What's wrong with 270 WSM?

[The Guide]

Gun will likely be banned at some point soon in Canada

I hope that day never comes for your country.

Jay

 

[180ls1]

The 270 WSM suffers from meh. The 270 win is awesome and the WSM just doesn't add much. Oh it is a shorter case, well that is meh. The win has ammo everywhere so why bother just for a shorter bolt throw. Now the 6.8 Western, well that does bring something new. Heavier for caliber bullets. So the WSM suffers because the Win is just too good.

Great take.

I think the 6.5 PRC is the "modern .270" for those wanting a fantastic hunting round of that recoil class. No .277 will ever catch it in popularity now.

 

[Muskykris]

I hope that day never comes for your country.

Jay

It’s coming if the joke we have for a prime minister gets elected again. Currently can’t buy or sell handguns, banned most semis, likely gonna ban the rest of everything semi then move to the next target. Hopefully by the time I’d done hunting I can still do archery.

 

[35WhelenAI]

Any thoughts how that will affect the hunting industry in Canada?

 

[SwiftShot]

Great take.

I think the 6.5 PRC is the "modern .270" for those wanting a fantastic hunting round of that recoil class. No .277 will ever catch it in popularity now.

That is correct. Funny I dont have a 270 anymore but do have a 6.5 PRC.

 

[Lou270]

That is correct. Funny I dont have a 270 anymore but do have a 6.5 PRC.

I agree with this on 6.5 prc being modern 270 win but in the long run the 6.8x51/277 sig will vastly outclass the 6.5s in popularity. It will take some time like it did with the 223, 30-06 and 308 but any cartridge used as main battle rifle ends up top of heap

Lou

 

[35WhelenAI]

I agree with this on 6.5 prc being modern 270 win but in the long run the 6.8x51/277 sig will vastly outclass the 6.5s in popularity. It will take some time like it did with the 223, 30-06 and 308 but any cartridge used as main battle rifle ends up top of heap

Lou

The new Sig round is in a pressure class all its own. Question is are manufacturers going to put a rifle out there for the general hunter, who exists by the 10's of millions, running 80,000 PSI.

With that, those tens of millions of hunters are going to have to completely start from square one to use the round, and how many manufacturers are going to make ammo with that specific case design and running that much pressure?

With the 80k psi limit, it can never be a re- barrel of an existing action. I don't see the popularity in the long run at any point happening in this day and age moving forward.

It will outclass them with pressure, not that it's an inherently better cartridge. It isn't coming about the performance on level terms with the others, and that in and of itself is a barrier to entry because it will need factory loadings and factory rifle support to handle that pressure.

My $.02.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

The only thing holding back .277 is a lack of better bullets and rifles with appropriate twist rates. And really, what role does it do better than another bore diameter? Launch a 160-grain bullet a bit more efficiently than a .264 does? Everything comes down to balancing costs and benefits. Everything is a compromise.

I fall into the camp that each bore diameter has a bullet weight/length that is optimal for that diameter (yields the best mix of terminal performance and aerodynamics). And that if cartridge and firearm design started with the bullet (and defining what it needs to be able to achieve), then we would have a more logical progression and selection of bullets, cartridges, and rifles. A lot of cartridges are constrained by rifle design (and vice versa). The advantage the military has with the new 6.8 cartridge is that they can design the cartridge and weapons using it around the perceived need that the bullet must accomplish. They aren’t beholden to the legacy debt of needing to service 120-year old rifles and designs.

I haven’t always been in this camp, but I arrived there over the years. When I was 15, I had two rifles I used consistently. One, a .22 LR. Two, a .25-06. I used that .25-06 for everything a .22 could not handle. I killed more groundhogs with 70-grain .257 bullets than I can count. Burned a ton of powder. And I killed many, many deer with 117/120-grain bullets. Today, the throat on that rifle is shot out (it’s currently at Douglas getting a new 1:8 barrel). If I was starting over from scratch, I would have used a .224 for all those groundhogs. And used the .25-06 for deer (.224 is illegal for deer in Virginia). I don’t regret it, but I think the 70-grain .257 bullet is a bit of an abomination in a .25-06. It was stupid, but it worked.

