Happy New Year, everyone! Like no doubt many of you, 2024 was not the best year of my life and so far 2025 could look a bit more shiny, given my druthers, but it’s still early. As I was gnawing on a piece of homemade elk jerky this morning, it dawned on me: The .270 Winchester turns 100 this year!

The original 1925 .270 Winchester ballistics featured a .277-caliber, 130-grain Spitzer bullet traveling 3,160 feet per second at the muzzle. To hunters of the day, accustomed to the ballistics of the .30-30 Winchester, et al, the .270 was a revolutionary cartridge. If you could see it, you could shoot it. The cognoscenti bought or built rifles for this new cartridge. Some, however, remained (and remain) unimpressed.

Elmer Keith, a well-renowned hunter and gun writer, penned many a column denouncing the .270 as being little more than a practical coyote round. Of course, Elmer didn’t think much of elk hunting with any cartridge smaller than .33 caliber.

Jack O’Connor and Townsend Whelen both loved the .270 and constantly extolled its virtues of low recoil, excellent accuracy and flat trajectory. They, like my Grampa Keith MacArthur, had happily hunted many decades with a .270, taking game like mule deer, black bear and elk. O’Connor used a lot of different cartridges in his career but especially liked the .270 for deer and sheep. He even used his for Alaskan moose and grizzlies!

The truth is, bullets and powders are better today than ever before. If O’Connor and Whelen could kill everything in North America (and many other places, too) with the regular cup-and-core bullets of yore, then you and I certainly can with the myriad of good bullets we have to choose from today.

As those who own one know, the .270 is simply a darned good cartridge. I myself dote on the .30-06, but unlike many others that do, I realize what an excellent track record the .270 has and what a useful round it is. It’s OK to like more than one, especially when there are so many good ones out there to like.

There is no secret mojo in the .270’s success. Simply choose the correct kind of bullet for the big game you choose to pursue, find a load that shoots well, sight in and go hunting.

The more I use them, the more I’ve come to prefer the Nosler Accubond bullet as a general purpose, all-around choice. I think in a .270, the Accubond makes perfect sense. However, the only elk I have killed with a .270 was taken with a 130-grain Sierra Gameking.

Like the .30-30, .30-06 and a whole slew of other old-timers, the .270 is going to be with us until the end of time. One hundred years later it is still a Top 10 seller in rifles, ammunition and reloading components annually. Its mild recoil endears it to shooters of all ages, shapes and sizes. You can find rifles and ammo chambered for the .270 everywhere in the world where such is sold.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, especially with guns. If you have had a bad experience with one, you may choose to write it off. You may not like arguments or writing styles of those who love a cartridge that you despise.

Love it or hate it, the .270 is here to stay. It has survived 100 years of ridicule and is still going strong. If that isn’t proof enough, I suggest you personally give it an honest try. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Are you a .270 fan? Write to us at shootingthebreezebme@gmail.com today!