So I hear that the 6.8 and .270 are just about equal, but looking at the performance on the Remington ammunition site, I find that not true.  Can someone please elaborate?

I shoot a Rem. .270 using the 130gr Pointed Soft Point Core-Lokts.  I compaired it to the Remington 6.8 115 gr boat tail hollow point match ammo and found the following.

.270 velocity at muzzle is 3060, at 100 is 2776, at 200 is 2510
6.8   velocity at muzzle is 2625, at 100 is 2365, at 200 is 2119

.270 energy at muzzle is 2702, at 100 is 2225, at 200 is 1818
6.8   energy at muzzle is 1759, at 100 is 1428, at 200 is 1147

If I am looking at this correclty, the 6.8 is no where close to the .270.  Why would I replace my .270 with a 6.8?  Especially when the 6.8 will have a shorter barrel than the 24" as used in the above testing, thus loosing even more velocity?

I don't know who told you 6.8 and .270 were about equal, maybe in terms of how flat they shoot, but not power.

i thought that the 6.8 was metric and the .270 was inch.  Same diameter.  Same bullet different case.  the 270 is long action and the 6.8 is short action.

They share the same bore and bullet diameter.  Nothing else is the same.

6.8 does well in shorter barrels, really anything above 16" is superfluous...

But it doesn't hold a candle to .270 Win.

I think they were thinking the 6.5 Creedmore or even the 6.5 Grendel vs the 260 Remington. I hear a lot of guys call the 6.8 a 6.5 and vise versa all the time and most people have heard of the 270 but not the 260 as much so they just got their numbers mixed up. The 6.5s and the 260 preform close but not identical, closer than the 6.8 and the 270.

The Grendel doesn't come close to the .260 either.
There is about as much disparity between them as the .270 WIn/6.8 SPC.

The .270, with a 26" barrel, will give a 7mm Remington Magnum a good match.
SAAMI pressure max is 63k psi. .270s are freakin' hotshots.

+1

The .270 Winchester is based of the .30-06 case, which as you may know is a good 2.494" long for a Overall Length of 3.340, which we consider a magnum length cartridge for use in a long action gun. It has a powder capacity near 64 grains or so.

The 6.8 SPC is based off an obsolete Remington cartridge, the .30 Remington. Its case is 1.686" long for an OAL of 2.250", which is a short action length case intended for feeding through AR magazines, as the .223 remington is also 2.250" long. Its powder capacity is somewhere around 32 grains or so, half of what the .270 Winchester can hold.

The .270 Winchester can shoot bullets from 85gr up to 150gr, up to 3400fps for the 100gr loads and up to 2900fps for the 150gr loads.
The 6.8 SPC can shoot bullets from the 85gr (TSX) at around 3000fps in a properly spec'd barrel, and up to 2450-2500fps for the 130gr bullets in same barrel, but generally speaking using the heavier bullets will require the bullet to be seated further out of the case and thus eliminates the ability to feed from a magazine.

Bottom line, .270 Winchester gives you 'magnum performance', (velocities from 2800fps-3000fps on up) in bullet weights from 85gr-150gr whereas the 6.8 SPC can only reach such speeds with the absolute lightest offerings in .277 dia.

.270 Win is a big long case, suitable for bolt action rifles and long-action semi autos, the 6.8 SPC is a very short case intended for AR-15 magazine dimensions.

Bullet diameter is the only thing that's equal. Even though I am putting together a 6.8 AR and plan to hunt with it some, it will never replace my .270 Win. bolt gun. IMHO they are two excellent cartridges.

No surprise.  6.8 is a short action caliber.  270 might share the same bore diameter, but it's a 30-06 case necked down to .277.  30-06 class rounds are bad news.

6.8 spc is a tiny shell compared to a 270 win.

110-115 gr bullets are about right for the 6.8 spc.

The 270 with a 110 gr tipped barnes bullet gets about 600-700 more fps than a 6.8 depending.

The 270 can shoot much heavier bullets faster where as the 6.8 spc would just run out of room for powder due to having to seat the bullet deep.

Nothing wrong with the 6.8 up to about 300-400 yards especially loaded with light barnes bullets.
Real sledgehammer on hogs.

Its probably the hardest hitting light recoil round I have ever used.

Someone gave you some bad information.  The only thing the two have in common is bore size.  After that, they are completely unrelated and have different applicatin/intent.

The only way 6.8SPC compares to the 270 Win is the same way the 7.62 Soviet (7.62x39) compares to the 7.62 Russian and the way the 8mm Kurz compares to the 8mm Mauser and to some degree how the 30 Carbine compares to the 30-06.

Basically by taking a standard full power (battle) rifle cartridge and adapting it to function in a short (assualt/carbine) rifle.

The 6.8SPC is simply not a full power (standard length) rifle cartridge and won't duplicate the performance from one.  It was designed to fill a specific application in carbine length arms.

MLG

Best way I can describe it is...38 special vs 357 magnum.  Make sense...kind of?  The 6.8 is a .270 short.  I have both and the 6.8 will NEVER be a .270  What it is, is more powerful than the 5.56/.223 in a small handy rifle that can shoot a ton of bullets really fast

Edit to say, NO you cannot shoot a 6.8 cartridge in your .270 so don't even ask.

They are exactly the same ...if you shoot something inside 30 feet.

P

Screw .270... if you're buying a rifle, go ahead and buy a .270WSM.  I had a .270, sold it to fund my new Rem 700XCR Stainless .270WSM.