Recently worked up a great load for my .270 using 90 grain Sierras hollow point out of my .270 win. The load produces great accuracy - sub inch at 100 yards.

Any thoughts on possible pelt damage with this load?

Any suggestions for a different bullet in this caliber?

I would suspect that you'll get a "hole" lot of damage to the pelt with that combo! I'm sure that is a lightly constructed bullet, but your quarry really isn't much resistance to a .270 so I would suspect it will penetrate completely. Understand that I've never used a .270 on coyotes so I'm only guessing at the expected outcome. I'll leave it to those that have actually done it.

Ryan...

I used the 90 gr Sierras in a .270 for a few years, to cull ferrel (wild) dogs in Pennsylvania. It would nearly cut a 25 pound dog in half!

CatShooter.

Ryan - It strikes me you are going in the wrong direction if you're trying to preserve pelts. All things being equal, the lighter and faster your bullets, the more explosive they are going to be. JMHO

I shot many pounds of Sierra 90gr hollowpoints from my olf .270 Winchester.

They are very thin-jacketed -- even at 350 yards where velocity had dropped off a lot, these bullets would do very messy things to groudhogs.

Humane kills, but not ideal if you want pelts. My rifle also liked the Hornady 130gr bullets. I would imagine those might still expand some on coyotes but damage the pelt less.

jpb

Sorry for the confussion, when I said dogs I ment Coyotes.

I always figured the less to stitch up the better. Sounds like a helluva load to me.

The guy who said bigger/slower does less damage is right of course, but I don't save pelts so I prefer the "humane kill" as it were. Bet one of those babies in a .270 WM would splatter.

In my experience with Sierras the damage will be ugly. I tried the light bullet thing in .280 for a couple of years and never did find one that would not make a mess at top velocities. Maybe load it down to 2500 fps or so and see what happens to pelts with hits. I finally went out and bought a .17 and quit worrying about it.

I think I might be close to 2500 fps right now � pretty short barrel. Taos did you ever try loading the light bullets at lower velocity? I�d rather note go down this road if someone else already has.

I'll check the load data when I get home tonight but I am using IMR 4350 at 50ish grains and Federal primers. From what I have seen with these light loads the primer makes a big difference. I tried several primers before I found one that produced consistent loads.

However, this rifle has never produced a 5 shot group bigger then 1 1/2 inches so it might be the rifle also.

Ryan,

I never did get around to that project. There should be some load data out there for that kind of thing. No idea where to tell you to look though. About the time I got frustrated with the holes in hides the bottom fell out on fur so I never gave it another thought. You might also try FMJ bullets at normal speeds.

Good luck.

Ryan, my Sierra manual lists 90 grain varmint bullets at velocities ranging from 3100 - 3500 fps with IMR 4350. They cite the use of a 26" barrel.

You're talking coyote shooting? My experience with light bullets from .270 class cartridges is that you're going to see a lot of pelt damage.

It's that varmint bullet thing: boom, zap, splat!

Have fun! Guy

My load data is similar. However, with IMR I have found my loads to chronograph 300-400 fps slower than the book at least with 140 and 150 grain bullets. Perhaps it is my manual. I havn�t chronographed these loads yet.

I don't have any experience with FMJ bullets. I am assuming they don't expand and just punch a hole straight through - correct?

My experience with the 90gr out of the 270 has been that those dang sierras make large exits, if they make it through. Just as a guess, 75% of the recovered bullets dissinigrated when colliding with a bone or something similar inside of yotes. I like the 130gr spitzers a little better for the same application.

So if I understand your experience correctly MNTNMAN when the 90 grains hit bone they generally would not exit. But when they did exit they really tore things up �correct? That is about what I would have expected. I was hoping they would expand quickly enough to NOT exit most of the time. Maybe I�ll try to shot a little forward. Went out this weekend for some field tests but couldn�t find any targets.

How where the 130's? I shoot 140's for deer/elk, maybe they won't have time to expand and will zip right through? Any comments?

Ryan - My experience with the 270 indicates you are about to blow up a lot of prairie dogs. The 270 is a good rifle for hunting them...but not to bring them home with nice smiley faces on the critters.

You can load the 270 DOWN to some pretty sorry performance and POSSIBLY not get much destruction. Or you could possibly try some of the high priced 270 bullets designed for large heavy game and hope the PD's don't give the bullet enough resistence to start much expansion.

The only way to have your cake and eat it too so to speak is going to be to shoot the dogs with FMJ's...and then lots of them may live long enough to get down their holes making recovery interesting.

If you want a perfect pelt, trap them. Otherwise just shoot them and enjoy. Unless someone can point you towards a bullet I haven't used.