300 Weatherby cast bullets – The ExhaustNotes Blog

300 Weatherby Recipes: An Update

I’ve been on a tear the last few weeks, playing with the Mk V 300 Weatherby and developing loads for it. I developed loads with cast bullets and with jacketed bullets, and at reduced-load levels and at factory ammo levels.

The Internet weenies advise going hotter with this cartridge to get better accuracy, but I don’t want more accuracy that badly (don’t get me wrong; I like accuracy, but not at the expense of this kind of recoil). The recoil with this cartridge is severe. I shot some sub-minute-of-angle groups with the 180 grain Remington jacketed softpoint bullets. I also had a few larger groups, but I’m chalking that up to the wind and me still being a bit recoil sensitive. For me, it’s close enough to call it done.

All groups presented here were at 100 yards from my Mk V Weatherby. It has a walnut stock and a 26-inch barrel. I bought this rifle about 10 years ago but I had not shot it much until recently. I have a 4×16 Weaver on this rifle and all groups were with the scope at 16X. The scope is no longer available, but it is a good one.

This Mk V initially had a terrible trigger. It was creepy and gritty, and it was so bad it surprised me. I was thinking about spending another $200 on a Timney trigger and then a funny thing happened: The trigger suddenly and spontaneously improved. It’s about a three-pound trigger now with zero creep. Don’t ask me how or why. Maybe there was some grit in the trigger, or maybe there was a burr somewhere in the mechanism. Whatever it was, it’s gone.

I now use a Caldwell shoulder pad for the full bore stuff. It helps tremendously with recoil, but it is probably degrading my shooting position because of the unnatural stretch to get a good scope picture and cheek weld. Even with that pad, though, I still get kissed by the scope on occasion. The rifle likes to let me know who’s the boss.

The Caldwell shoulder pad really helped tame the 300 Weatherby’s recoil.

Cast bullets are okay for light loads and practicing, but to keep the groups below 3 inches, I had to use a bore brush between every group. If I didn’t bore brush it every three shots, the groups opened up. If I use a bore brush and run it through the barrel three or four times after each group I can keep my shots in the black.

After calling Hodgdon to make sure I wouldn’t blow myself up, I tried a few jacketed loads with 130 grain Hornady and 150 grain Winchester bullets and Trail Boss powder. They grouped okay. The jacketed bullets with Trail Boss were more accurate than the cast bullets, but not as good as the full bore stuff. It’s good to know, but I’ll reserve the Trail Boss for cast loads.

Hornady 130 grain jacketed soft point bullets. In my 30 06 Ruger No. 1 with IMR 4320 powder these bullets will group under an inch all day long.

Winchester 150 grain jacketed soft point bullets. These bullets shoot into a half inch from my 30 06 Winchester Model 70.

Remington 180 grain jacketed soft point bullets. These bullets shoot well in any rifle I’ve tried them in (a single-shot Browning 30 06 B78, a custom Howa 1500 30 06, a Ruger 308 GSR Scout rifle, and others). They are no longer available, which is a pity.

200 grain Sierra jacketed hollowpoint boat tail bullets my good buddy Marty gave to me.

I shot neck sized brass with the Trail Boss cast and jacketed loads because the Trail Boss loads don’t expand the case very much and it’s easier to reload if I neck size only. I don’t have to lube the cases and it goes a lot faster.

180 grain cast .309 bullets from my good buddy Roy.

The Trail Boss sweet spot with cast bullets is 20.0 grains. That’s near the bottom of the charge range. I went down to 19.5 grains and there was no improvement in group size. I went above 20.0 grains and the groups opened up. I’m a quick study. 20.0 grains. Got it.

I tried neck sizing only (instead of full length resizing) with full bore loads and I found that was not the way to go. I had a lot of cases that wouldn’t extract when I shot neck sized only full bore loads, and then I found when I neck sized a case it stuck it in the chamber even without firing (it was difficult to extract). Full bore loads have to be full length resized in my 300 Weatherby (with an extra quarter turn on the sizing die after it touches the shell holder for this rifle; that’s a trick a tech rep at Sierra turned me on to). The cases expand too much if you neck size only after firing full bore loads.

