Tag: .257 Weatherby Magnum

Ruger No. 1 XXX Walnut

By Joe Berk

I promised a story on the Ruger No. 1 photo I shared a little while ago and this is it.   It’s on my Ruger No. 1 chambered in .257 Weatherby.  I’ll try to keep it short, but there’s a lot to this story.  The bottom line up front:  Ruger’s customer service is among the best in the business.  They are one of two companies that all others should emulate (Leupold is the other).  Ruger’s No. 1 single shot rifles are the most elegant rifles in the world.  That’s a strong statement and you might disagree, but hey, it’s a free country and if you want to disagree, it’s okay by me.  Go ahead and be wrong.   I know that after seeing the photo at the top of this blog, you have to be wondering if the stock looks as good from the other side.  The answer is yes.

The .257 Weatherby No. 1 from the starboard side. Red ped, exotic walnut, and a fabulous cartridge with a laser-like trajectory.

Back to the tale:  Ruger has essentially discontinued the No. 1, but that’s okay.  Inexpensive and tasteless rifles with black Tupperware stocks are all the rage now and if they float your boat, more power to you.  But it’s not me.  I own a few Ruger No. 1 rifles and their value has increased tenfold since I started collecting back in the 1970s.  Not that I’m interested in selling; that’s not going to happen.  I mention the No. 1 rifles’ appreciation just because…well, I’m not sure why.  It makes me feel good, and that’s enough.

The .257 Weatherby cartridge. The parent cartridge was the .300 H&H Magnum. Roy Weatherby blew out the case with a rounded bottleneck, trimmed it back a bit, and voila, 4,000 feet per second.  The cartridge is also known as the .257 Roy, to honor its creator, Roy Weatherby.  Weatherby felt the .257 Weatherby cartridge was his finest creation.
Solids made by Barnes work best in the .257 Weatherby. Jacketed bullets can distintegrate in flight due to velocity, aerodynamic heating, and rotational inertia, as evidenced by the tell-tale molten lead spiral seen on this 100-yard target.

The .257 Weatherby cartridge is brilliant.  It’s one of the fastest in the world at around 4,000 feet per second, which creates a unique problem:  If you do not load with the right projectiles, the bullets travel so fast they tend to disintegrate in flight.  The Ruger No. 1 in .257 Roy has a 28-inch barrel (two inches longer than the original Weatherby Mk V rifles in which it debuted back in the 1950s), and that extra two inches bumps the velocity up even more than the fabled round was achieving in its namesake Weatherby rifles (they have 26-inch barrels).   The bottom line here is that you almost have to use monolithic (and expensive) Barnes bullets (they are solid copper, not lead sheathed in a copper jacket) to push the bullets at their max velocity without the bullets coming apart in flight.  There’s something appealing about that.  I like it.

The original Circassian walnut on the Ruger No. 1 wasn’t bad, but it cracked during load development. I wanted something as good on the replacement lumber. The first set didn’t answer the mail for me.
Another view of the rifle’s original stock. It looked good. I still have this stock, with a small crack in the wrist.

So, back to the main story.  When Ruger first announced their limited run of the No. 1 in .257 Weatherby, I started watching the ads on Gunbroker.com for one with nice wood.  It took a little while, but I found one and I pounced.  I encountered the bullet disintegration problems mentioned above, I got some good advice from a guy I met on Facebook, and I got the rifle to group under an inch using Barnes monolithic copper bullets.  Then while at the range one day I noticed the stock had cracked.  My heart was as broken as the Circassian walnut stock, and the rifle went back to Ruger.  I told them the story about wanting good wood, and they did their best to oblige.  I also told them to make sure the stock was relieved behind the tang, as the first stock (the one that cracked) was not and that was what had caused the stock to split.

When the rifle came back, the stock had been relieved but the inletting and the gap between the receiver and the stock was excessive.  The wood was not as good the original set, but it was not bad.  The inletting was the real disappointment.  I shot it a bit and the rifle grouped well, but it looked ridiculous with the gap around the receiver.  I put the gun in the safe and it remained there for a year.  Then one night I had a few beers and I wrote an email to Ruger.  I wasn’t too complimentary.  I told them the story.  The beer helped get it all out.

