The .270 Winchester is a rifle cartridge developed by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1923 and unveiled in 1925 as a chambering for their bolt-actionModel 54. The cartridge is a necked-down.30-03 Government, and is the same length as the.280 Remington, both of which are longer than the.30-06 Springfield. The.270,.280, and.30-06 were all derived from the.30-03 parent case. The.270 Winchester uses a.270 inch bore diameter and a.277 inch bullet diameter.
Description
The.270 Winchester became a very popular cartridge due to the widespread praises of gunwriters like Townsend Whelen and Jack O'Connor who used the cartridge for 40 years and touted its merits in the pages of Outdoor Life. It drives an bullet at approximately, later reduced to. The cartridge demonstrated high performance at the time of its introduction and was marketed as being suitable for big game shooting in the range, when that was considered long range hunting. With modern bullets and optics, it is easily a 1,000 yard cartridge. Two additional bullet weights were soon introduced: a hollow-point bullet for varmint shooting, and a bullet for deer, elk, and moose in big-game hunting. While not an immediate success, over the succeeding decades and especially in the post-World War II period, the.270 Winchester attained great popularity among gun owners, metallic silhouetteshooters and hunters, ranking it among the most popular and widely used cartridges worldwide. Internationally, firearms manufacturers now offer this chambering in all firearm varieties: bolt-actions, single-shots, lever-actions, pump-actions, autoloaders, and even a few double rifles.
Loads
Cartridges are commonly available from sizes with loads being by far the most popular. Handloaders have a larger range of options with the availability of bullets in a number of weights from. Common bullet weight recommendations for shooting different game are as follows:
bullets: deer, elk, moose, and some larger animals.
Recent introductions of low-drag bullets suited to the.270 Winchester such as the Nosler Accubond Long-Range, Hornady ELD-X and Matrix long range bullets are promoting renewed interest in the cartridge among long range hunters. While it is true that a.270 Winchester case can be formed from a.30-06 Springfield case, the case length of a.30-06 is while the case length of a.270 is, the same as a.30-03 Springfield. However, "The slight difference in length of reformed cases doesn't make any practical difference."
