Accurizing my weatherby

[jay.sharkbait]

I have a 1 lb. of Reloader 21 here on my bench. Mark V stainless stardard barrel 24". Not an Ultra light, but shouldn't matter much. It took 8 different loads to find the sweet one, and I have the bullet just touch the lands. Builds a lot of pressure, but nothing dangerous. Have shoot over a hundred of these loads in the past decada.

With that OAL does the round feed in the magazine?

[mrolen]

sell it and start over if that is an option. there are better platforms to start from like remington or a tikka

yu don't work on tikas just shoot them

sure ya do throw away the old stock replace it with a nicer one then shoot the barrel out and replace it 

[Bob33]

FWIW: I have a Weatherby Ultra Light in 257 Wby. Out of the box I could not get it to shoot consistently well.

The bedding job was, politely speaking, horrible. I free floated it, and accuracy improved but not to a point where I was satisified.

I finally gave up and had it rebarreled with a Benchmark barrel. I'm very happy with it now.

I have the same rifle as well, same thing I've never been impressed with the accuracy.

Do you have a picture of it? I sure like the ultra light weight barrel on these rifles, how heavy of a barrel did you go with? I'd even consider a 24" my 26 with a muzzle break (on the 300) sure gets in the way at times

I don't have a photo handy. The barrel contour matched the original barrel.

[sirmissalot]

Ok I wasn't sure they offered one that light. Awesome

[snowpack]

If you get it too accurate wouldn't you have to change your username?

[LEN]

I swore I would never by a Wannaby when ROY and I had words many moons ago at the Reno gun show. Long story short I had cash in hand for a REALLY nice Wannaby and he just walked away to some suit. Well I have worked out loads on many of them and when the great looking and feeling 30378 came along I just had to spend the $$$. Had it trued, floated, trigger at munimum and cryoed and developed loads got to 5" at about 600 yards and no better, so I sold the gun and I felt it should do 3" or so no frikkin way. So my advice is to get a known good gun that will do what you want, There are lots of gun makers out there that can and will do the job for little more than trying to make a Wannaby shoot. Do a little research and there are several rounds in the beltless cases that are what the long range guys use(competition) that are a lot better suited to the job than the Wannaby case and as long as you hand load already your in. JMO   " Something like a silk purse and a sows ear with the wannaby"

LEN

[RadSav]

If you get it too accurate wouldn't you have to change your username?

  Nice!

[sirmissalot]

If you get it too accurate wouldn't you have to change your username?

As unfortunate as it sounds I earned this name so its here to stay.

That said, I miss much less nowadays, normally when I would it was because of severe buck, bull, or bear fever  obviously no matter what kind of fancy rifle you are shooting, that one is hard to fix without some experience and age. I did miss my buck on the first shot this year... I was so excited when he came out I miss ranged him. I still get the fever just not as bad.

[RadSav]

I swore I would never by a Wannaby when ROY and I had words many moons ago at the Reno gun show. Long story short I had cash in hand for a REALLY nice Wannaby and he just walked away to some suit. Well I have worked out loads on many of them and when the great looking and feeling 30378 came along I just had to spend the $$$. Had it trued, floated, trigger at munimum and cryoed and developed loads got to 5" at about 600 yards and no better, so I sold the gun and I felt it should do 3" or so no frikkin way. So my advice is to get a known good gun that will do what you want, There are lots of gun makers out there that can and will do the job for little more than trying to make a Wannaby shoot. Do a little research and there are several rounds in the beltless cases that are what the long range guys use(competition) that are a lot better suited to the job than the Wannaby case and as long as you hand load already your in. JMO   " Something like a silk purse and a sows ear with the wannaby"

.833 minute @ 600 yards with a sporting/hunting gun and the out of whack 30-378 sounds pretty dang good to me!

[threedwizard]

It's a tight fit, but it feeds fine. Every once in a long while I have a brass hang up coming out. Don't often shoot more than one round, unless i miss on the 1st shot. Try to keep my shooting under 400 yards helps too. This is a great elk/moose/bear combo and even deer. Doesn't leave much meat though, i call it a trophy round.

