New 27 Nosler Revives the .277
The prelude to the article will make Fox happy....he's not the only one who disses the .270
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Not long ago, the .270 Winchester reigned supreme. From the post–World War II era right up to the early 2000s, the .270 was a colossus among big-game hunting cartridges, a mighty twin of the immortal .30/06. During that time, if you could get ammunition-makers to open their books, you’d have seen that the .270 was one of the top three or five bestsellers in their lineups.
In 1970, Jack O’Connor, who was a major force behind the .270’s ascendance, said that by his estimation, more custom sporting rifles had been chambered in that cartridge than in any other in the postwar years. Not many cartridges can claim that kind of longevity and success. It was a hell of a run. Then 2007 happened.
The 6.5 Creedmoor had just been introduced and would soon become the dominant centerfire cartridge for a new generation of shooters and hunters. However, the 6.5 Creedmoor was only the most conspicuous piece in a series of trends that dethroned the .270. Like the submerged and unseen bulk of an iceberg, those other factors were what ripped the hull out of the status quo that had kept a handful of cartridges floating at the top of the sales charts year after year. Some cartridges, such as the .30/06 and .308, kept chugging along. Others, such as the .270, sank like jettisoned ballast.
Today, as a result, cartridges that don’t have a reputation for superior accuracy—backed up by success in competition—or that don’t fill a specific niche are having a rough go of it. As one of the great general-purpose big-game rounds of all time, but one with no competitive accolades, the .270 couldn’t keep up and has fallen on hard times.
Intro to the next great cartridge....the 27 Nosler:
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Nosler has just announced another addition to its family of eponymous cartridges, the 27 Nosler. Like the other long-action magnum cartridges in the lineup—the 26, 28, 30, and 33—the 27 derives from the .404 Jefferies case, though the preproduction ammo I’ve been shooting was formed by necking down 30 Nosler brass.
As would be expected, the 27 Nosler is a powerhouse. In my rifle, one of Nosler’s M48s with a 26-inch carbon-fiber barrel, the 150-grain AccuBond bullets registered an average muzzle velocity of 3129 fps. (Note: These were handloads, so the factory velocities might be different.) I set up the rifle so that it hit 1.5 inches high at 100 yards, giving the bullet a 240-yard zero. At 300 yards, the bullet has dropped less than 3.5 inches, and the holdovers at 350 and 400 yards amount to 7.5 and 13 inches, respectively. This kind of flat-shooting performance has made hunters swoon since the first ballistic tables tumbled off the Gutenberg press.
https://www.fieldandstream.com/story...vives-the-277/