Now that I am not a poor farm boy, I have a .22-250 for varmints, a .25-06 for shooting 120-grain bullets, a .270 for shooting 150-grain bullets, a .30-06 for shooting 180-grain bullets, and a 9.3 for shooting 285-grain bullets. I have the .22-250 because it was a beautiful rifle at a bargain price, but I should have bought a .223 (for a huge variety of reasons). As for the others, the .25-06, .270, and .30-06 really fill the same role. I could get by just fine with any one of them (or some similar chambering). It’s fun to have them, even if I know in my heart that a Tikka in the right chambering could do everything they do now, better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Lou270]

The new Sig round is in a pressure class all its own. Question is are manufacturers going to put a rifle out there for the general hunter, who exists by the 10's of millions, running 80,000 PSI.

With that, those tens of millions of hunters are going to have to completely start from square one to use the round, and how many manufacturers are going to make ammo with that specific case design and running that much pressure?

With the 80k psi limit, it can never be a re- barrel of an existing action. I don't see the popularity in the long run at any point happening in this day and age moving forward.

It will outclass them with pressure, not that it's an inherently better cartridge. It isn't coming about the performance on level terms with the others, and that in and of itself is a barrier to entry because it will need factory loadings and factory rifle support to handle that pressure.

My $.02.

At one point 65k was thought dangerous (100 years ago). The higher pressure case is first meaningful evolution in cartridge design in a century. The fact it is military means the manufacturing for volume will be there. There are 10s of millions of hunters but hundreds of millions of gun owners. Military rounds cross the border which is why rounds like 223/308 are massively popular. No way the civilian market will not take advantage. 10 years ago we would not have thought possible to buy off the shelf savage with off the shelf ammo and inexpensive rangefinder and be able to shoot steel at 1000 yards.

Lou

 

[The Guide]

At one point 65k was thought dangerous (100 years ago). The higher pressure case is first meaningful evolution in cartridge design in a century. The fact it is military means the manufacturing for volume will be there. There are 10s of millions of hunters but hundreds of millions of gun owners. Military rounds cross the border which is why rounds like 223/308 are massively popular. No way the civilian market will not take advantage. 10 years ago we would not have thought possible to buy off the shelf savage with off the shelf ammo and inexpensive rangefinder and be able to shoot steel at 1000 yards.

Lou

10 years ago I was building sub 900 dollar 1000 yard rifles from Ruger American Predator 6.5 Creedmoor rifles using Vortex Diamondback Tactical rifles and Hornady factory ammo. 10 years ago hitting steel at 1k became pretty easy. The 1k/under 1k challenge was fun.

Jay

 

[35WhelenAI]

Lou270, I am with you on the potential for the round to become popular. The point that isn't being acknowledged on your end is the 223/308 were designed at pressures modern (in the last 80-100 years) bolt action rifles, semi-auto's or pumps were already designed to handle.

The reality is (IMO) the cost of entry is going to be higher than the required number of hunters/shooters are going to remotely want to pay. It's going to die on the vine if it's not already stillborn, per se, in the civilian market except for an elite group of people willing to spend the money and put up with the compromises of ammo selection and who knows about reloading with the bi-metal case design.

There are and have been larger cased options that will push the same new bullets to the same speeds at pressures that hundreds of millions of firearms are already designed to handle.

The military option for ammunition may exist, but I bet a large coin that mainstream ammo manufacturers aren't going to touch it with a 10-ft pole.

 

[Lou270]

Lou270, I am with you on the potential for the round to become popular. The point that isn't being acknowledged on your end is the 223/308 were designed at pressures modern (in the last 80-100 years) bolt action rifles, semi-auto's or pumps were already designed to handle.

The reality is (IMO) the cost of entry is going to be higher than the required number of hunters/shooters are going to remotely want to pay. It's going to die on the vine if it's not already stillborn, per se, in the civilian market except for an elite group of people willing to spend the money and put up with the compromises of ammo selection and who knows about reloading with the bi-metal case design.

There are and have been larger cased options that will push the same new bullets to the same speeds at pressures that hundreds of millions of firearms are already designed to handle.

The military option for ammunition may exist, but I bet a large coin that mainstream ammo manufacturers aren't going to touch it with a 10-ft pole.

The ammo is going to be made by Winchester. Plants are getting built now. As far as will others pick it up who knows but if it is supported it is just a little more steel in a receiver or chamber. Sig already has spear and cross rifles out there for it. I suspect they will do other calibers as well

Lou