I had an email from Ruger the next morning, and at their request I returned the rifle to them again.  A few days later I received an email from a guy in Ruger’s No. 1 shop.  He sent a photo of a matched stock and fore end that had just come in, he said. and he told me it was probably the last they would ever receive of this quality.  Did I want it?  Hell yes, I said. That was followed by another email:  What color pad did I want?  Red is the more collectible of the two colors (the older Ruger No. 1s had red pads; they switched to a black pad back in the 1980s.  Red it would be.

When the restocked Ruger arrived (this rifle had now worn three sets of lumber), I was totally blown away.  The wood is exquisite on both sides of the stock and the fore end.  I’m pleased with the photos you see here, but trust me on this, they don’t do the wood justice.  The fore end matches the stock on both sides.  The figure is what stockmakers would grade as XXX and the rifle is just stunning.  If there’s such a thing as rifle porn, this is it.  And it’s XXX rated.

The Ruger No. 1 fore end on the right side. The fore end and the stock almost certainly came from the same tree.
The fore end from the left side.
The entire rifle from the right.
The entire rifle from the left side.  This model is called a No. 1B.  It has a standard weight barrel and a beavertail fore end.

So there you have it:  Two promises fulfilled.  When you buy a Ruger, if you’re not pleased they will make it right.  I promised you the story on this amazing set of walnut furniture.   And if you are wondering, the answer is no.  The rifle is not for sale.

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Into Weatherby?  We are, too!

Vanguard Safari First Shots

Last week I wrote a blog about my .300 Weatherby Magnum Vanguard Safari, and I recently spent a bit of time with it on the range.  In a word:  Wow!   This is a most impressive firearm, as is the .300 Weatherby Magnum cartridge.

Before the rifle arrived, I called both Leupold and Weatherby to ask which rings and mounts I should use to mount a 4X Leupold scope.  Both told me they didn’t know because there are so many possible combinations of rifles and scopes (which kind of surprised me; you’d think they would know).  The Leupold tech rep suggested I try their dual dovetail mounts and low rings and he gave me the part numbers.  (so it was off to Amazon for both).  The Leupold guy said he didn’t know if what he suggested would work and if it would clear the scope’s bells, but that’s what I ordered and it worked like a champ.  The Leupold scope has a lot of eye relief and it just looks right with the low mounts.  The matte finish on the rifle, the mounts, the rings, and the scope looks good.

Good buddy John asked about how I sight in a scope, and I thought I would explain that here.  I don’t use a boresighting device.  The idea of sticking something in the muzzle doesn’t appeal to me, as it is the most sensitive part of the rifle and any nicks or dings in this area will hurt accuracy significantly.  My approach is to:

      • Set the rifle up on the rest, pointing it at a bullseye downrange.
      • Remove the bolt.
      • Look through the barrel and center the bullseye at 50 yards in the bore.  I use the rear opening of the barrel and the front opening of the barrel (which visually form two concentric rings) like a peep sight, getting the circles formed by both centered on the bullseye.
      • Bring the scope’s crosshairs onto the bullseye without moving the rifle on the rest.
      • Fire the first shot.
      • Make scope adjustments accordingly for subsequent shots.

I can usually get the first shot within 10 inches of the bullseye using the above approach.  A couple of times I’ve got it within 2 inches of the bullseye on the first shot, and this was one of them.  I took some photos to make my explanation easier to understand.

First, set the rifle in the rest and have a target at either 25 yards or 50 yards:

Next, center the bullseye in the barrel:

Then (without moving the rifle), bring the scope’s crosshairs onto the target:

At this point, my approach is to fire one shot to see where it hits and then make adjustments.  My first shot was the one at the lower right in the target below.  I cranked in 15 clicks of elevation and 15 of windage, and my next shot was near the middle of the orange bullseye.

That was close enough to get me started.  I then moved a target out to 100 yards and fired a few groups.  This was the third group, and it measured 0.865 inch.

