Winchester Match Ammunition 6.8 Western 170 Grain Hollow Point Boat Tail

6.8 western

Winchester Match ammunition is loaded with the highest quality components under the strictest tolerances to produce consistent, accurate ammunition for competition shooters. Trusted by hunters for many years, Winchester ammunition is now becoming more available to the match shooter.

Sierra MatchKing bullets have very think jackets and are held to exacting tolerances in diameter and weight. These hollow point boat tail bullets have a small meplat to produce a higher ballistic coefficient.

Their accuracy has been acclaimed worldwide and they have been used to win more target competitions than all target bullets from other manufacturers combined. This ammunition is new production, non-corrosive, in boxer primed, reloadable brass cases.

“The challenge in 6.8 Western was all about balance,” says Kyle Masinelli, director of New Product Development for Olin Winchester. “It was the balance of taking a parent case in .270 WSM and actually taking away powder capacity to make it more powerful down range. It seems counterintuitive, but that was exactly what was accomplished. If we compare it to our top performing 270 WSM cartridge, the 6.8 Western has 10 percent less propellant, but has 12 percent more energy at 500 yards. It seems that we cheated physics somewhat, but we really just used it to our advantage by optimizing case capacity and bullet weight. Less propellant also equates to less muzzle blast.”

There’s plenty of folks who will argue that any .270 caliber cartridge is too small for moose. They’re wrong. Alaska Yukon moose are big, but they aren’t very difficult to kill. They have big bones and thick hides, but they also have gigantic lungs, and although they usually don’t drop immediately (even with big cartridges), they aren’t indestructible the way some people make them out to be. Now, I should point out that the particular load I was using was definitely more than “just another .270”. With this new 175-grain bullet, at the velocity I measured, from an energy standpoint it would really sit between a .30-06 and .300 Win. Mag. shooting 180-grain bullets. But the 6.8 Western has a better B.C., and better sectional density than a .308 diameter bullet. I had no doubts in the cartridge, but I was curious about bullet performance, which besides shot placement, is the most critical factor when it comes to putting down big animals.

A couple weeks later, I held the rifle steady atop a tripod as a bull grunted his way through a stand of burnt timber toward my soft cow calls. My buddy and I had been hunting for eight days, we’d passed up several small bulls, and he killed a dandy. I needed meat for the winter, and at this point in the hunt, I didn’t have the luxury of passing another bull. I tracked the moose through my riflescope, only about 100 yards away now, waiting for an opening through the patchwork of charred spruce trees. I moaned out a cow call and the bull stopped, with a hole about the size of a basketball exposing the back of his front shoulder. I shot and the bull spun and took a few steps. I quickly shot again, and then once more. Finally, with only his shoulder exposed, I fired a fourth shot, dropping him. A volley like this might seem excessive or indicative of less-than-lethal performance, but that’s just how moose are, they rarely go down immediately (even when the first shot is lethal). Especially in such tight quarters, its best to keep shooting in case your first shot wasn’t as good as you thought. When we walked up to the bull, I found that my first shot had been perfect, with another a few inches away, also through the lungs. The third shot had hit a branch and ricocheted into the bull’s antler. The fourth shot punched square through the scapula. to explain the above!!!  this this the best rifle ever , and is mostly us by the american hunters. so lovely.