With cast bullets, crimping the bullet is necessary for better accuracy. Not crimping opened up the groups substantially. Crimping brought them back down. But that’s only with cast bullets. For jacketed bullets, the rifle doesn’t care if you crimp them or not. There’s no accuracy gains to be had with crimping jacketed bullets in my rifle.

Keeping the bore clean makes a difference (duh), and you need to get up close to make sure the bore is clean. Simply judging cleanliness by the patch coming out clean isn’t good enough. After my patches were coming out clean, I took a photo of the muzzle. I looked at it on my computer and I was shocked. Before examining the photo, I thought this was a clean barrel:

A macro photograph of the Weatherby’s muzzle after I thought it was relatively clean.

I realized I still had a lot of copper and lead streaking in the barrel and I went to work on it with Hoppes No. 9 and Butch’s Bore Shine. That reduced most of the copper, but the lead was not giving up. A bit of online research, and what do you know: Solvents (like Hoppes or Butch’s) don’t affect lead at all. I’ve been a shooter for 50 years and that was news to me. Nope, lead has to be mechanically removed. I soaked a pad with Kroil penetrating oil, ran it through the bore and let it soak for a while, and then I ran a bore brush down the barrel repeatedly. It was better, but it needed more. I repeated the process several times over the next two days and got the bore down to this:

The Weatherby muzzle after a much more stringent cleaning. Additional effort did not remove the minute streaks of remaining lead and copper.

The bore wouldn’t get any cleaner that what you see above. To the naked eye, it looks clean. But then, to the naked eye the first photo looked clean. I was probably penalizing my inspection with that macro photo. I know I could probably get it cleaner with something like JB Bore Paste, but I’m hesitant to use an abrasive in the bore.

It’s Trail Boss for cast and reduced jacketed loads, and IMR 7828 for the factory level loads.

H1000 is a powder I had not previously tried in the 300 Weatherby. That’s the Mk V behind it. Weatherby has discontinued walnut stocks on their regular production rifles; they are still available on rifles through the Weatherby Custom Shop. Nothing looks better than fancy walnut, in my opinion.

I loaded various permutations of IMR 7828 and H1000 propellants, and the Sierra 200-grain jacketed hollowpoint boat tail and Remington 180-grain jacketed soft point bullets for the factory level loads.

So how did the above combinations perform at 100 yards? Take a look:

The rifle is unquestionably capable of better results than you see above, but not with me. I’m usually not recoil shy, but this 300 Weatherby at factory ammo levels is a bit beyond what I’m willing to live with on a regular basis. A better rifleman could probably keep most of the above loads below an inch. But an inch and half is good enough for me, and several of the factory-level loads above did that. I can hunt with this rifle, and that’s what I’m going to do.

So what’s next? I found a couple of boxes of 180 grain Hornady jacketed soft point bullets, and I have a few Nosler 180 grain bullets as well. I’m going to try a few loads with them. I haven’t tried too many loads with lighter bullets, mostly because earlier results were disappointing. But I haven’t given up on the lighter bullets. I’m going to revisit a few loads with them. And I have a couple of powders I want to try as well. Bottles of powder don’t last long with a 300 Weatherby, though, when you look at kind of powder charges these cases demand. When you’re dispensing 80 grains of propellant per round, 100 rounds of 300 Weatherby consumes an entire bottle of powder. And powders (like everything else) are somewhat difficult to find these days.

Truth be told, the 300 Weatherby is specialty item, and it’s a punishing beast. It’s surprising how much of an increase in recoil there is in going from a 30 06, a 300 H&H, or a 7mm Magnum (in either Remington or Weatherby flavors) to a 300 Weatherby. But shooting the 300 Weatherby is fun in its own way. I sure enjoy mine.

If you shoot a 300 Weatherby, we’d like to hear your thoughts on the cartridge and the rifle. Please leave a comment here on the ExNotes blog.

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Cast Bullets Follow Up: The .300 Weatherby Magnum

This is a followup on the cast bullet story, focused specifically on the .300 Weatherby cartridge in a Mk V rifle.

