270. i realize it's a short efficient little cartridge and you can put it in short action rifles and all the rest of it great reasons to get one and i have some six fives but i'm just advocating for that 270 because the old girl is just as hot as she ever was back in the 1930s in fact she's better because we've got better bullets i don't know if we've improved the powders all that much because when winchester first came out with that they were touting it as pushing 3150 feet per second with a 130 grain bullet and they were loading that thing pretty hot they have since backed it off a little bit so your most your factory loads you're probably going to hit 3000 maybe 3050 but i've seen some down around 29.50 hand loads you can get them up a little hotter if you like and you feel like your rifle can take it watch your pressure signs and all the rest of it but these are good average numbers so it's really impressive what the 270 does but the 6.5 creedmoor of course is famous for its reach it's that long range cartridge so let's go out there a little bit and see what happens let's go to 500 yards and let's look at the 6'5 first now that thing at 500 yards is dropping 37 just a little bit over 37 inches and the winchesters winchester's 270 30.8 so 31 you've got six inches less drop with the 270 winchester and i know that's going to surprise a lot of folks you know and the 150 is not exactly the flattest shooting bullet in that 270. so i am really impressed with how well that's handling it now they are going to say that that high bc bullet on that 6.5 krigmar is going to drift minimally in the wind and that's true but there's not that much difference there either at 500 yards wind deflection on the 270 winchester 14.5 inches in the 6'5 creedmoor is 14.8 that is a nod enough to even mention guys so they're hanging right in there out to 500 yards okay well six five guys don't necessarily think 500 yards is long range i do but let's just uh humor them and go out to 800. 132 we're making 133 inches of drop on the 270 and at 800 you're getting 151 and a half inches of drop out of the 6'5 so once again the 270 is shooting flatter now wind deflection we should start to see a little bit of advantage in that higher bc bullet by the way the bbc on this one it says 142 grain that's 625.625 and the 150 grain is 0.590 so you've got an advantage there at 800 yards deflection in the 6'5 is 41.5 inches and it's 40.7 give it 41. so we're looking at a half inch difference in wind deflection between these two that is pretty impressive to me so go on all the way out to a thousand yards if you want you've got 253 and a half inches of drop in the 270 285 and a half in the 6'5 once again that winchester is shooting flatter all the way the wind deflection now you've got 68 inches almost 69 inches so you've got an inch of deflection advantage in 65 cremor that 270 boys is is just not just hanging in there but that thing's smoking i mean this is as good around in 2021 as it ever was in 2025 or 1950 or 1980 it's just a great round now it's a standard length action it's a long action and some people just think that's horrible so if you do go with something else but if you've been ignoring the 270 all these years i think you might want to reconsider because it can still do the job now it's not of course limited to 150 grain bullet you can get 130s obviously but you can go all the way down to 110s 100s they do load factory loads with 100 grain bullets i think optimum in the 270 is probably your 140 to 145 grain sort of strikes a balance between the 130 and the 150 and you can use that for just about everything and that's another thing about that 270 it has been used for hunting just about everything and brown bears guys used them for polar bear back in the day they've taken them to africa and used them for just about everything but obviously they're a great deer bullet any of them and out in the west mule deer were kind of the critter for the 270. but great pronghorn round great for sheep obviously o'connor used them on sheep he used them on just about everything including a big brown bear so yeah you get the right bullet you put it in the right place the 270 is going to do the job now some people will say it is not an inherently accurate cartridge i beg to different to differ and the reason why is because the 270 has never been touted as a target round and then what does that mean that means no one's ever taken the time to build highly accurate target grade rifles for it nor do they build match great ammunition for it as they do for the 6'5 creedmoor or the 308 winchester those cartridges have the reputation for supreme accuracy because we cater to that accuracy we build the rifles and the ammunition to be accurate with a 270 it's like here's your hunting rifle if it shoots an inch and a half you're good to go well you can get a 270 to shoot sub moa i've had some that will do half inch groups you've got to build a rifle and the ammunition for accuracy you'll get it with your 270. so i'd like to put that one to bed whether or not you agree with me that's up to you but i just see no reason to think that 270 is not accurate now let's go to a lighter bullet just to show what this 270 can do for shooting flat and far so if you're looking for a good round for pronghorn long range flat trajectory or for let's say coyotes or even feral hogs way out in the field somewhere there's some great 100 grain bullets out there and 110 grain and 100 would really surprise you now once again we're using that incredible 26 inch barrel data off of that nozzle manual so