New Projects on Real Guns

The earliest reloading project covered on Real Guns was based on three cartridges: 7MM RemingtonMagnum, .338-378 Weatherby Magnum and the .243. No, I have no idea how the .243 slipped in  there, but it seemed reasonable at the time. Within that series, I noted how I always missed opportunities to buy Weatherbys for personal use, but that I had a high regard for Weatherby cartridges, product, history, and the organization. Working with the .338-378 in the context of those articles gave me an opportunity to make up for some lost time, but I think I’ve also learned that the early days of Weatherby’s innovation are probably gone. What remains are: Roy Weatherby’s history, namesake cartridges, a bolt with nine locking lugs (in most cases) and a relatively high price tag for a relatively standard piece of workmanship.

Weatherby’s background and a little personal grumbling

Much of the Weatherby cartridge line design was completed by 1945. The .220 Rocket was based on a modified .220 Swift. The 257 WM, 270 WM, 7mm WM, 300 WM, 375 WM were all based on the .375 H&H of 1912; shortened cases for the 257 WM – 7mm WM, full length for the 300 WM and 375 WM. Both the .220 Rocket and the .375 WM were actually “improved” cartridges, which permitted use of the standard .220 Swift and .375 H&H ammo in these Weatherby rifles. Considering it would take almost 50 years for competitors to offer a serious challenge, the .257 – .300 Weatherby cartridges represented a significant achievement. In 1953, the .378 WM was introduced. Similar in interior dimensions to the .416 Rigby, the .378 added over 30 grains of powder capacity beyond that of the .375 H&H. The .378 WM became the most powerful cartridge in the Weatherby line up. In 1958, the .378 WM case was opened up to .458 caliber and introduced as the .460 Weatherby Magnum. The .460 WM remains as the most powerful cartridge produced by Weatherby. 

From commercial inception through 1956, Weatherby relied on the use of a variety of Mauser actions. In 1957 the Weatherby Mark V was introduced as a proprietary design with many innovative features; enclosed bold head, 9 locking lugs, oversized for strength and to accommodate the largest Weatherby cartridges. This is essentially the same action that is in use today, although over the years there have been reduced size versions of the Mark V for smaller and lighter firearms, and the purchase of another manufacturer’s product design for runs of low end model rifles. Manufacturing and subcontracting of production seems to bounce around, quality levels vary from excellent to not so good, and popularity varies accordingly. Today Weatherby’s are produced in the U.S..  

1963 brought the little .224 Weatherby Varmint Master. Smaller in capacity than the .220 Swift and .22-250, the Varmint Master was actually a downgrade in performance from the old Weatherby .220 Rocket. In 1966, the .240 WM appeared as what amounted to a belted .30-06 necked down to .243″, duplicating some long existing standing wildcats and factory cartridges. From a 1959 copy of P.O. Ackly’s “Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders”; 6mm Belted Express, the British .240 Apex and the .240 Super Varminter. It began to appear that Weatherby was stepping back from a leadership role, and focusing on commercializing the best work of others.

In 1989 the .416 WM was derived from the then 35 year old .378 WM case, a full year after the introduction of the popular .416 Remington Magnum. The Weatherby has almost 30% more powder capacity than the Remington version, and offers a substantial boost in exterior ballistics. However, the .416 Rigby was introduced in 1911, shares almost identical case capacity with the .416 Weatherby and almost identical ballistics with handloads in similar rifles. Other .416’s, such as the Taylor and Hoffman cartridges of the 70’s, had already been servicing the .416 market niche for some period of time. 

During the 50’s, under contract to the U.S Army, Weatherby necked down a .378 to .30 caliber, and proceeded to make a 60 grain bullet travel between 5,000 and 6,000 fps – dependent upon which one of the many story versions you choose to believe. The cartridge was kept alive by long range shooters, most notably the Pennsylvania 1000 yard bench rest club and others who enjoy wildcat cartridges. The factory didn’t step up with a cartridge until 1996, almost 40 years after Weatherby’s first experience with this cartridge, and only after others had developed the cartridge’s potential and laid the ground work for reloading dies and data. In a very similar fashion, this past year marked the factory  introduction of the .338-378 WM, or is it the .338 – 378 Keith-Thompson ? Both the .30-378 and .338-378 are terrific cartridges, just not very original or timely in release.

