13 minute read
THINGS ARE ABOUT TO GET WESTERN
The hard-hitting and flat-shooting 6.8 Western has entered the chat when it comes to the future of big game cartridges.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY JASON BROOKS
Hunting out West is synonymous with Jack O’Conner and the .270 Winchester. Jack took many North American big game animals with this cartridge, and it is hard to dispute the reputation both have. But is there a better .270? As with any other cartridge, benchrest shooters and hunters alike are always looking to improve their ballistics, even with such tried-and-true rounds as the .270 Winchester. It did take a while for this cartridge to gain attention for improvements, with some thinking there is no way to improve it at all.
First developed in 1925, the .270 Winchester cruised along as a top big game round until 1957 when Remington tried to compete with it by making the .280 Remington. However, marketing campaigns failed even when Remington tried name changes like calling it the 7mm Express. e .270 Winchester was unfazed and continued to be carried by sheep and deer hunters often trying to replicate the hunts of O’Conner. Like cola and hamburger restaurant wars, the Winchester and Remington debate has been going on for a while. In 1962 Remington came out with the 7mm Rem. Mag., and Winchester countered the following year with the .300 Win. Mag. But the .270 Winchester was left alone as nobody tried to improve on the .277 bullet pusher. at is until Winchester decided to compete with itself,
Author Jason Brooks and his son Ryan with a whitetail taken in Idaho with a 170-grain Silvertip 6.8 Western.
The 6.8 Western is fairly new and uses long and heavy bullets loaded by several commercial ammunition companies.
and in 2002 it developed the .270 Winchester Short Magnum. e .270 WSM was one of a few rounds that Winchester decided to market as a “new” and fast shortaction magnum. Ballistically it was a bit faster, around 200 feet per second, but it used the same lightweight spitzer bullets as the .270 Winchester. e main benefit was it being chambered in a short action, and that meant a lighter rifle with a shorter throw of the bolt. Some hunters took to it, but most did not; it was not worth giving up their longeraction .270 Winchesters and having to find ammo for the new cartridge while only saving a few ounces of rifle weight. What Winchester did succeed in doing is creating a short-action, short-magnum craze. Rifle makers and load developers liked the idea Winchester produced, and Hornady took it to a new level by coming out with the 6.5 Creedmoor in 2007. Benchrest shooters and hunters raved over this round, but the 6.5mm – like the .270 Winchester, which shoots 6.8mm – uses small and light bullets. is is good for manageable recoil and fast speeds, but gravity-defying ballistics are more than light and fast.
From left to right, the .270 Winchester, 6.8 Western and 6.5 Creedmoor. The 6.8 Western fits well as a flat-shooting big game cartridge for the West.
WINCHESTER DECIDED TO revisit the
short-action magnum and the .277-caliber, or 6.8mm. is time they teamed up with Browning and began to develop a new cartridge. By shortening the .270 WSM case slightly, they were able to load longer and heavier bullets. A long and skinny bullet, combined with the new case
This Idaho whitetail was taken with a 329-yard cross-canyon shot using an Oregon Mountain Rifle Company Lonerock Ti chambered in 6.8 Western. design, made for a cartridge that could handle heavier bullets that hit hard and shoot flat and fast. Instead of trying to compete with the .270 Winchester and the .270 WSM, they came up with the name 6.8 Western. By using the metric bullet size as well as “Western,” which identified it as a cartridge for hunting big game out West, there is no confusion like Remington had in the .280 Remington and 7mm Express. After lessons learned both in marketing and in overall cartridge design, the 6.8 Western is quickly becoming one of the most popular new calibers.
Ballistic coefficient is how efficiently a bullet soars through the air (also known as “drag”); the higher the coefficient, the more effective it is in trajectory. To keep things simple, just know that speed with weight or “mass” along with an aerodynamic design makes for a flatter-shooting bullet at longer ranges. e mass of the bullet is relative to the gravity pull on that object. Newton’s laws of gravity explain this, but for our understanding, think of throwing a ping pong ball and a golf ball. e ping pong ball is light, but if you throw it as hard as you can, it will still fall quickly to the ground. e golf ball is about the same size as the ping pong ball, but if you throw it with the same amount of force, the golf ball goes a much greater distance even though it is heavier. So, if you think a light bullet going fast will fly flatter than a heavy bullet going the same speed, you might be wrong. is is a simple explanation, but it does give the shooter the idea on why a heavier bullet will “cut through the air” better than a light bullet if they start out at the same speed. e ballistic coefficient of a .277 bullet varies by weight and construction. Since the 6.8 Western is currently offered in only a handful of commercial rounds, one needs to look at the comparisons of similar bullets in related cartridges. Winchester loads all three cartridges – the .270 Winchester, the .270 WSM and the 6.8 Western – in the Silvertip line. e .270 Winchester is loaded with the 130-grain Silvertip, which
has a ballistic coefficient of 0.433 and leaves the barrel at 3,050 feet per second. With a 100-yard sight in, the bullet drops 10.8 inches at 300 yards with 1,684 foot-pounds of energy. e .270 WSM uses the same 130-grain Silvertip bullet and leaves the barrel at 3,275 feet per second and drops 8.9 inches at 300 yards with 1,963 footpounds of energy. e 6.8 Western utilizes a .277 Silvertip bullet, but due to the case and head space, it is loaded with a 170-grain bullet. is bullet has a ballistic coefficient of 0.563 and leaves the barrel at 2,920 feet per second. is commercial round is shooting slightly slower than the .270 Winchester’s light 130-grain bullet, but it hits with 2,243 foot-pounds of energy at 300 yards. It does drop a bit more, at 11.3 inches, but again, mass and speed are relative to each other. If the handloader can work up the 170-grain bullet to the same speeds as the 130-grain bullet fired from the .270 Winchester, it would only drop 10.1 inches at 300 yards, and the energy would be 2,466 foot-pounds – nearly 800 foot-pounds of energy more than the .270 Winchester and less drop.
