That photo above? My good buddy JBFLA posted it on the Chinariders.net forum a few years ago along with the following comments:
I finally received Moto Baja. Another good read by Joe Berk. At 116 pages of light reading with lots of photos, it can probably be read in one sitting. It took me 3 sittings, with time spent perusing the excellent photos, and my mind wandering…imagining a ride to Baja…..and being chased by wild dogs.
Seeing that comment again got me to thinking about what the next book might be. I have the urge to write. I just have to decide about what.
My two favorite topics? Motorcycles and guns. I’m thinking about a gun book, as I’m about tapped out on riding books. Maybe a photo book featuring fancy walnut gunstocks. The problem with a photo book, though, is that it cries out for color and books printed in color get expensive fast. And expensive books don’t sell.
Fancy walnut on a .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1.
We’ve done a lot of stories on gun stuff here on the blog; maybe a collection of favorite stories with just a few photos might work as a gun book. It would be easy to put together. Another thought is a Mini 14 book. There are a few Mini 14 books out there, but none of them look interesting to me. When we blog about the Mini 14 blog we get a ton of hits. There might be a market for a Mini 14 book.
My Ruger Mini 14.
I’ve been trying to talk Gresh into writing a book. He’s got a ton of good stuff that would work well as a set of collected works. I mean, the man can make a 50-year-old air compressor story interesting. Joe is that rarest of human beings: A writer who sees things most of us miss. And Gresh can describe these things so they become visible to us (and then make us wonder how we missed what Joe makes seem obvious).
Gobi Gresh, in (of course) the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert, man!
I’ve been after Gresh to write a book for years. Help me out here, folks.
I had the 300 H&H Mags out last week, and when reloading the brass from that range session, I noticed a bright ring around some of them about a quarter inch above the belt. I did the inside-the-case check with a bent paper clip and sure enough, I could feel the sharp step of the brass thinning. Uh oh. Impending case separations. I had reloaded this brass once too often.
Case separations are caused by case stretching, which progresses each time you reload a cartridge. You can check for impending separations by examining the cases closely (you’ll see a bright ring, maybe evidence of gas escaping, or maybe even the beginnings of a crack above the case head). You can also make a tool from a paper clip to feel for a circumferential notch inside the case. That’s what I do, and I could feel the notch on these cases. They were at the end of their useful life.
I don’t know how many times I had reloaded these cases (maybe something like 3 to 5 times?), but rather than risk an impending case separation, I tossed the brass (all 50 pieces). It felt like a crime against nature, but it was necessary. I had two more boxes of 300 H&H brass (100 rounds) tucked away, so that will be the next lot that I load. I had tumbled the old brass for several hours, and maybe that was a good thing because it let me see the warning signs and the faint beginnings of circumferential cracks. Time to move on and start with fresh brass.
Evidence of a escaping gas on a fired 300 H&H Magnum case. The “belt” is the larger diameter just above the case base.A classic impending case separation. You can see that the case has already started to crack. This would separate if I loaded and fired it again.
When I started this blog, I didn’t intend for it to be another reloading tutorial, but here we are anyway. Let’s get back on the two 300 H&H Magnums. I guess to start, allow me to tell you a bit about the magnificent and classic 300 H&H cartridge. It goes back to shortly after World War I, when the venerable English firm of Holland and Holland introduced it as an African plains game cartridge. I know, I’m coming across as snooty, and to tell the truth, I’m not entirely certain what “venerable” means. But it sounds like it fits.
300 H&H reloads. I use 150 gr Winchester bullets I bought about 6 years ago. I got a good deal on those bullets and I bought about 700 or so. I should have bought more, as I can’t find them anywhere online. I think I have about 200 or 300 left. You can see a bright circumferential ring above the case base on the lower cartridge, warning that this brass was past its useful life.
