Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST – Great Deer Load

Description

The 270 Winchester with a 130 grain bullet is the most written about deer combination in American hunting, and the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST is the affordable modern version of it. A polymer tipped SST at 3050 feet per second, priced so you can sight in properly and still fill your tag.

• The classic pairing, updated
• Full specifications
• Open country and long walks
• Honest notes before you buy
• Elk, and where to draw the line
• The bottom line

The classic pairing, updated

Jack O’Connor spent a career arguing for the 270 and a 130 grain bullet, and the arithmetic still holds. At 3050 feet per second the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST shoots flat enough that holdover barely matters inside 300 yards, and 2682 foot pounds at the muzzle is real authority on anything deer sized.

What has changed is the bullet. The old 130 grain cup and core soft point was a fine deer load and an inconsistent one on anything bigger. The SST in the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST uses a polymer tip to start expansion reliably and an InterLock ring inside the jacket to hold the core in place while it happens.

Full specifications

• Caliber: 270 Winchester
• Bullet weight: 130 grain
• Bullet: SST polymer tipped with InterLock ring
• Muzzle velocity: 3050 fps
• Muzzle energy: 2682 ft-lbs
• Case: reloadable boxer primed brass
• Quantity: 20 rounds per box
• Line: Hornady American Whitetail Tipped
• Hornady item 80542

The polymer tip does two jobs, and people usually only credit it with one. It improves the ballistic coefficient by giving the nose a sharper profile, which is the obvious part. It also acts as a wedge on impact, driving back into the cavity and forcing expansion open from the inside, so the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST opens reliably even at lower impact velocities way out there.

Open country and long walks

Mule deer across sage, pronghorn on the flats, whitetails at the far edge of a field. This is where the 270 has always belonged and where the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST does its best work. Zero three inches high at 100 yards and you can hold on hair to roughly 300 without touching a turret or doing arithmetic.

Recoil sits between a 243 and a 30-06, which most shooters handle comfortably from field positions. That matters because a rifle you can shoot well is worth more than a rifle that hits harder, and the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST is cheap enough that you can actually practise with it.

Honest notes before you buy

Every factory 270 barrel uses a 1 in 10 inch twist, so a 130 grain bullet stabilizes without question and there is nothing to check before ordering. Barrel life is good, better than the fast 6mm cartridges, and a hunting rifle fed the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST will outlast its owner.

One honest note on the line. American Whitetail is Hornady’s value hunting ammunition, not their premium line, and the price reflects that. It is not match ammunition and a picky rifle may prefer something else. But most rifles shoot the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST into an inch and a half or better, which is more precision than any deer shot requires.

Elk, and where to draw the line

People shoot elk with the 270 every year and plenty of them work out fine. But the SST is a fast expanding bullet by design, and on a six hundred pound animal with a bad angle it can open too quickly and stop short. If elk are the plan, a bonded or partitioned 150 grain bullet is the honest answer rather than the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST.

On deer and pronghorn none of that applies. Fast expansion is exactly what you want on a thin skinned animal, and the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST produces the quick, decisive kills the SST is known for. Match the bullet to the animal and it does not disappoint.

The bottom line

For a 270 Winchester hunter who wants the classic load with a modern bullet and no premium price, the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST is very hard to argue with. You can read more about the bullet design at swiftbullets.com, or browse the rest of our stock on the MAG5 Firearms ammunition page.

MAG5 Firearms keeps the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST in stock and moving, and we are glad to talk through bullet choice before you order. If you are working up a load for a new rifle, a single box of the Hornady Whitetail 270 Win 130gr SST is a sensible place to start.