I tried a few loads previously and I tried to get a little better results for this blog, but it seems I already had the keys to the kingdom. Here’s the bottom line first:

- I didn’t see much difference between the two bullets I tried (a 180-grain gas-checked bullet and 20.0 grains of Trail Boss, and a 210-grain Montana Bullet Works gas checked bullet with the same powder charge).
- 20.0 grains of Trail Boss works well. I tried higher charges, but they weren’t as accurate.
- Cast bullets in the .300 Weatherby won’t give you a tackdriver at 100 yards, but it will keep the holes in the black. I was averaging 2 1/2-inch groups at 100 yards with the loads mentioned above.

I experimented with two bullets, the 180-grain design mentioned above that I get from a local caster, and Montana Bullet Works 210-grain cast bullet. The Montana bullet is longer and has a more pointed tip; the 180-grain has a blunt nose. I think I showed you these photos before, but I’ll include them here again for easy reference.

180-grain cast bullets. These have a gas check and were sized to 0.309 inch.

These are the Montana Bullet Company cast 200-grain rifle bullets. These were also sized to .309 inch.

Neither bullet leaded the barrel with any of the loads I tried. The Montana bullets don’t appear to have a much of a step to crimp on like the locally-sourced 180-grain bullets. I crimped the Montana bullets just above the top grease groove. The blue lube you see north of the case mouth is just lube that had smeared above the top groove. I tried some with the loads as you see them above (with blue lube smeared above the crimp), and some where I wiped the lube clean after crimping; that had no effect on group size.

.300 Weatherby cartridges loaded with Montana 210-grain cast bullets.

The Montana bullet needed to go deep into the case neck to cover all the grease grooves. This wouldn’t be an issue for my target shooting because they are transported in a box, protected, before I shoot them. The guys that know about this stuff say if you’re going to hunt with them, you shouldn’t leave any grease grooves exposed because they can pick up grit. So I made mine like I was going to hunt with them. Someday maybe I will. There might be a pig out there with my name on it.

The cast Montana bullet base is well below the case neck when loaded.

Note that that the base of the Montana bullet is well below the neck inside the case. I thought that might cause the gas check to come off when these rounds are fired. That didn’t seem to be happening with mine and my friends who know about such things tell me that there’s more important stuff to worry about.

The data below are all for 100-yard results with 20.0 grains of Trail Boss, The Montana bullets have a slight edge, but not by much, and I’ve only tried the one load (20.0 grains of Trail Boss) with them. I had previously found 20.0 grains to be best with the 180 grain bullets.

I’ll probably vary the Trail Boss loads a bit with the Montana bullets at some point in the future.

I tried SR 4759, which has always done extremely well for me shooting cast bullets in other rifles. I tried two loads (22.0 grains, and 27.0 grains). Neither did nearly as well as the Trail Boss loads. I didn’t record the group sizes, but take my word on this: They were huge. The Lyman manual shows going up into the mid-30s (i.e., 35 grains) with SR 4759 and cast bullets in this cartridge; maybe that would be better. But I’m good enough with Trail Boss, and that’s where I’m going to hang my hat.

I have other powders I could try with cast bullets in the .300 Weatherby, but I think I have my load, and that’s 20.0 grains of Trail Boss with either 180-grain or 210-grain cast bullets. There’s not much difference between the two, and accuracy is okay at 100 yards (not great, but good enough to practice with). One more note, and that’s that I used CCI 200 primers in all loads, and I crimped all loads.

It sure is a lot easier shooting cast bullets in this rifle than it is shooting 300 Weatherby factory-level loads. It completely changes the character of the rifle and the shooting experience. Shooting 20 rounds of factory ammo off the bench in a .300 Weatherby is punishing, and unless you’re a self-styled Facebook expert, it’s time to call it a day. With cast bullet loads, though, I can go through 50 rounds and wish I had more. And the cast bullet savings are awesome. I did a little spreadsheet work to determine what a .300 Weatherby cartridge costs loaded with a cast bullet, and by my calcs, I figure I’m sending about $0.29 downrange every time I pull the trigger. A box of 20 rounds of 300 Weatherby (assuming you can find any) goes for around $80 to $100. At the high end, that’s $5.00 per round. Granted, you could knock down a T-Rex with factory ammo, but we don’t get too many of those at the West End Gun Club. I loaded 90 rounds this morning, so I guess I’m wealthy by Weatherby ammo standards.

