Hornady Superformance

[postoak]

Between that and Remington's Managed Recoil loads, the old calibers offer an unprecedented spread in performance levels, and lessen the need for multiple rifles in different calibers (if that's a good thing ;) ).

Looking at my favorite caliber, the .270 WCF, the Superformance rounds get 3200 fps with a 130 grain bullet. This is only 75 fps slower than the .270 WSM.

And even better, you get that 3200 fps at the same recoil level of the standard .270 round.

[southtexas]

True, but what you only have 2 choices (GMX and SST). If your particular rifle doesn't "like" these, you are SOL. And IMHO, the SST is too soft a bullet for those velocities, and the monometal GMX is not needed for deer.

[postoak]

Good points, but if you chose a load like that you might be doing it because you're somewhere you can take 300-400 shots, so the velocity would no longer be any higher than the regular .270 loads at 100 yards.

[southtexas]

Agreed, but you just never know. Three years ago I was on a mule deer hunt in the Big Bend country of Texas. As you know, you can see hundreds of miles out there, and shots can be long. I took my 264WM and was tempted to use 120gr Ballistic Tips, for just the reason you stated.

Was sitting under a bush, having lunch, enjoying a beautiful West Texas winter day and a sandwitch.

A 170 class buck, stepped up out of a draw less than 50 yards away, walking almost straight toward me. I was mighty happy I had stuck the 125gr Partitions up the pipe in stead of the BT's.

[postoak]

The more I think about it, the options are as follows:

1) Managed recoil for a child who needs to grow into the .270 (115 grain at 2950 fps)

2) Regular .270 loads for all the normal stuff

3) The superformance load with that solid bullet for elk

4) The superformance load with the softer bullet for super long range on regular deer/antelope size game.

Now if all of those could be actually *found*

[southtexas]

postoak: No question that the new variety of factory ammo have made cartridges much more versatile. IMO, the monometal bullets, in particular, have turned marginal deer cartridges into good deer cartridges and marginal elk cartridges into good elk cartridges.

[postoak]

One thing I want to re-emphasize is that these gains in velocity ARE NOT ACCOMPANIED BY INCREASES IN RECOIL due to what I'll call "smart powders".

So a .270 WCF Superformance load with almost the same ballistics as the .270 WM, will have significantly lower recoil. The question immediately arises "why not use the same powders in the .270 WM, to either lower recoil, or else increase velocity so that the gap between the 2 calibers is re-established?". I think the answer is that this will eventually happen. These new powders formulations will eventually be used in the magnum calibers, as well as the standard ones.

[Bushman]

Ever since Remington came out with that Power Level ammunition for their 7mm Ultra Mag and .300 Ultra Mag with three different power levels for each round and the Managed Recoil stuff for the smaller rounds, I figured something like this would be on the way. The shotgun guys have been doing it for years not only with dram equivalents, but with 2 3/4, 3 and 3 1/2 inch loads. As a gun guy, I don't know how I could live with myself if I only had to have one rifle or one shotgun. Actually I don't want more zip out of what I use now. If I wanted 7mm RM performance out of my 7mm-08, I wouldn't have built the 7mm-08 in the first place.

[rimrock]

Ive never had the least reason to change from use of the 150grain speer or hornady bullets pushed to 2870fps in my 270 win with a stiff load of H4831 and a 215 fed primer, my sons killed 2 elk and several mule deer with that load

[postoak]

This month's American Rifleman has a nice article on the Superformance ammunition.

(Also a nice, but too brief, one on the Winchester Model 70).

[southtexas]

Ive never had the least reason to change from use of the 150grain speer or hornady bullets pushed to 2870fps in my 270 win with a stiff load of H4831 and a 215 fed primer, my sons killed 2 elk and several mule deer with that load

rimrock: that's a pretty tough combination to beat (don't tell Herne I said that:)). All these new bullets are interesting, and fun to experiment with. But a good cup and core bullet with a good SC at about 2800 to 2900 does all I need done.