Press release . . .

Nosler has taken the venerable 270 rifle caliber to a new level with the introduction of the all-new, 27 Nosler. Conceived as a 21st century upgrade to existing 270 calibers, the 27 Nosler delivers previously unobtainable downrange ballistics by pairing the ultimate combination of case capacity with modern long-for-caliber bullets. The result is an offering from Nosler that redefines performance as radically now as the 270 Winchester did upon its introduction in 1925.

The 27 Nosler case has 42% more case capacity than the 270 Winchester, 25% more than the 270 WSM and 12.5% more than the 270 Weatherby. A faster-than-standard 1-8.5” twist barrel design allows the 27 Nosler to propel Nosler’s factory-loaded 150gr AccuBond® and 165gr AccuBond Long Range® bullets (new for 2020) at never-before-seen velocities and distances in 270 caliber.

Nosler’s complete line of M48 rifles will also be available chambered in 27 Nosler and for reloaders, fully prepped, Nosler premium cartridge brass in 27 Nosler will be available in 25ct boxes.

For more information on the 27 Nosler, please visit www.27Nosler.com

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

44 COMMENTS

    • What’s old is new again. Long before all this 6.5/6.8 craze came about, Britain created and was close to fielding the .280 British. But NATO standardization took precedent.

      • Renault, I remember reading something about that. I also believe John Garand designed his rifle around a .270 cartridge. I believe it held 10 rds. U.S. wanted 30-06 because of logistics. So 8 rds. Still a great rifle. I mean a real rifle. Deadly at both ends. Butt stroke a man with an M-4. See what happens. Could be wrong. All above is from memory.

    • Nope. It’ll soon be renamed the ‘6.8 Super Creedmoor’ and be fabled in story and song as the Greatest Thing Since Hot Buttered Toast for wounding game at extreme ranges.

      Then somebody will discover that some obscure English bespoke company duplicated it in 1906 or thereabouts, basing it upon a cartridge that the Germans created it by modifying a standard military cartridge of some sort, but unfortunately named it the ‘6.858 KinderSchuleBrechendGeschoss’ which just doesn’t roll off the tongue like ‘6.8mm Super Creedmoor.’

      Alas.

    • Pretty much.

      It looks like its a superior cartridge but with so many other more common cartridges, its hard to get that foot in the door. High ammo cost, that or investment in a reloading tools. Special order / hard to get parts for a rifle, that’s just not my style.

      I’m sure there is a niche use for it.

    • I had some calipers that would stick – drove me crazy. Finally bought a set from Starrett.

      (Just playin’, I’m not immune to typos either.)

  3. Any idea on barrel life? If 270 Winchester was bordering on over bore status, pushing more hot gas down the barrel is going to erode the chamber throat even quicker. My guess is a barrel life of 1500 rounds tops.

    • Will certainly be interesting to learn. Pushing a relatively long skinny 150 gr. to 3300 fps requires a pretty big boom.

      • Yup. I’d be surprised to see the barrel last more than a few thousand rounds.
        For the regular sportsman type person, that’s probably a lifetime.

        I’ll shoot that much in a year or two. Besides loving big bore rifles, I like barrel burners too.

        • Tom, Cooper said we already have all the calibers we need. The only need for new calibers is to sell new rifles. What we need is better bullet launchers. Haven’t seen many of those for years.

        • There was a guy at my club who loved barrel burning ridiculously fast wildcat calibers. He was a huge fan of the Savage action because when the barrel was shot out, he would remove it, cut a couple of inches or so off it, re-ream the chamber, rethread it and put it back on.

          This way he could get thousands of rounds out of his strange hotrod calibers.

          One was this insane .300 RUM necked down to 6.0 mm with MV in the 4000 fps range.

    • Depends on how you load it. You can get some benefit of the extra capacity without turning it in to a barrel burner. You don’t have to max it out.

    • The .270 Winchester, depending on what/how you loaded it, could be “bordering on overbore” or well into overbore status.

      This cartridge, loaded to potential, is well into overbore status, and I would expect barrel life to be less than 2000 rounds, maybe even less than 1500 if it is being shot repetitively (as in a match or practicing).

      • Dyseptic Gunsmith,

        This cartridge, loaded to potential, is well into overbore status …

        Which cartridge? The 95 year-old .270 Winchester cartridge? Or this new 27 Nosler cartridge?

        • The .27 Nosler.

          First, let’s understand that there’s no “objective” definition of “overbore.” It’s a relative issue used by gunsmiths when customers are asking “how long will my barrel last?”

