Thread: shortest length for a 270

Originally Posted by Tussock

You have been fooled by the very loud bang and all the recoil. The 6.8mm .270 projectiles have a very poor BC generally. You need the 150g projectiles to get real performance out of them. What this means in terms of comparison between rounds if, while the .270 makes a huge fuss, that projectile has a parachute on the back of it. You wear all the impact and recoil, at 400m an animal is getting hit by a 130g projectile going quite slowly. Its an overbore round, so you need all that case to make use of all that powder. Also, as you are planning to use factory ammo and .270 is a very old load, the ammo has been loaded down a lot for the old guns. Its not as powerful as it once was.

An 08 case with a higher BC projectile, like .260 or 7-08 will have more down range killing power, for less recoil and less muzzle blast and it is not an overbore round, so it does not need all that barrel.

270 would always be a poor choice to shorten the barrel on, because its overbore already. It is already an inefficient round. Guys who don't own chronographs and ballistic calculators look at that great big 06 case and feel all that recoil and noise and think "wow, what a beast".

But because all those .270 pills were not made to fly, they slow down real quick. So what are you left with? Your left with the close range performance the other guns have, with mountains of recoil and muzzle blast, but you lose out on the down range performance that some of the much milder, more pleasant to shoot rounds like 6.5x55, 7-08 etc have.

Thats not counting wind either. Your average off the shelf .270 ammo with a normal 130g pill, will have the wind bucking ability of something akin to a .223Rem. If your Tahr hunting and its blowing its guts out, then it will suffer, where a decent hunting projectile in 6.5mm or 7mm will fly a lot straighter, and give you more chance of hitting your killing spot.

If you get a .270, chose one of the very few decent projectiles, and give it enough barrel to reach its potential, then its a beast.

But no one does that. All those people with .270 hunting rifles for "flat shooting" hard hitting guns are kidding themselves. Yeah, they do the job, but in reality not as well as a lot of other smaller, less dramatic rounds.

I'm glad you exist occasionally, it saves me typing things