Not everything ran as smoothly as that target above suggests, though.  About a third of my .300 Weatherby Magnum ammunition (all ammunition I reloaded) had difficulty chambering or would not chamber at all, and the rest of the groups were all much larger than that .865 group shown above.  I was pretty sure the chambering difficulties were affecting accuracy, but that one good group showed the rifle had potential.

I recognized that the chambering difficulty was the same problem I had encountered with my .257 Weatherby Magnum Ruger No. 1 rifle.  A traditional resizing approach didn’t work on the .257 Weatherby Magnum cartridge, and when I called Sierra about it, they told me turn the resizing die into the press an additional quarter turn after the die contacts the shell holder.  I think there’s another issue as well due to case distortion due to the neck expander dragging during the resizing operation.  If the cases are not well lubed inside the case neck, the dual-radius Weatherby shoulder is more easily distorted upward when withdrawing the case from the resizing die (more easily distorted, that is, than would be a conventional non-dual-radius case shoulder).  The trick is to lube the inside of the case neck and to do the extra quarter turn of the die into the press.  This addresses the neck expansion longitudinal distortion, takes out all the clearances in the reloading press’s pivot points, and accounts for any springback in case exterior dimensions.

I went home, pulled the bullets on the .300 Weatherby Magnum cartridges that wouldn’t chamber, resized as described above, cleaned the cases thoroughly, and then reloaded them.

On the next range visit a few days later, every round chambered easily, and wow, the results were good.  My first group was the one at the top of the target shown below (it measured 1.452 inches).   I dialed in five clicks left the Leupold and fired the next two groups in the two lower targets.  The group on the left is 1.191 inches, and the one on the right is 0.871 inch.

Note that these 300 Weatherby Magnum groups were fired with a 4X scope at 100 yards.  It’s not easy to get great groups with a rifle that smacks you authoritatively each time you squeeze the trigger (the .300 Weatherby Magnum is one potent SOB).  My load was the 180-grain Remington jacketed soft point bullet and IMR 7828 SSC powder a grain or two below max, and I’m not done yet.  If my shoulder and my wallet hold out (and I can find components) I’ll bet I can get a ½-inch out of this rifle.

Take a peek at an earlier blog on three rifles chambered for the .300 Weatherby Magnum!

Three .300 Weatherby rifles. Click on the photo to read the story.

What’s it like meeting Roy Weatherby?  Hey, take a look!

Roy Weatherby in his office in the old South Gate facility. I met Roy in that office and had a nice conversation with him. Click on the photo to get the story.

How about a Ruger No. 1 in .300 Weatherby Magnum!

One of the world’s classiest rifles…a Ruger No. 1. This one is chambered in .300 Weatherby. You can get to that story by clicking on the photo.

Hey, how about an earlier standard Vanguard in .300 Weatherby Magnum!

Bought used but in as new condition, this Tupperware-stocked Vanguard is unusually accurate!

More gun stories?  You bet!  Just click here!

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A .257 Weatherby No. 1 Update: A story with a happy ending

I posted a series of blogs on my Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby and the loads I was developing for it a few months ago, and I told you about the stock cracking on my rifle.  That held things up for a while.

The original stock on my .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 cracked on the top and the bottom, just aft of the tang. I can repair this stock and use it, but Ruger provided a new stock on the warranty. Ruger customer service is top notch.

Ruger Customer Service

I was disappointed about the stock fracture, but the wizards at Ruger did a good job in selecting a piece of wood of comparable quality, figure, and tone.   I also asked Ruger to return the defective stock to me after they installed the new one, and they did.  And they didn’t charge me anything to put a new stock on the rifle (it was a warranty repair).  Ruger sent photos of three stocks they had selected that were a good match for the forearm, and they allowed me to pick the one I wanted.   More good news is that I believe the stocked crack can be repaired.  I’m going to do that and maybe put it back on this rifle.  Or maybe I’ll just have it as a spare.

