Any of the calibers you named are perfectly adequate for deer from the end of the muzzle to 400 yards. All of them will do the job and I doubt that any of the deer you hit would ever know the difference.

So, you are really getting into gun looney territory. You don't need a new rifle, but if you just have to get one, just pick a caliber and go with it. All of those are adequate.

If I could only have one of those mentioned, I would go with the 30-06. It shoots heavier bullets marginally better than the .270 and the 7mm-08. It has less recoil and muzzle blast with only slightly less performance than the .300 mag. It is cheaper to shoot than any of the others and you will can find 30-06 ammo in a grocery store.

This post was edited on 12/6/12 at 10:03 am

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Posted by bapple

Capital City

Member since Oct 2010

11910 posts

Posted on 12/6/12 at 10:11 am to Hawgon

.270 is simply the 30-06 parent case necked down to 6.8mm.

Both are great rounds and have great ammo selection. I tend to lean to the side of the 30-06 since it has such a wide range bullet weights it can shoot, from 55gr to 250gr. Granted, some of those will be much less accurate, it does give you some really good choices to choose from. I prefer to deer hunt with 165gr Swift Scirroco IIs (handload).

On the other hand, my dad has been slaying deer with his Winchester model 70 in .270 Winchester for years. He's on his second barrel for it because he's shot it so damn much. He likes the flatter trajectory but he said he would have no problem using the 30-06. The 270 was his first deer rifle so he has a soft spot for it.

So as far as it goes for me, 30-06 = 270. They're about on par with each other. I tend to prefer 30-06 but either will do.

I will mention this also - if you handload, there are an absolute insane number of .308" bullets out there to choose from. In that respect, 30-06 has a slight advantage.

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