It started back in 1968 when Dad was planning to go on an out-of-state hunting trip with a few of his buddies. Pennsylvania may as well have been Tanzania to us as far as we knew. It was a long way from home. I do not remember how and when he got the rifle exactly, but I do recall seeing a Christmas photo of the .270 Win leaning up against the wall in close proximity to the Christmas tree. More than likely Dad purchased the rifle and told Mom it would be his present from her.  His rifle of choice was a Remington 760 Gamemaster pump action complete with Weaver tip off mounts and a Weaver 3×9 scope. It served him well, taking several deer neighboring states of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

By the time I was big enough to tote around a rifle, I chose that .270 Win. We became nearly inseparable in my teenage years and though I never shot a head of a big game, it was responsible for ridding enough groundhogs from local farmers’ fields to fill the bed of a pickup. Since that time, I’ve owned several .270 and I’ve owned more .270 than any other caliber. 

.270 Win History 

After 100 years, the .270 Win is still one of the most popular hunting cartridges for big game in the U.S., despite the barrage of newer, whiz banger cartridges.

The precursor of the .270 came into the world as the .27 Caliber as it was called, chambered in the Winchester Model 51 “Imperial”. Neither the .27 Caliber nor the Model 51 broke many sales records. When Winchester introduced the .270 Winchester (WCF) along with the Model 54 in 1925, the .270 began picking up traction. In 1936, with the introduction of the Model 70, the popularity of the .270 continued to climb and after WWII, it went into hyper drive. 

Jack O’Connor, the shooting editor of Outdoor Life for 31 years did more to boost the popularity of the .270 than any other writer. O’Connor relived his hunts with his beloved Bisen stocked Model 70 Featherweight chambered in .270 Win in every issue from Stone Sheep in British Columbia to Coues Deer in Sonoran and every place in between. Readers wanted results like O’Connor’s and sales of the .270 flourished.

.270 Win Guns

The .270 Win has been produced in every configuration of rifle imaginable. Not a bolt rifle has been made that wasn’t chambered in .270. The same can be said for nearly every rifle type, be it a single shot, pump action, semi auto like the  Browning BAR or Bear Creek Arsenal BG8 Huntmaster. Even rifles not associated with the .270 like the lever action Browning BLR or the double rifle like the Browning Continental has been chambered in .270.

Factory Ammo 

The .270 Win has a wide array of choices from the ultra-fast 100 grain Remington Core-Lokt which exits the barrel at 3,320 feet per second to the hard-hitting Double Tap which features the excellent 160 grain Nosler Partition which leaves the barrel at 2,850 fps and hits with 2,885-foot pounds of energy. But that’s not really where the .270 shines. The “magic bullet weight seem to be 130-140s. Even with today’s wide selection of bullets, the 130 grainers are still tough to beat for North American big game. In a bolt rifle I have started shooting Hornady’s Superformance loaded with 130s with a muzzle velocity of 3,200 fps. This load gives up little to the 7mm Rem Magnum with similar bullet weights. The .270 is easier on the shoulder in both shooting and carrying over the shoulder. A standard .270 is a lighter rifle than a 7mm Rem Mag and the 7mm produces more free recoil (felt recoil).

Handloads

For handloaders, in my eyes O’ Connor was never wrong. When I began reloading, I used his recipe of 130 grain spitzer loaded up to 3160 fps. I have shot boxes of the little green Sierra 130 grain GameKings. I’ve never found a cartridge that is easier to load than the .270. With recent advancements in .277 caliber cartridges like the 6.8 SPC and the 6.8 Western the hand loader can tailor his handloads to the rifle and the game which you are hunting, from 85 grains up to 175 grains.

The speed and performance of the .270 has kept it popular in hunters’ sights for 100 years and other than its big brother the .30-06, there are few challengers to dethrone it. Like a comfortable pair of jeans or well-worn hunting boots, a .270 is like an old friend ask anything of it and it’s willing to get the job done.