Tang Relief

I believe the reason the original stock cracked is that the wood around the receiver tang had not been properly fitted (there should be a little clearance to prevent the tang from acting like a wedge to split the wood).    I asked Ruger to make sure the new stock had some clearance behind the tang, and they did.  They actually went a little overboard in my opinion, but that’s preferable to having no relief.

At my request, Ruger relieved the new stock to provide clearance between the receiver’s tang and the wood.

More good news is that I now have a load that reaches into the upper stratosphere of what the .257 Weatherby cartridge can do, and it does so with high velocity and great accuracy.

The New Ruger No. 1 Stock

First, allow me to show you the new lumber on the Ruger No. 1:

The new stock on my Ruger No. 1. Notice how well the stock matches the forearm.
The left side of my new stock. It’s Circassian walnut.
And the right side. The original stock had horizontal stripes, which I wanted Ruger to duplicate. They did a good job. They showed photographs of three stocks to me; this is the one I selected.

Here are a couple more shots to show the new stock, one in the gun rack and another on my workbench when I was cleaning the rifle:

Another view of the new stock.  I love pretty wood.  I selected this No. 1 because of the wood, and when the stock cracked, I was afraid that the replacement would not be as nice.  But it was.
And one more view. The rifle on the left is an unissued, unfired 1956 M44 Polish Mosin-Nagant. The one on the right is another Ruger No. 1, this one chambered in .300 Weatherby. Ruger has in the past offered the Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby, .270 Weatherby, and .300 Weatherby, along with many other non-Weatherby chamberings.  There are still a few new .257 Weatherby Rugers out there.  They are destined to be collectibles.

A Mississippi Dave .257 Weatherby Load

I’d like to take credit for discovering the load on my own, but I can’t do that.  My good buddy Mississippi Dave, who knows more about the .257 Weatherby cartridge than anybody I know, turned me on to Barnes solid bullets and H1000 propellant powder as the keys to success with this cartridge, and he was spot on in his guidance.  Here are my results, all at 100 yards:

Those are great results, and 70.5 grains of H1000 is the load I am going to use with the Barnes bullets.  I think I could have done even better, but conditions were less than ideal when I was shooting that day.  There were a lot of guys on the range the day I was out there, including a couple of Rambo wannabees on either side of me with assault rifles and muzzle brakes shooting rapid fire.  I know that’s what caused that third group with 70.5 grains of H1000 to open up to over an inch.   I think the No. 1 could be a half-minute-of-angle rifle with this load.  And this load in my rifle (the Ruger has a 28-inch barrel, 2 inches longer than normal) is probably attaining velocities well over 3700 feet per second.  That’s smoking.

One quick additional comment on the above loads:  These are loads that work in my rifle.  Your mileage may vary.  Always consult a reloading manual when you develop a load, and always start at the bottom of the propellant range and slowly work up.  Barnes publishes their recommended reloading data, and you can go to their website to download that information.

Barnes Bullets

The high velocities mentioned above are only possible with Barnes’ solid copper bullets.  Jacketed bullets (lead core bullets shrouded in a copper jacket, which is normally how bullets are constructed) would break up in flight at these higher velocities, and for me, they did (see the earlier .257 Weatherby blogs).

The bullets Mississippi Dave recommended. And wow, they worked superbly well.
The Barnes bullets are solid copper. That’s all you can use if you hunt in California. The concern is that if you wound an animal and it later dies, it might be subsequently consumed by a California Condor, and if it had a lead bullet in it, the Condor might die of lead poisoning. I can’t make this stuff up, folks.  Our politicians really believe this could happen.

.257 Weatherby Lessons Learned

I’ve learned a lot, with help from Mississippi Dave, about reloading the .257 Weatherby cartridge.  You have to use solids (the monolithic Barnes bullets) to realize the full velocity potential of the .257 Weatherby.  The .257 Roy can be extremely accurate, and at its upper-range velocities, higher velocities means more accuracy.  Cup and core (conventional jacketed) bullets will work in the .257 Weatherby, but only at lower velocities, and if you’re going to do that, you’re not really using the .257 Roy the way it is intended to be used.  Bore cleanliness is critical on these rifles, and because of the huge powder charges and high projectile velocities, the bore fouls quickly.  When you reload for this cartridge, you not only need to full-length resize the cartridge case, you need to go in another 90 degrees on the resizing die after it contacts the shell holder in order to get the round to chamber. The best powders for this cartridge are the slow burning ones.  H1000, in particular, works well in my rifle.