          Generally speaking, the more powder volume you try to shove down a narrow bore, the “more overbore” your cartridge is. So when we look across the spectrum of cartridges, it isn’t just the diameter of the bullet (or bore) we’re talking about, it is also the amount of powder we’re trying to burn and then shove down the bore.

          So, let’s take a lesson from two cartridges of the same bore diameter. Let’s talk about the .223 Remington and the .22-250 Ackley Improved cartridge. They’re both the same diameter bore – they both want to shoot bullets of 0.224 diameter. In light varmint bullets, they’ll both be shooting the same weight of bullets (let’s say 40 to 52 grain pills) and with the same twist rifling (let’s say 1:12). The .22-250 AI is a notorious barrel burner – especially when the shooter gets into a situation where they’re banging away at prairie dogs or ground squirrels in a dense population, sending round after round downrange, to the point where the shooter would burn their hand quite nicely if they grabbed their rifle by the barrel. The .223 Remington, however, is such a modest amount of powder that it has a very good barrel life – even in an application like an AR-15, where someone might be sending hundreds of rounds downrange in an hour, hour after hour.

          Generally speaking, gunsmiths reckon that the .270 Winchester is just at the start of the overbore region – depending on the case, between 66 to 68 grains of powder capacity of water. Let’s use 68 to make the .270 look as hot as it could be. BTW, “water capacity” is found by filling up a cartridge case with water with a little bit of dish soap in it to get the water to not form a water-tension “dome” on top of the neck. With a little dish soap, we can get the water to form a flat surface across the neck opening.

          The bore area of a .270 (land-land diameter of about 0.277″) is 0.06026 in.^2. We’re going to drop the units of square inches in this computation.

          The case capacity of a .270 Winchester case (in grains of water) is about 68 grains. Dividing this by 0.06026 gives a bit more than 1128. Let’s call the start of the “overbore” region to be about 1100, just for the sake of discussion.

          I’m going to pull the case capacity for the .27 Nosler from the .26 Nosler and the .28 Nosler, which I’m seeing is about 94 grains. 94 / 0.06026 = 1560. OK, that seems like a pretty good percentage increase, but what else might be in that region?

          Let’s go back to the known barrel burners – .22-250 AI. Bore area is 0.03941 in^2. Case capacity is about 47 grains of water, more or less depending on case manufacture. 47 / 0.03941 = 1192+.

          One more datapoint for relative “feel” of “how much burn?” Let’s take one of the rifle cartridges I see come through the shop for re-barreling, the .243 Winchester. Lots of people think “My .308’s barrels last forever, the .243 should be good too….”

          Well, the .243 case capacity is 52 to 53 gains (water capacity). Area of the bore is 0.04676 in^2. So let’s divide 53 / 0.04676 = 1133+. The figure for the .308 is about 750 to 780, if memory serves. The .308 is fairly easy on barrels, like the .223 Remington.

          One more cartridge that has a rep as a barrel burner: the 6.5-284. I won’t go through all the math, I’ll just give the number I have in my notes: About 1208. Many F-class shooters tell me that with this cartridge, they can see their groups open up after about 1400 to 1600 rounds – and these shooters really know how to care for their barrels.

          With a case capacity/bore area over 1400, I think the Nosler custom magnum cartridges from .30 on down to .26 have the potential to burn up throats pretty quickly. Your mileage will vary, according to how you treat your bore, how hot you let the barrel get, how hot you load your ammo, etc, etc. I want to emphasize this last point – you can burn up any barrel if you mistreat it and get it very hot, or if you do something like clean it with a segmented cleaning rod, etc. This is not a stand-alone number that says “Your barrel will not last X rounds…” That’s not how this works. This idea is used for relative comparison only.

  4. Good for the industry to add new calibers. But I’ll keep my 7mm-08 for the family. Probably half the felt recoil for the same bullet weight.

  5. Another wonder cartridge in the 6.5 mm range.but it’s got more case volume and all that so I guess it’s the Best Cartridge Ever.
    But more guns are chambered in .270 both past and present so good luck unseating a round people are familiar with for almost 100 years.
    I had a .270 for years and liked it. Manageable recoil, flat shooting and enough umph to take deer easily. I only sold it because I wanted one caliber of rifle and settled on .308 for several guns.
    I’m not sure I’d switch from. 270 to a new bird like 27 nosler until several manufacturers supported it.

