270 accuracy?

[Montana Pete]

For what it's worth, until a couple of years ago I did not have any heavy-barrel rifles.

I had six sporter weight rifles. Of these, my .270 was the most accurate, and I won two trophies with it in the local matches of a small rifle club in Lincoln, Nebraska.

One factor-- it was a very heavy sporter-- a Model 54 Winchester with a 24 in. barrel. With a big scope, I figure it probably weighed between 9.5 and 10 lb.

The rifle was a good one, and shot numerous groups under 1 inch at 100 yds with good handloads. Best it did was in the 5/8 inch range.

Of course, my Savage Varminter in 22-250 does a lot better, but it weighs about 12 lb. minus the scope.

We have to be realistic in what we are expecting from these rifles.

IMHO, I don't think the .270 is a wise choice for a custom, heavy barrel rifle. At the LEAST, you are going off in unexplored territory. If the rifle does not perform, who are you going to sell it to?

 

[mattri]

Thanks for the explainations and the links.

Montana Pete: You've kind of hit the nail on the head re unexplored territory, that's a part of the appeal.

I'm looking at this as a varmint/target rifle. Not as a hunting rifle, not as a benchrest gun dedicated to winning comps.

The .270 beats or is competitive with the 6mms re velocity and trajectory and bucks the wind as well or better than the smaller calibers.

Recoil isn't bad, and with a heavy gun with (possibly) a muzzlebreak would be a non-issue.

Bullet selection isn't as copious as the 6mm or .30s thats true.

A decent action, a trued 700 etc, a Shilen or simmilar barrel, a respectable scope and what are we looking like at 300 yards? 600?

Really appreciate the input, Matt.

 

[L.G]

Could you guys explain a little about competing with a factory Rig.A number to call or or even web site explaining rules.I just bought a new 30-06 to hunt with this year wanted something light and universal,anyway If I told you how small a group this thing shot at a 100 yards you would say this guys lying and I have not even bought dies for it yet.

 

[tobybradshaw]

There is no "factory class" at registered benchrest tournaments, but many local clubs shoot an informal factory class. Rules vary slightly by club, but generally disallow modifications other than bedding and trigger tuning. Sometimes there's a scope power limit, too.

Factory class is a great way to try your hand at benchrest and meet some other rifle cranks. Let us know where you live and maybe somebody can get you pointed in the right direction.

Toby Bradshaw
baywingdb@comcast.net

 

[ForneyRider]

130gr Nosler Ballistic Tips are pretty accurate for hunting.

Nosler Accubond has been very accurate, but def. not cheap.

I think Sierra makes a 135gr Match King. The 115gr Sierra gets associated with 6.8SPC.

R22 gets velocities up there with the factory Hornady "Light Magnum" cartridges.

 

[VarmintGuy]

Bill Wynne: My latest favorite 270 Winchester "Hunting Rifle" is a Remington 700 Sendero.
It shoots my handloaded "Hunting bullets" into rather consistent groups (5 shots at 100 yards) UNDER 3/4"!
In fact just the last 4 years of pre-Antelope and Deer season sight-in verifications the Rifle has produced groups (5 shots at 100 yards) measuring a pleasing .588", .611", .541" and .729" for each of those respective years - according to my Handloaders Logbook!
I have never fired my 270 Sendero at 600 yards but I have killed Antelope at 506 Leica lasered yards (one shot kill!) and Mule Deer at over 400 yards (dittoes).
This years dandy Buck Antelope fell to one shot at a "chipping wedge distance" of only 308 yards (again Leica lasered).
I use 130 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip bullets for my uses in my 270 Sendero, exclusively.
If the original poster wants a Hunting Rifle then I highly recommend the 270 Winchester caliber - they generally are accurate and have relatively mild and easy to deal with recoil.
I have owned two other Hunting Rifles in 270 Winchester in the past and they were factory Rifles as well but had lesser powered scopes on them than my current Sendero does. My Sendero is currently using a Leupold 30mm tube 6.5x20 variable scope.
Both of my other 270's shoot rather well also.
My good friend Louie has a Ruger 77 in caliber 270 Winchester and if his Nosler bullets are not grouping right at 1/2" he is not satisfied with HIS performance.
I tend to agree with the "gist" of your posting though, that most factory Rifles in 270 Winchester caliber need handloads, a GOOD scope and top quality bullets to better the 3/4" grouping threshold - but over the decades I have seen MANY factory 270 Winchester Rifles shoot groups under 3/4" groups (5 shots at 100 yards)!
Indeed back in the 1960's I got into a "shootin match" with my friend Dennis "Rusty" Watson from Renton, Washington - our "grudge match" was 5 shots at 200 yards.
My Ruger #1-B in caliber 6mm Remington (serial #1,300!) made a VERY respectable showing that day firing a 1.6" group there at 200 yards!
I was happy with that showing UNTIL young Mr. Watson took to the bags with his standard weight pre-64 Winchester Model 70 in 270 Winchester, firing the then newsih 90 grain Sierra bullets!
I will NEVER forget putting the rule to his five shot cluster that sunny calm day - his group measured just a couple hundredths over .500"!
And again that group was shot at 200 yards!
The 270 Winchester has been shooting up to the abilities of its owners for quite some time now IMHO!
Long live the 270 Winchester!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