Earlier .257 Weatherby Blog Posts

The .257 Weatherby sage has been a long one but it is a story with a happy ending.  If you’d like to read our earlier blogs on this magnificent cartridge, here they are:

A Real Hot Tamale
Reloading the .257 Weatherby
Taking Stock of Things
The .257 Weatherby Saga Continues

 More Cool Reloading and Gun Stuff

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Taking stock of things…

Good groups with cup-and-core copper jacketed bullets, but I had to slow things down to get the groups to shrink. What I need for this rifle to get the velocities up are solids.

Wow, I was absolutely elated with the groups I fired with the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 and when I was cleaning my rifle, I was thinking about how much I was enjoying the rifle now that I had it shooting well.   I knew it wasn’t living up to its potential yet because of the excellent inputs I had received from my new good buddy David from Mississippi, who I think is maybe the most knowledgeable guy out there about the .257 Weatherby cartridge and the Ruger No. 1.   David explained that I really needed monolithic (solid copper) bullets to reach the kinds of velocities the .257 Weatherby attains, and I ordered a couple of boxes of Barnes solids based on his advice.

I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new Barnes copper bullets when I started cleaning my No. 1, thinking about them and admiring the grain in the rifle’s Circassian walnut stock.  Then something caught my eye.  Whoa, what’s this?

The stock had cracked.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but there it was.  No, I didn’t get a photo.  But I had two small cracks, just behind the receiver, one on the top and one on the bottom of the rifle.  When you inlet and fit a stock to a rifle, you’re supposed to provide a bit of relief between the back of the tang (the rifle receiver’s rearmost structure) and the wood.   What you don’t want is the tang bearing directly on the walnut, as it can act as a wedge and crack the stock.   That’s what happened on mine.

Beautiful Circassian walnut; the best I had seen after looking at dozens of .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 rifles. But it was all for naught.

I felt sick about the stock cracking.  I had selected my .257 Weatherby No. 1  (after looking at a bunch of them) specifically based on its Circassian walnut stock and matching fore end.  Well, it is what it is, and bitching and moaning won’t make it better.  So I called Ruger’s Customer Service, they emailed a shipping label to me while we were on the phone, and I returned the rifle to Ruger.   I’m hoping they’ll find a stock that’s as nice (or nicer) than the one I had, but I’m not worried about it.  Ruger’s Customer Service is legendary, and I’m sure they’ll do good by me.  You’ll know about it as soon as I do.   And I’m eager to try the loads and new bullets my good buddy David recommended.  Stay tuned, my friends.   I’m going to explore the terrain above 3,500 feet per second with this rifle, and I’m going to produce tiny little groups doing so.  We’ll see what happens!

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The .257 Weatherby saga continues…

The Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby Magnum. It was a glorious weekend.

I have good news and I have bad news, like my old platoon sergeant used to say.   The good news is that the .257 Weatherby chambering issue that I wrote about in the last blog is in the rear view mirror.  I learned the secret handshake from RCBS tech support, as I wrote in a previous blog.  More good news is that I loaded several more combinations of propellant and charge weights (all with the Sierra 100-grain jacketed soft point bullet) and I saw a few loads that show promise.  Nothing really great yet, but better than I’d seen before I solved the chambering issue problem.  I’ll show you the results in a second or two.

Reloading .257 Weatherby Magnum Ammo

Beautiful ammo, but getting it to perform in the Ruger No. 1 has been a challenge. I’m not there yet.  These are 100-grain Sierra bullets.  Phil at Sierra told me they have driven these up to 3500 fps without bullet failure.   That’s smoking, folks!