Maybe it’s fear of product obsolescence suppressing innovation at Weatherby. It’s obvious the new .378 based cartridges replace the .300 and .340 Weatherby cartridges. As a minimum, with current available powder and newer generations of bullets, the .257 caliber through 7mm rounds should move up to a full length case, even if to duplicate STW cartridge performance. Maybe even a necked down and shortened version of the .378 WM case. The .240 can probably move to a necked down .257 WM type case and the smaller Weatherby cartridges appear to already be gone. With this out of the way, maybe they can concentrate on building up some support structure that’s missing for Weatherby customers; a Weatherby reloading manual that covers new cartridges and specs as they are released, early release of cartridge drawings and specs to all major component manufacturers, SAAMI standards approval on all of its cartridges, assistance in getting the handloading component guys to work up loads and list newer Weatherby cartridges in their manuals, improved communications and support of customers. 

In the mean time, don’t look for an e-mail address on the Weatherby web site. The site’s made to promote, deliver a marketing message and sell odds and ends. Don’t look for an 800 number, there is none, and don’t call the toll number on your nickel and expect much assistance. It took me 15 minutes to convince a Weatherby sales person that they really do sell a .416 Weatherby Euromark, 10 minutes and two people to finally tell me there was no choice in wood selection when a new gun is ordered, even through the custom shop. Unfortunately, it also took three shipments of the same simple cleaning rod kit to get one that that wasn’t missing half of its parts. But if you like strong actions, fast bullets and you don’t need much in the way of support, Weatherby is probably still the most cost effective game in town. This project will represent Weatherby rifles number 6 and 7 for me.

The Mark V Ultra Lightweight

I like the look and feel of this compact model. Mid 1999, I was going to workup handloads for a .240 WM version of the gun, but I never was able to put the purchase together. I ended up with a  Model 70 Winchester Compact in .243 as a project gun that proved to be a great combination. The gun was inexpensive, is nice handling, and pretty versatile for hunting. I’m glad I had a chance to gain some experience with the new pre ’64 design Winchester, and avoided the small version of the Weatherby Mark V action. 

Weatherby produces two actions for use in Ultra Lightweight rifles; one for standard cartridges and one for Weatherby Magnum cartridges. Both versions have undergone metal removal at non-stressed points to make them lighter than the full sized Mark V actions, deepened and widened flutes in the bolt body and a skeletonized bolt handle. The Ultra lightweight for standard cartridges goes further with a smaller diameter bolt body and a reduction to 6 locking lugs rather than the traditional Weatherby 9. The six lugs are placed in three sets of two lugs rather than 3 sets of 3. Both magnum and standard cartridge versions retain the full size Mark V action’s short 54º bolt rotation. The standard cartridge version, which includes the .240 WM, are supplied with a 24″ barrel and weigh approximately 5 3/4 lbs. The Magnum Ultra Lightweight, with a 26″ barrel, weighs only one pound more. The magnum action is used for Ultra Lightweights chambered in any round from the .257 WM to the .300 WM. All other sporter type models made by Weatherby for this range of WM cartridges fall into the 8 – 8.5 lbs weight range so the weight reduction is substantial. 

As a part of the weight reduced package, all Ultra Lightweight rifles employ a  hand-laminated synthetic stock with a CNC-machined aluminum bedding plate that stiffens the overall assembly when the barreled action is secured to the plate. The package is very similar to a scaled down version of the big Accumark, except the stock is lighter in color and minus the contrasting speckling. The combination of a Pachmayr Decelerator recoil pad, fiberglass stock and sharp drop at the heel soften recoil, recoil that can become a problem with even the small Weatherby cartridges after an extended shooting session.

I decided to go with the .257 WM to represent the light end of the Weatherby spectrum. Designed in 1944, a year before the Weatherby commercial operation was launched, this was the first in the series of Weatherby cartridges. At 2.55″ in length it’s about .276″ shorter than the full length .300 Weatherby Magnum, and has a case capacity of 78 grains compared to the .300 WM capacity of 92 grains. Which puts both very close to .3 grains of powder per 1/1000th of bore diameter. The 120 grain heavy load for the .257 WM is 120 grains with a sectional density of .260 and very close to a 168 grain match bullet for the .308 caliber bore. While I have not had extensive experience with the .257 Weatherby cartridge, I have used the .25-06 round over the years, and the .257 rounds of this type are flat shooting and hard hitting. I thought some of the newer powders might make for some interesting handload combinations.

 

As a basis for comparison, these are three of the many factory loads that are out there. The numbers are about 10% – 15% higher than .25-06, and the cost of empty brass is approximately 50% less than the .338-378. My thinking was, after I’m done working through the .257 WM,  I can always full length chamber the rifle and come up with a .257-300 WM , or a .257 STW. The full size mark V action will leave me with a lot of options.

Isn’t the rifle the smallest expense ?

