I have owned and loaded for a lot of different rifle cartridges over 35 years of hunting and shooting. But I have never owned a 270 of any sort, so when I was offered a good deal on a left hand Tikka in 270 Win I grabbed it.

Once I get load tuning sorted, the 270 will be used for hunting some pigs, but mainly larger deer. I am going to try Woodleigh bullets to support the local offering and also Nosler Accubonds because I have found them to be excellent in other calibres. For powder I am going to use ADI powders (Hodgden in the USA) because pretty much nothing else is available over here. Probably H1000, H4831 and H4350 will be the go-to powders.

At this point, I am wondering if there is anything else I should be trying? Have I missed anything obvious to experienced 270 Win shooters/loaders?

I think you're off to a good start. Obviously your past experience is hard at work. I'm sorry to say that I found my sweet spot with components and loadings so quickly that I did little experimenting. 150gr NP; IMR4350; CCI LR primers, rem brass.

quote:

Originally posted by wasbeeman:
. . . I'm sorry to say that I found my sweet spot with components and loadings so quickly that I did little experimenting. . . .

Amen, bro. I feel your pain. I found the sweet spot in my .270, my .338 WinMag., a couple of .223s and a .243 way to soon. I had to try any number of loads with my .225 Win before I got "there" and it was great fun to "sorta get it" and try again.

Fortunately, I'm still looking to find "it" for several rifles!

I have found H4831 and the 270Win were like a match made in heaven. I shoot 140 grain bullets in mine. Primers in this cartridge make a big difference, as I found my load using CCI large rifle primers and made some ammo up using WLRP primers and I had serious over-pressure signs. I really like the 270Win about as much as Jack O'Connor did back in his day. BTW, on a lark I tried some H1000 in the 270 once and the load was heavily compressed but showed extreme accuracy when shot a couple days after loading them. Went on a whitetail hunt a couple months later and shot deer but had the feeling they weren't as accurate as when first loaded, so back to the bench with the left over ammo and they shot a pattern like a shotgun. I pulled some bullets and the powder was stuck together so hard I had to use a pick to get it out of the cases. You'll love the 270 if you got a good rifle.

I bought my first 270 at 57 years old because I found a pretty little Ruger No. 1 chambered in it.

Mine likes the lighter bullets and H4350

H4350 is a fictitious powder???

My 270's love H4831 and 130 grn Sierra Game Kings.

Mine shoots just about any 130 grain bullet most accurately with 49.5 grains of IMR 4320. I get 2900+ fps (22" barrel) and that's just fine for me.

140gr spbt H 4831 wlr primers. Win model 70.
great deer combo. bang flop dead.

150g Partitions (accubonds I'm sure would work just as well) Rem cases, Federal 215 (magnum) primers and as much H4831 as you feel comfortable with. I get 3030 fps and sub MOA accuracy out of mine.

H4831 has historically given the highest velocity and the least pressure, not to mention great accuracy but charges need to be weighed as going thu the powder measure its chop, crunch and borders on inaccuracy out of the powder measure, so weighing each charge is practiced, but you couldn't get enough H4831 in a .270 case to be dangerous but you can get enough of in a case to push bullets out overnight so they stick in the chamber. I still have some WW2 4831 that Jack O'Connor used in his .270 and it gets me a hundred or so FPS more at even less pressure than todays H4831..Great caliber the .270 Win.

RL-22 is my favorite "new" powder so to speak in that it so easy to toss accurate charges out of the powder measure, and its performance is close to H4831 at a little more pressure, but still a great powder in the .270..I use it more often than not for that reason alone. It tosses incredibly accurate thru a powder measure.

I've owned 3 Different 270's passed the first two on to my sons when they started hunting deer. I've used the same load in all three and had good results with accuracy, velocity and one shot kill dead animals.

130 grain Nosler Partition
54.0 grains H414 (flows like water through a measure)
Federal 210 Primer
Mixed Brass

In 25 years I've recovered one 270 Partition the rest went clear through.

Hope this helps.

H4381 is a perfect powder for the 270. Toss ~55g under a 130g bullet and you're good to go....

While I'm sure that other bullet weights also do fine, the 130 has always seemed to be the sweet spot for the .270. If you have a reasonably "fast" barrel you can push that bullet past 3100 fps, so something that holds together like the 130 grain Accubond is an excellent choice.

H4831 (or its ADI equivalent) is a great place to start. Depending on your rifle's bore/chamber combination it certainly IS possible to overload with 4831 (either surplus, which I've shot a barrel full of, or the current commercial version from ADI.) I wouldn't start with more than 58 grains and carefully watch for pressure signs like stiff bolt lift or shiny imprints on the case head as you work up.

My Sako .270 (24.4" barrel) will digest only 58.5 grains of surplus 4831 and delivers a 130 grain Nosler at an honest 3200 fps (chronographed checked with an Oehler several times through the years) with that load.

By the way, unlike the IMR version of 4831 and the short run of commercial H4831 made by ICI of Scotland, the current ADI 4831 is actually a bit slower than surplus 4831 in my experience, so your rifle might tolerate several grains more than my suggested starting point.