The bad news?  Well, it goes like this.  Some of the bullets broke up in flight, and I’ve got the evidence on target that proves it.  You may recall that I wrote about that in the first blog on the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1, and at that time, I attributed it to the varmint 87-grain bullets I used for those loads.  My thought then is that they were thin-skinned varmint bullets designed to explode on impact, and pushing them at .257 Weatherby velocities (with the consequent aero heating and centrifugal forces) induced the failures.  It’s what made me step up to the 100-grain Sierra bullets, as I thought the heavier bullets might drop the muzzle velocity enough that this would not occur again.

Like I said, beautiful. But will she shoot?

.257 Weatherby Accuracy Testing

My results on the range with my new loads were a bit disappointing.  The rounds chambered okay, but the groups were nothing special and in most cases, downright discouraging. And like I said, I could see that some of the bullets were tumbling and disintegrating in flight.  Here are my results from the latest accuracy tests:

So far, IMR 4064 and H1000 propellants show promise at the lower end of the charge range. Several of these combos had bullets break up in flight. I’m searching for cause and corrective action now.

This is what it looked like on target for the best groups that experienced no inflight disintegration:

The load on the left was with 66.0 grains of H1000 propellant; the load on the right was with 52.0 grains of IMR 4064.  Both these combinations grouped about the same and experienced no bullet inflight anomalies.  That’s the good news, although tighter groups would have made it better news.

And here’s what bullet breakup/disintegration looks like on target:

Whoa, check out what’s going on here! The bullet in the photo on the left came apart in flight just as it was passing through the target. You can see a gray misting at the lower right edge of that jagged hole; that’s lead being sprayed out due to centrifugal action. Two of the five bullets in the target on the right similarly broke up as they passed through the target.

Sierra’s Inputs on Bullet Disintegration

I had such good luck calling RCBS tech support on the chambering issue that I thought I would call Sierra and talk to their engineer, and that’s what I did. I found their number easily on the Sierra website, and a minute later I was chatting with Phil, the Sierra tech guru.   Phil listened patiently as I explained what I was seeing on my targets and then he gave me his take on the situation.  He agreed that what I was seeing was clear evidence that the bullets were failing in flight.  My first concern was that the extra long Ruger barrel might be causing the breakups (it’s 28 inches, as opposed to other .257 Weatherby Magnum rifles that have 24 or 26 inch barrels).  Phil said the Ruger’s extra 2 inches would make the muzzle velocity higher, but it wasn’t enough to cause this problem.

Phil pointed me in two or three directions.  His first thought was that the barrel might have an imperfection induced either by a machining anomaly or being too dirty.   He advised me to thoroughly scrub out the barrel and then inspect it carefully.   I felt a bit uneasy (maybe guilty is a better word).  I clean my guns after every range session, but I’m not a fanatic about it.  Another thing that made this hit home for me is that in both recent range visits, I shot some of my best groups early in the sessions (while the barrel was cleaner).  That made me wonder:  Maybe there’s enough crud left in there from the prior session that after the first or second group it attracts more copper and combustion fouling and that’s what is killing accuracy.  I poked around a bit on the Internet and other folks have commented that these rifles require cleaning every 15 or 20 rounds.  Hmmm.  I typically test 50 in a single range session.  I have the barrel soaking with Butch’s bore shine as I write this blog, and there is a lot of copper fouling coming out.  I hope that’s enough to solve the problem.  If it’s an errant machining artifact, that means the rifle has to go back to Ruger, and I really don’t want to go that way.

Phil also advised me to take a look at my resizing die.   He directed me to carefully check the expander button.  It’s the part that opens the case mouth just enough to assure an interference fit with the bullet.  If the expander has a scratch or burr on it, Phil said, that will transfer to the case mouth inner diameter, and that could damage the base of the bullet.  That, too, could account for the bullets breaking up in flight.  Along these same lines, Phil recommended lightly deburring the case mouth’s inner edge.  I had done that on these loads, so I’m thinking that may not be the issue.  But I’ll do it again on the next reload.

