WSM's

[SoftCall]

Who has the skinny on the Win. Short Mags? Fact or Fiction? I am in the market for a new rifle. Will a .270 WSM really out perform a .270 or are the ballistic charts hype?

[Wildfowler]

Man, for a minute there I thought this was going to be a weapons of mass destruction contest... I think I should have been diagnosed as a dyslexic. And as you may well imagine, I've got no clue on the answer to your question. Sorry.

[SoftCall]

hah hah - you know .. there is life beyond a 3" magnum (so I hear). I know I know...what's a deer?

"but I'll be needin' it fer skwerlz and such!"

[Hambone]

Softcall, first a confession that you bought a Vortex...now you want a rifle??? Next thing you know, you will be selling off your duck hunting stuff to fund the purchase of old foreign four wheel drives to go rock climbing... It's beyond a doubt now - there is something unhealthy about the water over there.

[quack fiend]

my take on the WSM's--they might outperform the old long-actions by a small percentage--but does that justify buying a new rifle? will a deer ever know the difference? absolutely not--stick with the old tried and true '06, 270, or 7mm mag, and if you really wanna flatten a deer way out try a 300 weatherby--becase who's to say that the new gimmick cartridges will even be around 20 years from now? plus, i would imagine ammo is cheaper and more available

[SoftCall]

I must also clarify that I do not currently own a rifle. I traded it off for something else...hehehe.

No jacked up rock climbing vehicles in the budget at this house

[Hambone]

Whew, there's still hope for you!

[hillhunter]

From what i can understand from the ballistics on these is that the 270 wsm is faster and stouter than the 270 win. The 7mm is stouter when the barrels are of equal length, but most barrels on the 7mm rem. mag are longer than the ones tested. For some reason the longer barrel helps out on speed and stuff. Same with the 300 as with the 7mm.

I think they tested them with the same length barrels to make the wsms look good. They didn't compare them with a standard size barrel for a 7mm or 300 mag., that's why the data is skewed to me.

The whole point of these guns was to make a smaller lighter rifle with plenty of energy... I think. I don't like the shorter barrels, too much room for error.

I deer hunt with a 7mm and if you know how your bullet flies you can easily smoke a deer at 300 yds.

[BR549]

Bought one back in the fall. Took me till the end of hunting season to get it like I want it but let me say this. I have a 7mm wsm in a winchester super shadow. It is by far one of the best all around deer rifles I have ever had. The load I,ve been shhoting is 70 gr, of winchester wxr with the new combined technoligies 140gr. balistic silver tip. Zero it about 250 yds. then shoot pretty flat till about 400. I took a 250 lb. 9 point at 486 measured yards with it New years day. The performance was awsome. Bullet entered 2nd rib back and was laying just under the skin on opposite side. Cleaned everything in-between. Deer went about 30 yds. Killed three more with it from 200 to 400 yrds none went over 30 yrds. I would highly recomend one to anybody. If you know anything about handloading it just makes sense. They finally came up with a good cartridge with the wsm.

[mallardchaser]

Get a 300; Graham and Lefty blasted 'em way out 250 plus and they dropped..

[GordonGekko]

They'll do anything their long action counterpart will in a shorter, handier, lighter rifle. Any numerical differences are pretty insignificant for whitetail hunting in MS. I love my 300 WSM, and wouldn't trade it for anything, but if you've already got a long action version of one of the three, there's not much reason to buy a new gun. Unless, of course you just wanna buy a new gun that is

Gordon

[bolivarduck]

I purchased a 300 WSM last summer and started playing with reloads for it and finally found THE load for the 300 WSM! I am shooting 74.5 grains of Reloader 22 with the Siera 150 grain pro hunter bullet- on a good day, same hole at 200 yards! It will be very hard for me to put this rifle down and pick up either the 270 or the 30-06! I will have to say it is a customized Browning A-Bolt. It has the Gun Finish on it, McMillan stock-glass bedded, custom trigger job, with a very nice 4 - 12 X 50 Swarovski. If you shoot the factory stock put a SVL recoil pad on it- you will shoot two times better!

[HARLEY]

Some of he differences in the old vs. the WSM is that the ballistics are suprisingly similar, however, a slight edge goes to the new WSM. The selling point from the manufacturers is that all of this is accomplished with less powder, and fits into a short action gun. A short action is said to be more accurate, and recoil is slightly less. As far as testing goes, rule of thumb says that most centerfire rifle testing be done in 24" bbl. The reason as someone mentioned above for the difference in velocity is that a shorter barrel will produce less velocity than a long. The goal is to find the optimal barrel length for your cartridge, 24" is the best all around hence its use in most tests. This process holds true out to about 26" for the big "magnums", as anything beyond that the powder is completely burned and the bullet is no longer accelerating, but using energy to finish its path out of the barrel.
So long story short there is probably not enough differance in the two to justify a whole new setup, unless as mentioned before you just want a new gun anyway!

[Sasha and Abby]

If you were shooting bench rest comps... I might geve the nod. To actual hunting - no. Stay with the tried and true...

Picture yourself forgetting your shells... most country stores will carry the normal ones - they will NOT carry the off the wall calibers.

Gun manufactures must come out with new and improved stuff every year to sell more firearms. It is just a plan to try and sell you something that you don't need. Why try and reinvent the wheel????

[bolivarduck]

What are you guys saying??? Do all of you still use paper hull shotgun shells? ... Of course not... sometimes, guys, 'the industry' actually put out products that ARE good! (pst... this should get a good discussion going! ha!)