How does the .270 caliber work on whitetails?

Originally Posted By: THORNTON86 on the 24HourCampfire

How does the .270 caliber work on whitetails? Know several people that use one but never owned one myself... all opinions welcome.... THANKS!!

You really do not have to give this a whole lot of thought from a purely technical side. Whitetail deer are surprisingly easy to kill. A 270 WIN will work just fine. You can kill a deer effectively with a wide range of sensible centerfire rifle cartridges. If you are attempting to shoot inside 100 yards, just about anything will do. Out beyond 100 yards, you are limited more by your abilities as a shooter than the cartridge. Also you have the variabilities of the rifle itself that will be a greater factor than the choice of chambering.

The amount of effort you want to put into your rifle is the biggest factor. A moderate and popular round like the 270 that you can feed with cheap Wally World ammo will get you farther than an exotic WSSSSSSSM that requires expensive ammo, and then turns around and batters your shoulder.

Premium ammo? I reload, so I have a greater choice. However, I can still remember a time when Core-Lokts were premium deer killers and the deer died just as well. I still hunt with Hornady Interlocks and Remmy Core-Lokts and Winnie PP's. My deer die quickly for the most part.

Before you plunk down money on your deer rifle, do a fearless moral inventory of your expectations as a deer hunter:

Are you a shooter that hunts or a hunter that shoots?
I'm the latter. I spend more time in the woods scouting than at the range practicing my shots. I take all my deer inside 100 yards. My rifle is the least of my worries. There are easily a hundred cartridges that could deer under the conditions I encounter.

What myths are you really trying to live?
We all have them. One guy wants to use the biggest gun. Another wants to take deer at the longest range. Another fellow bases his personal myth on headshots, another buys into the 1shot-1kill macho. Pick your rifle and your cartridge to live your myth, and be happy. Me? I'm a close-in and dirty boiler room guy. I love seeing what a 30-06 does on a buck inside 10 yards. I'm also a guy that only feels right shooting a rifle with a wood stock.

What sort of effort and money do you want to put out?
If you are a couple-of-boxes-a-year guy, the difference between a 270 WIN running on Walmart fodder and a 270 WSM firing top shelf Hornady Custom ammo is not going to be all that much. On the other hand, if you want to make that rifle a part of you, figure that the good rifle shooting lots of cheap ammo will make you a better shooter than a premium rifle shooting a few boxes of premium ammo. It is a fool's errand to buy the absolute best of the best and then just keep it in the closet, either because it is too expensive to shoot on a regular basis, or because its recoil is too great to make regular practice enjoyable.

In your case, the question I have is this: How will your choice mark you within your hunting group? Do you want to be the renegade in your bunch and pick something different than a 270? You and your buddies will gauge your performance based on that choice. A 270 Win rifle will mark you as buying into the mythos of the group. A 270 WSM would tell them you are taking their choice to a higher level. A 30-06 might tell them you're going your own way. I remember a few years ago that somebody talked about their whole camp shooting 44 Magnum rifles, and then one guy showed up with a 444 Marlin. It dramatically changed the camp's dynamics. This can be a serious consideration. You should have heard my peers' reactions when I started dabbling with 35 Whelen!