What is everyone's opinion on the .270 WSM? What are the positives and negatives? What are you comfortable hunting with that round and at what distance?
great round, incredible stopping power/distance/flat shooting way beyond any distance anyone should be shooting at game. idealy suited for out west but very expensive. recoil is about on par with a 30-06 but faster snappier. it's a fat short action round so you will lose 1 round capacity. I sold mine, there was nothing here in Fla the 7mm08 wouldn't do. if you want all that performance go for it but I doubt a regular 270 win won't work just as well here and save a lot of $
The WSM round are super rounds, but so were the .17 Rem, .222, .260, .280, .250 Rem and Savage, .300 Savage, and about thirty other calibers including the WSM calibers. They are all things of the past. Good luck finding ammo for less than $30 a box plus shipping! I wouldn't own a WSM caliber just because of that fact. The gun manufactures have consistently tried to make new calibers (and will continue) and only a few calibers have ever made it strong like the (.223, .7.62x39MM both military rounds) .243, .30-30, .270, (.308, .30-06 both military rounds), 7MM Mag and maybe .300 Win Mag. There are alot of other great rounds which are not as popular as the second list I mentioned but are still readily available, used and won't kill you when you buy ammo for them like the 7MM-08, .25-06, .35 Rem., .44 Mag, 7x57 (great round), not to mention the European calibers and about a half dozen others.
Point is, the difference in performance, (which probably is so minut) isn't worth the trade off of having a gun twenty years from now that you can't get ammo for, for less than $50 or more a box. I have a .375 Win Winchester 1894 lever action, XTR, nice one, which I got off Nacho a couple years back, but I have dies, plenty of brass, some bullets, and 10-12 boxes of 220 grain ammo loaded for it. Other wise I would have gotten rid of it since ammo is selling for $60 a box on-line and it's not a collectors gun unless it's 95% or NIB.
I'm not downing the WSM calibers, almost bought one myself in .300 WSM when they first came out and was steered away to a .308 Win, which I own two of now. Don't make a mistake that can cost you the money, grief and the aggravation of not being able to run into wal-mart or a gun shop and pick-up a box of ammo last minute when you remember you forget to pack it, half way on your way to GA or even hunting locally.
I use a Tikka T3 Lite in .270 WSM. It's accurate, and shoots well. But as was said above....expensive to shoot. I put an $80 Leapers scope on it a couple seasons ago and 4 or 5 boxes of rounds through it and the scope still holds zero.
Now, I only put a couple rounds through it before General Gun season to make sure it's still on. The only reason I have it is because someone traded me the rifle, a case, and 2 boxes of rounds for my XD9 subcompact. Otherwise I would have a Savage 30-06 that i was looking for.
