270 hornet

[Nobade]

I finally had enough of messing with my Sako hornet rifle and trying in vain to get it to shoot. I have a Shilen 270 barrel in the shop looking for a home, so yesterday I threaded the receiver of the Sako, and tomorrow I'll contour the barrel to fit the stock. I did some measuring and realized a 6.5mm necker would cut a chamber just perfect for this case (with a bushing on the pilot to make it fit the bore), then throat it with a regular 270 throater.  RCBS 270 Ren dies make forming the brass a snap. (It's the same as a Ren, just left full length for a little more powder capacity.) According to QuickLoad, ballistics should be similar to a 30 Carbine, so it should make a dandy 200 yard cast bullet cartridge,  and a good small game gun if it's downloaded a bit. A 5lb rifle with the scope included will be nice to carry all day.

Since almost everything I build for customers is a bigger badder Lautenboomer, it's nice to work with nice little mild mannered stuff once in a while. Plus I bet I'm the only one in town with one of these.

[wackmaster]

Ya all just bet you are the olny one around with a 27 hornet! After you run it through its passes let us know haw it shoots and the vol. you end up with.

[Nobade]

It Lives! I got the barrel profiled, threaded, chambered, and blued today. I ended up using a 19/64ths chucking reamer to make a chamber right at .297". The 6.5 necker is .300, I figured that would be kind of sloppy. Now I gotta load up some test ammo and try to get to the range next weekend and see what it'll do. Yay, a new toy!

[Nobade]

I got to take it to the range today! I was kind of pressed for time so didn't take the chronograph, so no velocity readings but the accuracy is definately there. I was shooting a NEI 100gr borerider bullet, first string was with H110 powder. 7.0gr. showed some vertical stringing and low velocity. 8.0gr. was considerably more powerful - 1 mil higher impact at 100yds, nice groups around 1 1/4 MOA. 9.0gr. started stringing horizontally - too much. Then I tried IMR4227, at 10.0gr. WOW! This works! Nice round group with 10 shots inside a 1 inch paster. Cool! This thing shoots! I'm going to try some Lil' Gun and some 2400 next time I go out, but it's gonna be hard to beat the 4227. Now we'll see how it works in the cast bullet silo match this Sunday.