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A Kinder, Gentler Range Session

I always liked that “kinder, gentler” line from George Bush. We don’t do politics here at ExNotes (we’d lose half our readers no matter which way we leaned), but every once in a while I’ll borrow a phrase if it fits. So, you’re looking at the big photo above showing a 300 Weatherby Magnum, a 7mm Remington Magnum Ruger No. 1, and a custom Howa 30 06, and you’re probably wondering: What is kinder and gentler about shooting those T-Rex cannons?

Cast bullets, that’s what. I started shooting cast bullets back in the 1970s in El Paso and I’ve been hooked on them ever since. I don’t cast my own these days (it’s easier to buy them), but I still enjoy the benefits. Lower cost, exclusivity (far fewer folks shoot cast bullet rifle loads), long brass life, easier cleaning, and the big one: Lower recoil.

That last one, reduced recoil, figures prominently in my mind. I’ve been beating myself up lately shooting full bore .300 Weatherby cartridges and it’s been tough. I have a box of 180-grain cast .308 bullets and I have a bottle of Trail Boss propellant and that got me to thinking: Would cast bullets work in the .300 Weatherby?

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I checked the Lyman manuals and there are cast loads listed for .300 Weatherby. I checked the Trail Boss site and it lists .300 Weatherby cast loads, too. Hmmm. I wondered how good it could be. After all, you could fit the Hollywood Bowl inside a .300 Weatherby cartridge case. There’s a lot of space in there, and not occupying it usually hurts accuracy. With jacketed bullets, the .300 Weatherby usually delivers its best accuracy at max or near-max loads. Would all that volume and the much lighter charges associated with cast bullets make an accurate load?

Trail Boss propellant. It’s shaped like flattened Cheerios and it’s a light, fluffy powder. It’s good stuff.

There’s one powder designed for cast bullet shooting that hits the cartridge case volume issue head on, and that’s Trail Boss. The Trail Boss people tell you to fill the case to the base of the bullet and that’s your max load, and if you take 70% of that, you’ll have your minimum load. My Weatherby brass took 31.3 grains of Trail Boss, but that was in a fired, unresized case, so I figured 30.0 grains would make for a good max load. 70% of that is 21.0 grains. Then I checked the Hodgdon site (they’re the folks who make Trail Boss) and it showed a range of 19.0 to 27.5 grains. That’s close enough for government work…my lower end load would be 21.5 grains, and then I’d try a warmer load with 24.5 grains. You know, to get a feel for what the Weatherby Mark V preferred. So I loaded a few rounds early one morning and I was ready to test the Mark V with cast bullets.

The .308 180-grain cast bullets I used in both the .30 06 and the .300 Weatherby. They were sized to .309.

.300 Weatherby ammo loaded with the above 180-grain cast bullets.

I already had a bunch of 7mm Remington Magnum reloads with Gardner’s 145-grain cast bullets. I had three boxes: One with 18.0 grains of Trail Boss, one with 20.0 grains, and a third with 21.4 grains. My prior reloading adventures with the 7mm Remington Magnum in my Ruger No. 1 indicated that it liked Trail Boss, but I didn’t know what the right dose would be.

7mm Remington Mag ammo with cast bullets seated to different depths, with and without crimping.

I also had a box of .30 06 ammo loaded with cast bullets. I loaded these with SR 4759 powder, a stellar cast bullet propellant. I grabbed that box and my custom Howa.

I stocked this rifle with a Bishop cherry stock about 35 years ago. It’s one of my favorite rifles. There’s a blog on it here.

I wanted to try my hand at a Mannlicher style, full length stock. I carved it to match the Alex Henry fore end tip on a Ruger No. 1. It’s a unique rifle that always gets noticed on the range.

Howa sold barreled actions to Smith and Wesson when Smith wanted to play in the rifle business maybe 40 years ago. They no longer are.

.30 06 ammo loaded with 180-grain cast bullets and SR 4759 propellant.

A comparison: .30 06, 7mm Remington Magnum, and .300 Weatherby ammunition, all loaded with cast bullets. It’s cool-looking ammo.