this thing is going to be screaming 3500 feet per second 550 feet per second and that's with the 100 grain accubond bullet and the bc on that is i think three two three yeah three two three so it's not anywhere close to that 590 on the 150 but we can push it a lot faster and that makes a big difference and there's again a little bit more of this ballistic education to see just how far those lighter bullets will go before the the heavier ones take over and drop less is a long ways out there let's look for that right now let's see what happens at 800 yards on drop we are dropping 132 inches with that 150 grain load guess what that 100 grain load is at 800 yards it only drops 120 inches so there's a foot less drop with a lighter bullet and most of us are led to believe that those light bullets slow down so fast because they have lower bc not yet not at 800 yards now go out to 900 yards and geez it's still dropping five inches or six inches less um man you've got to get clear out to almost a thousand yards and there you've got a 10 inch advantage with the 150 grain bullet so not a lot of us are shooting things at a thousand yards guys so there's a lesson to be learned about shooting a light bullet really fast they can shoot flat so look down the chart there if it's in front of you you can see some numbers up there on the screen it's pretty impressive now when deflection is where you're going to get bit by those lighter bullets with lower ballistics coefficients they're just in the air longer and they blow a little more so at 500 yards you've got 22 and a half inches of deflection on that 100 grain bullet and only 14 and a half on the 150 higher ballistics coefficients that's the way it works go all the way out to a hundred or to a thousand yards almost double the wind deflection out of that hundred grain bullet that's the big difference and that's why the six five creedmoors and the six 65prcs and all these 6.5 that are shooting those incredibly high ballistics coefficient 0.264 inch diameter bullets are so popular they're put they're put into fast twist barrels that'll stabilize them and then you've got the advantage of not having to get your bullet blown all over by the wind and anyone who's shot long range soon figures out that drop is constant and you can compensate for it if you know the distance but the wind is is just too variable you just can't count on knowing what that wind velocity is going to be over the entire flight of that bullet so that's the one that's hard to beat and the high bc bullets do it but if you're not trying to reach 100 uh a thousand yards the 100 grain bullet's probably gonna work for your coyote hunting and like i said the feral hog stuff anything where you need to reach out really far and flat and extend that range in fact looking at extended range let's just look what the maximum ballistics range is on that one four inches doesn't happen until about 375 yards and it was what 325 yeah 325 on the 150 grain so you're getting about 50 yards more reach with your flattish trajectory on that 100 grain bullet something to consider in a 270 it's just versatility you've got your light varmint bullet your coyote bullets your lighter game bullets that can really shoot flat go to your heavier ones and buck the wind and reach out there and carry a lot of energy speaking of energy let's look at what that 150 does it is carrying over more than 1 500 foot pounds of energy clear out at a thousand yards the 6.5 creedmoor is just about the same a little bit less maybe 50 foot pounds less so once again the 270 is hanging right in there and i mean that oh wait a minute that was velocity i'm sorry guys we're looking at 800 foot pounds that sounds more reasonable at a thousand yards out of the 270 and only 700 out of that creedmoor so again it still wins but it's a lot less than 1500 that was the velocity but speaking of that velocity that's well above the speed of sound and it's that sound barrier range where you start to get erratic bullet performance you always for long range shooting try to stay above the speed of sound because there's that transonic range in which the bullet gets a little bit goofy so you're staying above that well past a thousand yards with that 270 150 grain bullet all in all once again we're just learning more and more about the old 270 performing like it's a new cartridge you know if i think they came out with that today and they they called it the 6.8 or something it'd probably be pretty popular although there are now of course a bunch of new 270s coming out that are going to beat the old guy but if you've got an old rifle already chambered for 270 don't think you have to go buy something new this guy can still do the job and then some so hang in there 270 lovers and more power to you if you're still working with the old gal i know i am and i probably always will uh let's hear it for the 270 winchester it was one heck of a cartridge and it's coming up on its 100th anniversary 1925 we're at 1921 four more years we're gonna have a big party hey i want to thank you for watching please subscribe to our channel and thanks again to all of our patreons members for supporting us we invite you to join patreon and become a supporting member of ron's bomber outdoors so we can continue to do what it is we do here thanks for watching hunt on us shoot straight [Music] you

Channel: Ron Spomer Outdoors

Views: 144,470

Rating: 4.9691849 out of 5

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: mqVAoHahjJU

Length: 21min 20sec (1280 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 02 2021