 

[Bill Wynne]

The 270 Winchester has been shooting up to the abilities of its owners for quite some time now IMHO!
Long live the 270 Winchester!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Quite a mouth full there, VarmintGuy.

Time will pass and quite a few of today's cartridges will become obsolete and forgotten long before the 270 Winchester ammo is off the shelf. I put it right up there with other American things like cowboy boots and apple pie or for me, pecan pie. Even the name, .270 is not one of those fancy foreign metric names.

Concho Bill

 

[Clark]

I take 28 different center fire cartridge rifles to the range.

I build rifles all the time.
The only rifle I have used to kill the last 8 deer is a 270.
It can hit the lungs hard at 500 yards every time.

But if I were shooting for group size, the 223, 6mmBR, and 257Roberts AI would be better for me.

Here is a post from Toby Bradshaw 16 years ago that has withstood the test of time for me:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec....oup:rec.guns+author:bradshaw#b7facc7549be0ea5

 

[Montana Pete]

I have a fairly heavy 270 sporter -- an old Model 54 Winchester with a 24 in. barrel. It has a good Leopold scope mounted on it.

This is the only one of my half dozen sporter rifles that will frequently shoot 5 shot groups at 100 yds within a minute of angle. Best 5-shot group I can remember is 5/8 in. A few have gone 11/16 inch. Other groups were not quite this good, but still within one inch at 100. This shooting is with carefully prepared handloads.

I think the .270 cartridge has the potential for good long range shooting, but it may be a bit louder than necessary for varmints. Going to extremely loud rifles for varmints has some disadvantages -- like advertizing your presence a half mile away.

A .22-250 burns roughly half the powder of a .270, and while the 22-250 is loud, it is not nearly as loud as the 270.

 

[Stephen Perry]

All Ackley IMP Cartridges are Overbore

Hands down my Win Model 70 .270 is the most accurate factory cartridge I own. Actually the only gun I have that will match my .270 for 5 shot groups any distance is my Win Model 70 .338. But who wants to shoot either for most of the day group shooting. Both will shoot 5/8" 100 yd groups with Factory ammo.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR

 

[jackie schmidt]

A Little Confused

The 270 has been around since the 1930's. It is truly a uniquely American Animal. Even all the way to the parent case.

So here is a question. If a 270 Win is overbore, how about a 284 Win, 7mm Rem Mag, 25-06, 6mm rem, 6.5x55, 6.5 284, 300 Win Mag, etc.

Calling the 270 Win overbore in todays world of whiz bang Ultra Mags seems just a little odd.

Maybe Winchester should have waited untill the 7.62 Nato -308 came out and made a 270-308. Come to think of it, I have never seen one of those........jackie

 

[eddief]

My boy has a youth rem 700 in 270. After I pillar and glass bedded, trigger job and then spruced it up with cerakote on the metal and stock, it shoots honest 1/2" 3 shot groups @ 100yds with Hornady 130 SP handloads.

 

[jackie schmidt]

Eddie

Nice Rifle........jackie

 

[Louis Boyd]

If a 270 Win is overbore, how about a 284 Win, 7mm Rem Mag, 25-06, 6mm rem, 6.5x55, 6.5 284, 300 Win Mag, etc. Calling the 270 Win overbore in todays world of whiz bang Ultra Mags seems just a little odd.

