I am about to purchase another rifle and I am considering a 270 win or a 7mm-08 for shooting to 1000 yards, and slightly more? I am looking for a good long distance caliber that has recoil that is not significantly more than a 308 or 30-06. The reasoning is that if this is new to me, I will progress much more if I can shoot a lot. More powerful calibers, like a 300 win mag, are not conducive to shoot a lot. I do want more power than a 243, and I suppose that a 270 win or 7mm-08 calibers are reasonable solutions. Your thoughts?
merwin907
5 days ago
Oh lord why didn't I listen! Why did the Steiner have to be out of stock everywhere I looked! I ended up getting a 5-20x50mm Razor HD for $1899.99, what a great deal. Put in on my beautiful newly rebuilt savage 110. XLR chassis, MPA single piece rings, Atlas BT-35 bipod, a smoking hot 29 inch stainless heavy palma barrel, and a camo Cerakote on the whole thing. I get it all together and I am ready to shoot laser beams with this thing. Nope, POI shifts as much as 10 MOA JUST SITTING IN THE CASE. I cant get it zeroed, cant index a FS, cant do anything because of a $1900 POS. I saved my pennies for so long to have a rifle that would make heads turn. I was starting to really reach out there with the range- pushing 1200, 1300 yards and making first round hits- so I wanted to treat myself to something nice after practicing twice a week for almost two years straight. I had my eye on the Steiner T5XI, and they were on sale for like 1300 bucks, but everyone else and their sister saw it too and bought them up quick. I settled... I am sending the scope to vortex today, hopefully I will get one back that works. I was in denial- Couldn't believe the stories were true. I tried everything to correct the problem. Bedded the action into the chassis, unmounted and remounted the optic like ten times. messed with torque and turret caps. Its a crying shame that at 400 yards, I can't hit the target because the scope put my projectile three feet to the right. If they send me a new scope as some attempt to rectify the issue, I am going to the local fudd forums and I am going to sell it for $1500 brand new in the box, and I am going to put my SWFA back on until I can afford something from IOR. at least with SWFA I know damn well I will make a hit whether its rain or shine- I have three of them and they are all reliable. like, go-to-war level reliable. Its sad that a guy can start really feeling confident about LR, and then have a piece of equipment bring him down. I took this scope to my first competitive shoot ever in my life and I didn't hit a single target- put me in last place... I felt like a moron lugging this 28 pound beast of a rifle around like I was some kind of badass and then have my equipment fail on me- totally making me look like an idiot. further more, half of the guys out there had vortex scopes that somehow worked. makes me sick. I am glad you all are here to listen to my angst. sure, I could afford to be a little more humble about the whole thing- and I would be if this wasn't a $1900 mistake. Had Athlon been known to me before hand, I would have went with that.
Have you also considered the 6.5 Creedmoor? I would be very curious on Rex's thoughts on the 7mm -08.
6.5 and 7mm based catridges have really good aerodynamics per affordability of reloading components if you are reloading. I ended up going 260 Rem but 6.5 creedmore is very similar. I was going to go 7mm-08 but most non custom guns at the time had twist rates too slow to stabilize the higher b.c. Bullets. If you are target shooting any of the more popular 6.5s (260, creedmore, lapua) will get you out beyond 1000 yards...mine is a 20 in and stays supersonic to a little beyond 1300 at sea level on a moderately cool day. At 1000 it is still around 500 ft lbs...so if you need more 7mm-08 would be ok but you may want sub magnum 6.5 or 7mm (6.5-06 or 280 or just go 7mm mag)...270 has the off the self Ammo edge but really the others are probably better if you are reloading.
Forgot to mention, my normal 143 eldx round is around 0.45 per round reloaded...so the 260/6.5/7mm-08 are probably going to be best for shooting a lot of rounds...of course that all depends
A lot on what bullet you choose (like hornandy for cost per performance but things like Berger and alco are tempting to try)
Thank you for the good advice! At this point I am not ready to start reloading and I will be buying off the shelf. Of course all 6.5mm are not created equal: any experience with 6.5x55 Swede? I am not sure that it would stay supersonic at a sufficient distance?
No personal experience with 6.5x55 but from what I have seen it is a bit low on pressure and runs in the neighborhood of 150 fps slower than similar 6.5 rounds and a bit longer cartridge so choice of rifles can be harder. Not reloading would tend to push towards the 6.5 creedmore due to more loadings for it. I personally have had decent luck with hornandy match 260 but there are not many weights available. If you find good Match 6.5x55 Ammo it could probably make it around 1000 but at the time I looked there was not much available. Even if you don't reload I suggest saving your brass in case you decide to in the future as that is one of the more expensive components.
No question: over time ammo is the biggest expense! And the stock ammo is rarely as well suited to what we do. At this point I just do not have the appropriate space to reload.
I have a tikka in 6,5x55, and you can load it faster than you think. It likes medium to slow buring powder with 24 inch barrel or more. In my 24" i get 900m/s (2950fps) with norma mrp with the 139gr scenar. Important to not confuse the skan loads with the old swedish mauser load data. Even the skan loads is published way too slow. Get good results with speed and accuraccy with vv n160 and H4831 on 139-142gr bullets. The 260 can't keep up. ;) i shoot supersonic out to 1100-1200m (1200-1300yrd)
I like the 7mm-08 because the availability of .308 brass is popular almost everywhere and can be necked down if your in short supply. I've had a .243 Winchester for years and this was the same reason i went with the .260 Remington instead of 6.5 Creedmoor. Although i don't really need to move to 7mm-08 other than i want another rifle, this will be the reason i do end up getting it too. Can't go wrong with either though, especially if you want to buy factory ammo, .270 is very popular most places as well.