The .257 Weatherby Mag resizing die. That thing sticking out of the bottom (on the right) is the decapper, which knocks the old primer out of the fired case.
The expander and decapping pin subassembly removed from the resizing die.
This is the expander button. It passes into the brass case on the up stroke (as the case is being returned to spec dimensions), and then expands the inside of the case mouth on the press retraction stroke. If this part had any burrs on it, it could be inducing a scratch on the inside of the case mouth. That, in turn, could damage the bullet when it is seated into the case.  I didn’t see any burrs, but who knows?  I figured I’d polish it, anyway.  There’s a lot going on in the reloading process. I used to be an engineer in the munitions industry, and I love working these kinds of challenges.
The expander button after polishing. I chucked this piece in a drill and polished it first with 600-grit sandpaper, and then with polishing compound. I could comb my hair (if I had any) in the now-mirrored surface.

So I’ve got the bore soaking with bore solvent and I’ve been working on it for about a day now. There was a lot of copper in there, and it’s still coming out a few atoms at a time (I figure the bore will be copper free by Christmas at the rate I’ve been able to remove it).  I’ve polished the expander button as you can see above.  And, I’ve resized 20 cases that I’ll reload this afternoon at the lower end of the spectrum to see if I can get tighter groups out of my .257 (those cases are in the tumbler/polisher now).  If all goes well, I’ll be back on the range in another day or two, and I’ll let you know what happens right here on the ExhaustNotes blog.  I’ve been drinking my Yoo-Hoo, so things should go better.

For our earlier .257 Weatherby blogs, click here.

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Reloading the .257 Weatherby

I’m a big time Weatherby fan, and I make no apologies for that. I met Roy Weatherby in person and I shoot and hunt with Weatherby rifles.  I believe in the company and their cartridges.  Your mileage may vary, but that won’t change my opinion.  One Weatherby chambering I always wanted but didn’t own yet was the .257 Weatherby.  It’s the fastest .25-caliber cartridge there is.  The heart wants what the heart wants, and my heart wanted a rifle chambered for the .257 Roy.

A .257 Roy Ruger No. 1

I’m also a big Ruger fan, and in particular, I’m an admirer of their No. 1 single-shot rifles.   When Ruger offered a limited run of No. 1s chambered in .257 Weatherby Magnum, for me it was a no-brainer:  I had to get one.  I found the one I wanted, it had great wood, and I pulled the trigger.

A Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby Magnum. Circassian walnut, a 28-inch barrel, and a classy falling block action. What’s not to like?

Chambering Challenges

The only problem?   This was not a marriage made in Heaven.  My Ruger did not want to chamber the ammo I had loaded for it.  I first purchased a box of .257 Weatherby brass manufactured by Hornady and loaded it in several different flavors.  Wow, was that ever disappointing.  The rounds just wouldn’t chamber easily and closing the action was difficult.  And on the ones that would allow the action to close, accuracy was dismal.   I thought I had screwed up by reloading the brass directly without running the brass through the resizing die first, so when I got home I resized the brass.  It was still tough to chamber.  I measured the brass and it seemed to me it was right at the max dimensions.  I called Hornady to complain.  They were nice.  They sent me three empty new cases.

Hornady versus Weatherby Brass

On my next trip to the components store, I picked up four boxes of new Weatherby (not Hornady) brass.  It chambered in the Ruger easily.  I loaded up some ammo and I was off to the range again.  Yep, I reasoned, it must have been that Hornady brass.  The .25-caliber bullets I used, though, were not designed for the very high velocities the .257 Weatherby attains, and they were disintegrating in flight.   Accuracy, as you might imagine, was atrocious.  Then I got busy on other things and the Ruger sat in the safe for a year.  You know how that goes…sometimes life gets in the way of having fun.

Earlier this week, I decided to load up a bunch of .257 Weatherby Magnum ammo and work on finding the secret sauce for an accurate load.  I resized all my brass (both the Weatherby and the Hornady brass), tumbled it until the stuff glistened, and then tried to chamber it.   Son of a gun, the Hornady brass still wouldn’t allow the action to close.   Damn, I thought.  I probably spent $50 for that box of brass.  I made a mental note to call Hornady and get my money back.