Are any of above cartridges overbore? There's no "official" definition of overbore that I know of, but factory cartridges I consider "overbore" include:

223 WSSM 1070
240 Wby Mag 1083
257 Wby Mag 1272
264 Win Mag 1176
6.71 Blackbird 1507
7mm Rem Ultra 1388
7.21 Firebird 1500
300 Rem Ultra 1181
7.82 Warbird 1276
30-378 Wby 1402
338-378 Wby 1199
408 CheyTac 1015
50 BMG 1153

The number next to them is case capacity in grains H2O divided by bullet diameter squared. The cutoff is arbitray. The number doesn't take into account pressure, but they're all similar (55k to 65k psi) On that scale the 270 Win is only 837

And what's wrong with being overbore? Short barrel life and inefficiency is just the price paid for high velocity and muzzle energy in a given caliber.

 

[Bnhpr]

This may be a dumb question but if .30br and .308 are common rounds for target shooting how would a .270 be overbore? Also from a very unscientific search it seems that .270 bullets, especially the 150 grns have a higher bc than .243s.

mattri,

If your serious about a 270 long shooter. Build one and let us know.

Start with the bullet. I would get some 135 sierra matchkings. Brass..either neck down Lapua or use winchester etc. Have a reamer made by PTG or JGS for your bullet/brass setup you chose.

Get a heavy barrel, 10 twist? opinions? About #7 contour in a mcmillan HTG stock. get an action...custom, 700, etc.

fun project...

Ben

 

[mattri]

Thanks for the great replies. Bnhpr you hit the nail right on the head, a 700 action heavy barreled set-up was exactly what I had in mind. This is obviously a long term project, one that won't that get off the ground for a while. In the meantime getting the information together is very interesting, I think the the .270 has a lot of potential.

 

[Bnhpr]

Thanks for the great replies. Bnhpr you hit the nail right on the head, a 700 action heavy barreled set-up was exactly what I had in mind. This is obviously a long term project, one that won't that get off the ground for a while. In the meantime getting the information together is very interesting, I think the the .270 has a lot of potential.

There seems to be more match bullets available for the 270 then last time I looked. Berger has a 130,140 and 150 VLD

That's not a bad route, but make sure your reamer is throated so you can get them on the lands and still fit in the magazine if you build a repeater.

Ben

 

[vicvanb]

Some time ago I had a Remington 40XB single shot 22/250. It had the 27 1/4 inch barrel and the original heavy wood stock. I wanted a 270 for long range shooting so had the barrel re-bored and rechambered. It was done by a competent gunsmith who had re-bored many barrels. I specified a 10 inch twist with throating similar to that in Pre-64 Winchester M70s in 270.

It never shot well enough for my purposes but I'm not sure why. Perhaps re-boring that barrel created some issues with stresses in the barrel but I really don't know. I fooled with the bedding a lot with inconsistent results. I thought it had all the ingredients to shoot well--short single shot action, heavy stock, heavy barrel, good gunsmithing etc. Actually, I had a couple of Standard Pre-64 M70s in 270 that out-performed it.

 

[Roy Page]

Old Thread - Newbie built the rifle.

Thanks for the great replies. Bnhpr you hit the nail right on the head, a 700 action heavy barreled set-up was exactly what I had in mind. This is obviously a long term project, one that won't that get off the ground for a while. In the meantime getting the information together is very interesting, I think the the .270 has a lot of potential.

I am really new to bench rest shooting so kindly don't flame me or what I have just accomplished.
Have friends who shoot bench rest and decided to put a decent scope on my Grant Dick custom Mauser action 270 Win rifle to get some use out of it as I am really a shotgunner.

Set myself up with 270 Win hand loading equipment and started to try and get a good load for the Grant Dick rifle worked up.
Experimented with Berger 140gr VLD's and Sierra Matchking 135gr, both worked ok.
Made some progress, but decided, it was rather silly to ruin a really great custom rifle so decided to build my own rifle and naturally it had to be chambered for 270 Win..

Based the rifle on a Deviant Long 700 Action with a Pac-Nor 30" barrel with Palma Heavy contour.
Mated with a Jewel BR trigger and a H-S Precision stock.

I bought a Nikon Monarch 3 6-24x50 scope for the Grant Dick but quickly understood I needed something a bit better for the new rifle.
Decided on a NightForce 12-36x56 BR model which is mounted on NightForce rings.

Just one session at the range so far and still breaking the barrel in, but hoping it will work pretty well!

See Photos

Roy

 

[mattri]

Wow! Great set-up!

What loads/combos does it like? How does it shoot?