Now, compare the 6.8 Western with the .270 WSM if you were to load it to the same velocity at 3,275 feet per second. e 6.8 Western would only drop 8.3 inches at 300 yards and retain 2,867 foot-pounds of energy compared to the .270 WSM with 8.9 inches of drop and 1,963 foot-pounds of energy. is means the 6.8 Western would shoot over a half-inch less drop and have an astonishing 904 foot-pounds energy more than the .270 WSM at 300 yards. All from a .277-inchdiameter bullet in a short-action rifle. Of course, the likelihood of matching speeds of a 130-grain bullet using a 170-grain bullet might not be realistic. e reality is that with bullets such as the 162-grain Copper Extreme or other all-copper bullets that tend to be longer than lead jacketed bullets, you can get velocities much closer to that of the other cartridges but with more energy and less drop. at’s the thing about handloading, you can experiment and work up the most accurate and hardest hitting, flatshooting round for your rifle.
“Lightweight rifles shooting a heavier and ballistically superior .277 bullet makes the hard-hitting, flatshooting 6.8 Western the ultimate Western big game cartridge,” argues Brooks.
CURRENTLY ONLY TWO ammunition
makers offer the 6.8 Western, which happen to be the two companies that worked together to develop the cartridge. Winchester offers it in four different bullets, the 162-grain Copper Extreme point, the 165-grain Nosler Accubond Long Range, the 170-grain Silvertip, and the 170-grain Match BTHP. Browning offers it in two bullet styles, the 170-grain Soft Tip and the 175-grain Sierra Tipped Game King, which is the heaviest commercial round offered in the 6.8 Western.
Because of this, ammunition can be hard to find, and unless you handload, you are stuck with these options – all of which are good, but handloaders can improve on the ballistics drastically within SAAMI ranges. Keep in mind you will need to use heavy and long .277-caliber bullets, which will likely become readily available as the cartridge continues to increase in popularity.
To accommodate the longer and heavier bullets, Winchester and Browning looked at one of the most crucial factors hunters often overlook, which is barrel twist rate. is is the measured rotation of the bullet in a certain length of the barrel.
A 1:10 twist rate is one rotation of the bullet in 10 inches of the barrel. is is a standard twist rate that was used for the .270 Winchester and the .270 WSM, since they use the same bullets. e short and light bullets did not need to spin fast to stabilize, and in fact, the spitzer bullets often used would tumble if they were spun too fast. e 6.8 Western uses a long bullet of the same .277-caliber, and by doing so, it needs a faster spin rate to stabilize it, or it would be prone to wobbling. ey produced a 1:8 twist rate, which is one bullet rotation every 8 inches of barrel length. is rate works well with the higher ballistic coefficient bullets and increases accuracy of the cartridge.
CUSTOM RIFLE MAKERS are taking to this cartridge as well. Oregon Mountain Rifle Company carries the caliber in all their rifles, including the Lonerock Ti series. Weighing in at 6.8 pounds – ironic, if you think about it being in the 6.8 Western – the Lonerock Ti sports a barrel wrapped in carbon fiber and tipped with a muzzle break. Like most custom rifle companies, you can choose which stock to put on the titanium short action and cut down the weight even more. e one I am shooting came with the Alpine Hunter stock, a fully adjustable trigger and a detached box magazine that holds three rounds. e rifle is also offered in both right- and left-handed versions, and for the left-handed shooter, it can be almost impossible to find a new caliber rifle. Since ammunition is limited, I was only able to obtain the 162-grain Copper Extreme and the 170-grain Silvertips. Both shot extremely well with ½-inch groups at 100 yards. For an Idaho whitetail deer hunt this past fall, I chose to use the 170-grain Silvertips due to the amount of energy it carried downrange. My son was able to harvest a deer at 329 yards, making the cross-canyon shot with ease, which dropped the deer where it stood.
Rifles in 6.8 Western can be hard to find, and most custom rifles cost more than those mass-produced in a factory. ere is another option if you already have a short-action rifle in another caliber, and that is to have it rebarreled with a 6.8 Western barrel. For reasons stated above, you can’t rechamber the .270 WSM or other 6.8 rifle barrel into a 6.8 Western because the twist rate is likely 1:10, and the Western needs the 1:8 twist rate. Oregon Mountain Rifle Company first started as a barrel company, and most of their custom work is still rebarreling shooters’ current rifles. ey make their own carbon fiber-wrapped barrels and can work with most commercial actions. is is a great way to get your hands on a 6.8 Western. e .270 Winchester is nearly a century old, and it is time that it got a facelift. For the same reasons why hunters are still crazy for short-action magnums like the .270 WSM or tackdriving Creedmoors, the 6.8 Western is here to stay. Lightweight rifles shooting a heavier and ballistically superior .277 bullet makes the hard-hitting, flat-shooting 6.8 Western the ultimate Western big game cartridge.
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