So how did the cast bullet rifle session go? Surprisingly well. I shot the Weatherby first, as it was the rifle that had prompted the cast bullet theme. The recoil level was low, almost like shooting a .38 Special. That was a welcome relief from the factory-level loads I had been shooting. The .300 Weatherby Mark V printed its best 50-yard group at 1.102 inches (a three-shot group), and that was with 21.5 grains of Trail Boss.

Shooting cast bullets in the .300 Weatherby was a pleasant experience. I could do this all day.

Because I was shooting at 50 yards, I needed to readjust the parallax on the Mark V’s 4-16 Weaver scope. When I did this at 100 yards, the parallax adjustment was right where Weaver had marked it for 100 yards. At 50 yards, the Weaver marking on the scope’s objective was a bit off, but that’s okay. I could move my eye around behind the scope and the crosshair movement had been appropriately minimized.

At 50 yards, the parallax adjustment was at about the 46-yard mark. I took this photo so I could return to this spot on subsequent 50-yard shooting sessions.

The Ruger No. 1 in 7mm Remington Magnum printed a 1.107-inch five-shot group at 50 yards with 18.0 grains of Trail Boss.

The Ruger No. 1 shot well with Trail Boss and cast bullets. I have more loaded with a slightly lighter load (not because of recoil, but because it appears the gun will do better with a lighter load).

And my .30 06 Howa did the best of the three, with a 0.902-inch three-shot group at 50 yards. I loaded that ammo with 24.5 grains of SR 4759. I’ve always had good accuracy with SR 4759 when shooting cast bullets.

The .30 06 group. These were with SR 4759 powder; I’ll next test with Trail Boss.

None of the cast bullet loads leaded the barrels, and that’s a good thing. Take a look (all of these photos were after shooting, but before cleaning):

The 7mm Ruger No. 1 bore after firing cast bullet loads. The bore was surprisingly clean with almost no leading.

The Howa’s bore after firing a box of cast bullets. This bore was immaculate. It appears the machining on it was better than the Weatherby and the Ruger rifles.

The Weatherby Mark V’s bore after firing cast bullets. There’s a very tiny bit of leading, but nothing significant. It cleaned up easily.

Cleaning a rifle after shooting cast bullets is much easier than cleaning after shooting jacketed bullets. I run a patch soaked with Hoppes through the bore and let it set for maybe 15 minutes to soften any lead remnants and combustion residue. After that I run a bronze bore brush through the barrel three or four times, and then I push two or three patches through the bore. That’s all it takes to get an immaculate bore. It’s much easier than removing copper fouling after firing jacketed bullets.

On the next set of cast bullet loads, I think the direction is clear. The .300 Weatherby shot better with 21.5 grains of Trail Boss than it did with 24.5; the Hodgdon online data shows the charge going as low as 19.0 grains. My next .300 Weatherby load will be with 20.0 grains of Trail Boss. The 7mm Remington Mag shot better with 18.0 grains of Trail Boss than it did with 20.0 and 21.4 grains; I think I’ll try 17.0 grains in a few to see if accuracy improves. I haven’t tried any 30 06 loads with Trail Boss yet (the loads I shot for this blog were loaded with SR 4759), so I’ll do some .30 06 Trail Boss loads for the next outing.

I was just about out of Trail Boss powder after loading more cast bullet ammo for the next session with the above three rifles, and with component availability today being what it is, that concerned me. I got lucky, though. I found a source with a 5-pound bottle of Trail Boss at a decent price and I jumped on it. I’m set for a while.

Trail Boss propellant. Good stuff and a good find.

Ready for the next range session: 7mm Remington Magnum, .300 Weatherby, and .30 06 ammo, all loaded with cast bullets and Trail Boss propellant.

I’ll move the targets to 100 yards the next time I’m out. Good buddy Paul set me up with a box of Montana Bullet Company’s 200-grain .308 cast bullets, and I’ll load a few of them to see how they do in the .30 06 and the .300 Weatherby. Montana Bullet Company’s cast bullets have done superbly well in my .35 Whelen and .416 Rigby rifles; I’m eager to see how these do in the .30 06 and .300 Weatherby.