Louis Luttrell said
Hi Zeb-

I’ve no doubt that Winchester’s R&D program did not operate in a vacuum, and a little “friendly” industrial espionage was the order of the day. I quick tour through MS20 (the WRACo document collection) in the McCracken Library digital archives shows that Winchester had a lot of blueprints and other technical documents on other manufacturers’ products.  Why acquire that information unless they wanted to know what the competition was doing? 

The 256 Newton (almost a 6.5mm-06) had been around since 1913 and Winchester didn’t finalize the 270 WCF (.277″-06) until late 1918.  Apparently they also played with a 280 design (.284″-06) but dropped it in favor of the .277″ (true 7mm-06).  I do like the story that the reason they settled on .277″ was that it was the bullet diameter with which they could get 3000 fps out of a 30-06 case with a 130 gr bullet, thereby deflating the 250-3000 Savage’s advertising claim…  “Friendly” competition?  Hardly…

Here’s an anecdotal observation from the M70 survey…  Everyone knows that over the entire pre-64 M70 production span (1936-1963) the 270 WCF was second in popularity only to the 30-06.  Roughly 36% for the 30-06 and 21% for the 270 WCF, while the 257 ROBERTS represented a mere 2.5% of sales.  But what was the relative popularity of these cartridges in the pre-war period (1936-1942)?  

The survey presently encompasses a little over 5% of pre-war M70 serial numbers.  There were originally (9) chamberings offered.  Representation in the survey to date is: 30-06 (45%); 22 Hornet (12%); 220 Swift (8.0%); 300 H&H Magnum (6.9%); 270 WCF (6.7%); 257 Roberts (6.3%); 375 H&H Magnum (6.1%); 7×57 (4.8%); and, 250-3000 Savage (3.8%).  While I understand that an observational survey like this will tend to overrepresent the less common calibers, it seems apparent to me that the 270 WCF wasn’t all that big a marketing hit at the time.  Who knew that in the pre-war guns 270 WCF was a “rare” chambering??? I wonder if the M54 survey has big enough numbers to compare the relative popularity of the 30-06 and 270 WCF at the time it was introduced?

So what happened to make the 270 WCF a “great” cartridge?  I’d call it the post-war “The Jack O’Connor Effect”…

Best,

Lou

Absolutely!  If it wasn’t for Jack O’Connor, the .270 WCF would have remained as popular as it was during pre war production and that would have largely resulted in .30-06 production dominating even more.

What would be interesting is to note when exactly Jack O’Connor began to promote the .270 WCF and when also his writing was available to the masses and note if this correlates to a marked increase in production and sales of the Model .270 WCF.