  6. So… overkill for most things you’d want to use a .270 for, and a bit small (in terms of projectile mass and diameter) for most things you’d want to use a big honkin’ magnum for. Pass.

      • Might work for that but, first, you have to see that antelope at 1200 yards. I know I can’t. Fortunately, my existing .270 works at ranges I can see. (Mmmm, speedgoat is tasty.)

        • MyName,

          Exactly!

          I see this 27 Nosler round being a boutique cartridge for long-range target shooting enthusiasts, and maybe (heavy emphasis on “maybe”) a long-range sniper cartridge for the U.S. military.

  8. “….Conceived as a 21st century upgrade to existing 270 calibers…”

    Shooting flatter and with more downrange energy that a 270 Weatherby is quite a deal. The Weatherby has held the longest point blank range record for a very long time. I’ve shot it for 25 years.

    • It is a pretty impressive feat to push 150 gr that fast in a slicker bullet profile than .30 cal. I’m a .270 Win believer and am duly impressed but, don’t know that I want to invest in a new caliber even if it is a bit of a laser beam. Not to mention the fact that, right now, only a $3k Nosler rifle can fire it.

      • That’s a pretty steep price for the gain. I’ll hang on to my Vanguard and keep on shooting. I load 140 gr Nosler BT’s and I can put the cross hair on anything out to 310 yards and hit within 2″. That’s with a 210 yard zero. Under a hundred yards gets a little high (right at 3″) but I can figure that out pretty quickly.

        I wonder what the recoil is like? I also shoot a 300 Weatherby (and a .257) and the 300 punishes the plate in my neck.

  9. I’m not sure I see the point here. OK, let’s say you really want to reach out that far with a 140 to 160 grain pill, and you want laser-flat trajectories.

    There’s already a cartridge that would do all this: the 7mm Dakota. Dakota Arms (of Sturgis, SD) makes custom rifles for hunters, has for decades, and they make their own line of cartridges to feed them. The 7mm Dakota is a beltless magnum (just as we see here), based on the .404 Jeffery cartridge, with an OAL of 3.330. For decades, the .270 bullet space has been underloved by premium bullet makers – most bullets for the .270 were hunting bullets, with a few varmint bullets for blowing up coyotes. There were almost no high-Bc bullets being made to maximize range in the .270 space.

    The 7mm bullet space, however, has benefited from huge interest by the precision long-range shooters in F-class, benchrest, etc. There are some absurdly slick 7mm bullets available now of very high quality. Were I looking to shoot game at 1000 yards (and I’m not), I would be looking at something in the 7mm/0.284″ space, not the .270/6.8 mm bullet space.

    But that’s just me. My idea of an African cartridge is a .404 Jeffery as well, so… I guess I’m just not that sold on all this new cartridge stuff. For you youngsters out there, the .404 Jeffery is over 100 years old, and was used to hunt everything in Africa, from lions to elephants. Likewise, I’m unimpressed with the new mid-30 caliber “elk rifle” offerings, when the 9.3×62 has been around for more than 110 years, and the .35 Whelen almost 100 years now.

    Oh, and the Dakota rifles are very nice rifles. They don’t try to look like tacti-cool products.

    • DG,
      I really respect your insight and the knowledge you bring to so many subjects here on TTAG. I would ask you one question about this though:

      Could you or Dakota Arms build me a 7mm Dakota for what I can get a Weatherby Vanguard II in 270 Weatherby that guarantees 1 MOA?

      Mine is an original Vanguard I and it hits where it’s pointing out to 350 yards. (see my post above).

      Truly do like your posts every time.

      • Probably not for what Weatherby charges. There would be some additional gunsmithing involved.

        First, the Weatherby Vanguard is a Howa 1500 barreled action in a Weatherby stock. The Weatherby accuracy guarantee is really Howa’s guarantee, and they’re assuming a 3-round group, which tells you that they’re going to choose a group out of several that will suffice. With only 3 rounds in a group, you’ll find probably one three round group out of a 20-round box of ammo that will do it.

        I’d have to look at some chamber prints to see if a 7mm Rem Mag chamber could be reamed out a tad for 7mm Dakota. I’m not sure the taper on the cartridge would allow this, but it might. As I say, I’ll have to sit down with the prints and look at them.

        Then the bolt face would have to opened up a tad. That wouldn’t be all that difficult.

        The biggest challenge would be making sure the pilot for the reamer is engaged in the bore before it starts cutting the read end of the chamber. It might take a custom-made reamer with a long pilot. That could be a rather expensive tool, as it would be custom tooling from one of the reamer makers.