Then I tried the Weatherby brass that had chambered easily in the rifle when the brass was new (but was now once-fired and resized). To my great surprise, the Weatherby brass wouldn’t chamber, either.  Just like with the Hornady brass, the Ruger’s action wouldn’t close on any of the resized and polished brass (Hornady or Weatherby).

Hmmm.  What could be causing this?  I wondered if the Ruger had an undersized chamber.  That would account for both brands of brass not chambering.   That would get messy. I’d have to send the rifle back to Ruger to have the chamber recut, and hope they didn’t ding up the stock or anything else in the process.   But the Weatherby brass had initially chambered easily in the Ruger.  The rifle’s chamber hadn’t shrunk.   Maybe it wasn’t the rifle.

Then I thought maybe it was the resizing die.  Yeah, that could be it.  If the resizing die was cut too deep, the brass would be too long after resizing, and that would result exactly in what I was experiencing:  The resized brass wouldn’t chamber.   Hmmm.  Yeah, that could be it.

RCBS Tech Support to the Rescue

My next step was to call RCBS, the reloading die manufacturer.   I found the number on their website, I called and waited on the customer service line and in a few minutes I was speaking with a guy named Bill.  I explained my problem to him and my belief that the resizing die might have been cut too deep.

“We get two or three calls a day on the .257 Weatherby Magnum cartridge,” Bill said.  “Tell me how you set up your dies.”

So I did.  I explained that I ran the press ram all the way up, screwed the resizing die all the way in until it touched the shell holder, turned the resizing die just a little bit more to assure intimate contact between the die and the shell holder, and then locked everything down.

“That’s where it’s happening,”  Bill said.   “For the .257 Weatherby, when the die contacts the shell holder, withdraw the ram and turn the die in another 90 degrees.  Then lock it down.”

“Geez,” I said.   “Won’t that break the press?”

“What kind of a press are you using?” Bill asked.

“One of yours,” I answered.   “A Rockchucker.  I’ve been reloading ammo on that press for 50 years.”

“You’d have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wheaties to break that press,” Bill said.   “Trust me on this.  We hear this a lot on all the Weatherby cartridges, especially the .257 Weatherby.  And the 6.5 Creedmoor, too.  Go another 90 degrees in on the resizing die.  Call me if that doesn’t work, but I know it will.   You can’t break that press.”

So I did as Bill advised:  Intimate contact between the shell holder and the resizing die, another 90 degrees in on the resizing die, and then lock everything down.   I resized a single .257 Hornady brass case and then tried the empty case in the Ruger No. 1.   Son of a gun (to use an apt metaphor), the Ruger’s action closed effortlessly.  I tried several more cases with the same result.  Wow, now that’s real expertise and great customer service.  The boys at RCBS know their business.  As it turns out, so do the folks at Hornady. There was nothing wrong with their brass; I just didn’t know the secret handshake to resize it properly.

It’s beautiful ammo, isn’t it? With help from the RCBS customer service folks, I solved my chambering issue. I loaded 70 rounds immediately after talking to Bill at RCBS. If I were to purchase new ammo, it would cost something north of $220 for those 70 cartridges; by my reckoning, I spent about $50 on the reloading components. Reloading provides more accurate and much less expensive ammo.

That night, I loaded 70 rounds of .257 Weatherby Magnum, all with the 100-grain Sierra jacketed softpoint bullet, and I’m headed to the range later this week to test for accuracy.  I’ve got rounds loaded with IMR 4320, IMR 4064, IMR 7828SSC, and H-1000 propellant at both the low and higher ends (but not the max) of the charge spectrum.  I’ll report on what works best in a subsequent blog.

Read the first blog on the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1.  And hey, you might want to read our other Tales of the Gun stories!  Interested in other Weatherby stories specifically?  Here’s one on a Mark V in .30 06.  And another on a 7mm Weatherby and meeting Roy Weatherby!   How about a Remington 700 chambered in 7mm Weatherby?  And one more…our story on three rifles chambered in the mighty .300 Weatherby Magnum!

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