[LEN]

Not as good as it can be is the problem. Oh that gun is being used on a pay to hunt ranch in Texas and they are very happy. But I was wanting a gun that in great conditions would do the 3" at 600 yards and you could bet $$$ on it and it simply did not get there. I have a 243 that I have broken 12 out of 12 clay targets at 600yards and will shoot the 3" or so built by a guy in Smith school, and a 300 WM that will do near that also the 300 a out of the box just floated, bedded and trigger, and a lot of load development so it can be done on a budget too. Also have a couple Coopers that should do near that good but have never shot them over 500, they are both varminters and not legal for big game in this state.

LEN

[WoodlandShooter]

I've been wanting to do this for a couple years now, and I want this winter to finally be the year.

I shoot a 300 weatherby in a Mark V, the lightweight version. My dad and I shoot the same rifles, and same loads, and have struggled to get decent groups but have manged to find a load that is OK to us, which still only gets around 1 inch groups at 100 yards. Its not bad but I would really like to tighten it up.

I wanted to try Rbros after reading so many good things about him, but I spoke with him last year and he told me he didn't have the tooling for weatherby actions, and was going to be focusing on full rifle builds anyhow.

My next thought was to try Benchmark. I emailed them and heard back from Chris, he has told me they can do everything I need. Awesome.

Is there anyone else I should consider? Maybe someone a little closer, although I really don't mind the drive up there since from everything I have read, it will be done right.

There are a lot of things I think could be improved on this rifle, and I am not against getting a new barrel, however I was considering trying to accurize the rifle and see what kind of improvements we can get with the factory barrel, hoping that I can do this in two stages just to help the wallet out. Thoughts?

Benchmark did all the work on my Weatherby MKV. If you do send it to them make sure they cut the chanfer on the breach to allow feeding of OTM bullets..if not, they will catch and not feed!!!!

Other than having to polish that area on my rifle to get it to feed, the thing shoots like a dream. with me running it, I can get it just under 0.5MOA....with someone with better training...I have no doubt it can do better.

[sirmissalot]

Thanks woodland, that's what I wanted to hear.

I shot again on Sunday and again I am still not pleased with the groups I can get currently. It's probably much closer to 2 MOA. That was shooting off a bench in a vise, which it's been a while since I've done that normally I practice the way I hunt which is prone off a bipod. I am going to plan on taking it up to benchmark after this last hunting trip and having them go through it and most likely do a new barrel as well.

What are thoughts on doing a 24 inch barrel instead of the 26? With the muzzle break on this gun it sure is long and I don't mind sacrificing a little speed for maneuverability.   

[WoodlandShooter]

Thanks woodland, that's what I wanted to hear.

I shot again on Sunday and again I am still not pleased with the groups I can get currently. It's probably much closer to 2 MOA. That was shooting off a bench in a vise, which it's been a while since I've done that normally I practice the way I hunt which is prone off a bipod. I am going to plan on taking it up to benchmark after this last hunting trip and having them go through it and most likely do a new barrel as well.

What are thoughts on doing a 24 inch barrel instead of the 26? With the muzzle break on this gun it sure is long and I don't mind sacrificing a little speed for maneuverability.

I do all my shooting of of a bipod, my 0.5 MOA group (five shots) is actually from a prone position with bipod.

This rifle weighs ~14 pounds as pictured...the reality is...if you want an accurate weapon, it's gonna be heavy.

I have a 27" tube on this rifle...the brake makes follow up shots a breeze...

If you stick with the 300Roy, well, I would go with the longer tube...you have serious long range potential there...190 grain SMKs would be well used...and possibly some 220's Super Sonic range should be close to a mile.

Straight Shooter Supply in Bend Oregon has also build some Mark V's into real shooters also

[sirmissalot]

Just bringing this thread back up, as I should be getting the rifle back within a month or so from Benchmark and I am starting to work new loads, basically starting over as far as that goes.

I have three bullets I am interested in shooting

Barnes TTSX, or more like the new LRX
Accubond
Berger

I already have a box of the berger 185's from my last round of load development so I'm going to stick with those, but as far as the others would I be better off with 180 (the barnes LRX is actually 175) or 200 grain? The only reason I ask, is I have read that some others have had better luck getting the 300 weatherby to shoot well with a heavier bullet, than I lighter bullet. I'm not too concerned with a higher BC bullet, and I realize the 180 if I put it in the right spot will do the job just fine on anything animal considering I'm only talking about a 500 yard max range on this rifle, simply asking about others experience as far accuracy goes.