There are a few things left that will be required to put the rest of the .257 WM package together. So while California is trying to wait me out for 10 days, I’ll see if I can round up –

• A soft case

• A proper sling and swivels

• Scope mounts and scope

• A set of loading dies (Yippy, I can save $5, I already have a shell holder)

• Loaded ammo

• Brass

• Some bullets that would make for an effective load for this cartridge

With 7 days left till pickup, I should be able to get back in two weeks with some preliminary qualifying on factory loads, then head on to my objective for this cartridge of getting something to go 4,000 fps, then find a combination for hunting in the 100 – 115 grain range.

The .416 Weatherby

I like the .416 bore. There are some slick bullets in this large caliber that really hang onto velocity and energy, a lot more than most people would anticipate. The availability of high BC Barnes bullets in 350 and 400 grain weights, and a 350 – 400 fps pick up over the .416 Remington and 200 – 250 fps over standard loads in the Rigby, presented too good of an opportunity to pass up. How about 400 grain bullet that can deliver 4700 ft/lbs of energy at 300 yards, while never being more than 3″ – 4″ on either side of zero ? The 350 grain Barnes looks like a heck of a deer load. While reviewing all of the load data I could find, I noticed the cartridge really responded to progressively slower powders, but the data stopped at RL 22. I believe I have at least two potential powder selections  beyond RL 22 that will offer lower peak pressure and higher velocity.

There were three areas I needed to address before committing to a .416. First, I could not see a time at the range or in the woods when I would open a case and pull out a flashy Mark V Deluxe. The glare could put out an eye, and I’m too short and too bald to draw that much attention. Secondly, I didn’t want to do permanent damage with what looks like slightly excessive recoil, energy located predominately at the butt end of the rifle. Finally, It’s hard to get anything made out of wood from Weatherby. They indicated a shipment of defective stock blanks caused them to miss three months of shipments. I thought Weatherby may have just not wanted to part with higher profit margins generated from all of those magnum actions being dropped into cost effective Accumark stocks. Who knows ?

I solved the first problem by purchasing a Euromark. Nice stock, walnut, hand rubbed oil finish and matte finished metal work. The US gun does not ship with open sites. The factory either thinks there are no shrubs in the US to knock a scope loose and dictate installation of metallic sites, or they think there is no dangerous game in the US that could make the immediate change from optics to metallic sites imperative, or they think US shooters are so good they don’t really need straight lines of reference to hit a distant target. In any case, I do think a big bore with no metallic sights looks a little funky.

Weatherby solved the second problem with the installation of a muzzle brake on all .416’s, just like the .460’s. In fact, the Accubrake (sounds like a place to get a tune up and a brake job on a Buick) cuts felt recoil by more than half, or almost to the level of a full up .338 Winchester Magnum…..but then you go deaf. Without the brake these guns are really fun to shoot. They don’t actually kick you around too badly, they just make you look silly when the muzzle uncontrollably rotates upward by about three feet.

In the third case, Weatherby stated they had found wood. Since they don’t produce anything in fiberglass in this bore size anyway, I thought I may as well wait 90 days for delivery, as long as I had the .257 to play with in the shorter term. It’s not that I don’t believe in the wonderful world of Weatherby, but I think I’ll wait until I get a little closer to the delivery date before I run out and pick up the handloading and rifle accessories for the detail part of the project. I did examine other project options.

Other project options suggested and considered

For the longest time I have been trying to talk myself into a .460, but it’s not in the cards. The bullet designs and cartridge characteristics always end up defining a 100 yard rifle that can drop anything within that range. I see nothing peeking out from handloading manuals that would suggest more flexibility and, while noise and recoil are attractive features of any rifle, the .460 WM just has too limited of an application. 

I thought about a Ruger 77 or Ruger No. 1 in .416 Rigby. The entry cost would have been considerably less than the Weatherby, but I felt the utility of the rifle in later use would be also. The Weatherby action, compared to the Ruger 77 seems to have a considerable edge in strength of design.

I considered a number of Contender projects based on wildcat and proprietary cartridges, however, the lead times were excessive and the potential results and use of the completed firearms weren’t all that attractive. As a general rule, I enjoy working with the T/C, and there may be a couple cartridges I wouldn’t mind revisiting after this Weatherby project.

I did look at modifying a Ruger to either high intensity .45 Colt rounds or to .475 Linebaugh. I know I’d really like to get a five shot cylinder conversion for the Ruger and some cosmetic work. Unfortunately, the cost for the rework, not including the initial price of the gun, is greater than the price of the .416 Weatherby. This one is on the back burner for now.

300 Ultra and .338 Ultra – I just can’t bring myself to go from a .338-378 to lesser power .338 Ultra, and if I were headed for a .308 bore, I’d probably go with the .30-378. I like Remington and maybe I’ll eventually end up with a .17 Remington to play with.

Thanks,
Joe