I have never been able to get more than 60 grs of todays H4831 in a .270 case and it pushed the bullets forward overnight, so my load is 58 grs...Witht he old surplus powder my load is Jack O'Connors 62 grs. for an additional 100 to 200 FPS (depending on barrel length. 100 FPS in my present mod. 70 Fwt..and with less pressure than the 58 gr. new powder..You must have a really tight bore or chamber to get pressure with H4831..max loads in some books show "less" than 50,000 PSI. and my home test backed that up.d

I would question that the new stuff is slower than the old surplus powders, based on my testing results and I think I was using the newer stuff, but I have no way of knowing..Would like to read up on it however, where did that information come from..I'll get a can of it if I can identify it and test it..Is the new stuff you refer to 4831 short core?

Over on the Long Range Hunting forum there are reports of very good performance with RL26 in the 270.
Regards, Keith

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
I have never been able to get more than 60 grs of todays H4831 in a .270 case and it pushed the bullets forward overnight, so my load is 58 grs...Witht he old surplus powder my load is Jack O'Connors 62 grs. for an additional 100 to 200 FPS (depending on barrel length. 100 FPS in my present mod. 70 Fwt..and with less pressure than the 58 gr. new powder..You must have a really tight bore or chamber to get pressure with H4831..max loads in some books show "less" than 50,000 PSI. and my home test backed that up.d

I would question that the new stuff is slower than the old surplus powders, based on my testing results and I think I was using the newer stuff, but I have no way of knowing..Would like to read up on it however, where did that information come from..I'll get a can of it if I can identify it and test it..Is the new stuff you refer to 4831 short core?

Hi Ray, I get a smidge more powder than that under my 150g Partitions with the newer H4831 SC, but it's a compressed load and I only neck size, so I'm using fire formed cases which are a tad larger.

any 130gr bullet will work, at pretty high vel, 150s at more moderate are more to my tastes -

a 150gr that groups well hit about like a 30-06 165 ... that isn't faint praise

quote:

Originally posted by chuck375:

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
I have never been able to get more than 60 grs of todays H4831 in a .270 case and it pushed the bullets forward overnight, so my load is 58 grs...Witht he old surplus powder my load is Jack O'Connors 62 grs. for an additional 100 to 200 FPS (depending on barrel length. 100 FPS in my present mod. 70 Fwt..and with less pressure than the 58 gr. new powder..You must have a really tight bore or chamber to get pressure with H4831..max loads in some books show "less" than 50,000 PSI. and my home test backed that up.d

I would question that the new stuff is slower than the old surplus powders, based on my testing results and I think I was using the newer stuff, but I have no way of knowing..Would like to read up on it however, where did that information come from..I'll get a can of it if I can identify it and test it..Is the new stuff you refer to 4831 short core?

Hi Ray, I get a smidge more powder than that under my 150g Partitions with the newer H4831 SC, but it's a compressed load and I only neck size, so I'm using fire formed cases which are a tad larger.

Hmmmmm . . . thanks for this. I hadn't considered that. I always neck size.

That may explain why I was able to get 62 gr of H4831 into my cases . . . once, for 5 rounds . . . back in the day when I wanted to load up to one of Jack O'Connor's loads. (I worked up in 0.5 grain increments, and I saw no signs of excessive pressure.)

I no longer go for 62. I'm perfectly happy with 59.5 if I'm going to use H4831 at all.

But I early-on found that 49.5 gr of IMR 4320 with most 130 grain bullets worked best for me wrt accuracy and velocity.

H4831SC and 130 NPT is about as go to as go to gets...

quote:

Originally posted by Harold R. Stephens:
H4350 is a fictitious powder???

My 270's love H4831 and 130 grn Sierra Game Kings.

This has been a great load for me also.

The 270 Winchester is an outstanding cartridge, I wish you lots of shooting pleasure with it.

I have so many of the old .277" Winchester 130 gr. silvertips stashed away that I hardly load anything else, but in all my years of 270 Winchester shooting the best all round kick-ass bullet for me has been the 150 gr. Nosler Partition with 58.0 grs. H-4831. That load seems to really get the job done.

Good shooting.

Thanks for all your comments guys. I was planning on going to pick up the rifle from my dealer today, and take it to the range tomorrow.

But unfortunately I bought a secondhand Kahles scope for it on an Aussie online trade site, but the seller waited days before reporting receipt of my funds, so the scope wont be arriving until next week some time. So instead I am going to focus on getting new scopes zeroed on two other rifles this weekend, then get the 270 sorted in a few weeks time. No fun having to wait though.

fwiw & imho,
I run RE-26, Norma Brass, and 150 grain Nosler Long Range Accubonds. The powder has become nearly impossible to find, however, if you can find it, it works really works well in this combination.

Regards, Matt.

Btw, thanks to John Barsness on the powder and bullet weight combination.

any 4350 powder,usually 54-55 grains and any good 130 bullet., WLR primer, rem. or win, brass