        So that’s a long way of saying “probably not,” but it might be possible that it would not cost as much as a Dakota-made or full-custom rifle. A big chunk of what you’re buying in Dakota’s classic rifles is a really nice stick of walnut. They have quite the stock of seasoned walnut gunstock blanks there are Dakota – you can even choose what you want if you wish, last time I was over there. That costs money, and that’s part of why Dakota’s price is up there.

        The Howa 1500 is a nice action, and their product’s quality is more than I would expect for the price point. You can see these barreled actions for sale at Brownells. I have one, and I’m quite impressed with what I got for the money. I figure I’ll shoot the barrel out of it, and then put on a high-end target barrel to replace it. I like the trigger and the action on the Howa.

  10. I would hold my breath on the Nosler, for now anyway.
    The soon the be released 277 SIG Fury Hybrid Ammunition is derived from the military Enhanced Rifle Cartridge Program. The 6.8 SPC is rated to handle 80,000 psi of chamber pressure and will drive a 135-grain bullet from SIG’s Hybrid Match cartridge, with a .488 G1 BC, 3,000 fps from a 16-inch barrel, and produce 2,694 ft.-lbs of energy and SIG’s 277 Fury Hybrid Hunting load features a 140-grain bullet with a .508 G1 BC, launching from a 16-inch barrel at 2,950 fps. (https://www.tactical-life.com/gear/ammo/277-sig-fury-hybrid-case-design/).
    SIG is fairly confident in getting military contract(s). If they do, this cartridge will drop steeply in price and would become widely available (once military obligations are met).

  11. I don’t think I will ever buy another proprietary cartridge again. It winds up being a handload or pay way to much per shootzen gunm. Maybe this one will take off, I hope so because it does have s lot going for it. .270 weatherby is pretty wicked if this one beats it and we had another Jack O’Connor ummm yeah maybe,.

  12. Another yawn fest from Nosler. They will overhype and overprice this just like their others. Other rifle makers will take years to jump on board.
    This doesnt do anything a dozen other chamberings cant do.

  13. I will never understand the obsession with .277 bores.

    6.5/.264 has better BC and SD for same weight, 7mm/.284 has significantly higher weight available for similar BC.

    If you study ballistic form factor at all, the .277 is lagging behind both the 7mm and 6.5mm as far as efficiency for a given projectile weight. Most factory rifles dont have a fast enough twist rate to stabilize the limited selection of high BC .277 bullets out there, so you arent getting full performance unless you go with a custom… which then the question is, why? There are hundreds of options for high BC bullets in multiple weights for the 6.5 and 7mm class of projectiles, you gain nothing by sticking with a .277 caliber.

    If all you want to do is shoot partitions… then go right ahead and knock yourself out honey, but there are better tools available now for anything else.

    Fun fact for all the “bUt jACk OcONnor!!!” fanboys who will jump on this, legend has it that when the man died he had sold nearly all of his 270s and had been working extensively with the 280 Remington in his final years… so there

  14. Could this be related to the military push for a high power 6.8 cartridge to penetrate Russian body armor?

  15. To prevent a dangerous situation by accidentally chambering a 28 Nosler cartridge into a 27 Nosler chamber, why wasn’t the shoulder of the 28 Nosler moved forward like the 280 Remington and the 7mm WSM?

  16. I don’t have much interest in these necked-down super magnum rifles. They’re cool on paper but I don’t know what I’d do with them. Now, take that big fat case and neck it UP to make a .458 Nosler, and I’m in.

  17. I love my old 270 Weatherby and pre-64 264 Win Mag, both 26″… almost too old to hunt alone but would like another flat shooting magnum….hoping to get AZ bull elk tag before I die….27 Nosler, 26 nosler, 28 Nosler?

    Wish I were younger…27 Nosler with 180 grain Woodleigh weldcore…that would be my elk load.

  19. I am just glad they are making the 165 grain long distance projectiles to be used in my 270. If I was going to get into long distance shooting and had the money I would look long and hard at this cartridge in a Nosler mountain rifle.

  20. 27 Nosler Ah why not? Anyone who doesn’t like the .277 bore can shoot what you want. Those who generally knock the 270 Winchester haven’t shot diddle with it. I’ve shot antelope to elk with it and 300+ lb. hogs and it kills just as fast and clean as my 7mm Rem Mag. Those who think Jack O’ Conner gave up on the 270 as a cartridge, have a short in their synapses.

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