The 300 H&H was the absolute hottest .30 caliber cartridge in those days, and the belted 300 H&H cartridge just looks cool. It became the basis for nearly every magnum round that followed, including nearly all the Weatherby chamberings, the 7mm Remington Magnum, and a bunch more. The 300 H&H round won the Wimbledon 1000 yard match in 1935, and in 1937 Winchester offered it as a factory chambering in their Model 70 (assuring it’s survivability well into the future). Did I mention it just looks cool, too?
So to continue the story, I had to have a 300 H&H, and because I had a Weatherby 7mm Mag that I couldn’t get to group well no matter what I tried, to me the solution was obvious: Rebarrel it in 300 H&H. Which I did. 35 years ago. I’ve been shooting it ever since. It’s the one you see in the big photo at the top of this page, and if you don’t feel like scrolling up, here’s a view from the port side:
A custom 300 H&H Weatherby Mark V. This is a magnificent rifle.The cartridge stamp on my custom barrel.
The 300 H&H Weatherby is a fabulous rifle. It has a Timney trigger my Dad put in it while I was overseas, and it breaks like glass. I enjoy owning it, reloading for it, and shooting it.
Then I picked up another 300 H&H rifle maybe 7 years ago: A Model 70 Winchester. The Model 70 in 300 H&H is not a commonly-encountered rifle, and I searched a while to find this one on Gunbroker with the fancy walnut I wanted. Trust me on this: It looks even better in person. And this one is a shooter. It deserves a better scope, but it’s still a beautiful rifle.
Sometimes people ask why I always find rifles with the nicest wood. It’s because I look for them!The Model 70 stock from the right side of the rifle. It’s unusual to see this kind of walnut on a production rifle. I recognized that when I saw the rifle on Gunbroker, and I pulled the trigger.
Anyway, one day last week was one of those days when I woke up and knew I needed to get out and shoot some 300 H&H Magnum. So I did. These are some photos from that range session. I think it was a Monday. It was cold and windy as hell with gusts up to 60 mph (that’s the bad news), but because of that I had the range to myself (that’s the good news).
I shot my standard 300 H&H load. It’s one that has done well for me in the Weatherby, and it does equally well in the Winchester. The load is 60 grains of IMR 4320, a CCI-250 large rifle magnum primer, the 150-grain Winchester jacketed soft point bullet I mentioned above, and an overall cartridge length of 3.600 inches. You won’t find this load in any of the newer reloading manuals, but I still have the manuals I used years ago, before all the latest and greatest gee-whiz propellants came out. That’s where I found this one. And wow, does it work! Check out the 100-yard groups on the targets below, and remember it was a cold and windy day when I shot these.
The inexpensive Bushnell on the Model 70 was at the end of its elevation adjustment range and the rifle still shot a little high at 100 yards. I shimmed the front of the scope up .010 inch, which should get me a foot lower on the target at 100 yards (if you do the math, each 0.005 gets you 6 inches at 100 yards). I should be in the scope’s adjustment range after shimming, but I haven’t fired it again to make sure. I’ll check it the next time I’m out there. Longer term, though, the Model 70 will get the scope it deserves (and that will be a Leupold).
Edit: I learned that the manufacturer has discontinued IMR 4320 propellant, so the bad news is that when I deplete the little bit of this wonderful powder I have left, I need to develop a new load (and I guess that’s also the good news, as it means I get to play around with developing a new accuracy load). I’ll probably start with IMR 4350, as my research indicates it’s the go to powder for .300 H&H. Nobody has 4350 in stock right now; hopefully, that will change soon.
One more update…on a subsequent trip to the range, the shims did the trick for the Model 70; the Bushnell scope can now be adjusted to put the shots right where I want them.
More fancy walnut: Check!
More accuracy loads: Check!
More gun stories: Check!
You’ll recall a recent blog where I waxed eloquent about Eleanor, my Ruger RSM .416 Rigby rifle. In that blog, I talked about reduced loads using 350-grain cast Montana bullets and 5744 and Trail Boss propellant. It was fun…the Trail Boss loads had milder recoil and “good enough” (but not stellar) accuracy. Take a look at these 50-yard targets:
The above target on the left was with 30.0 grains of Trail Boss; the one on the right was with 34.0 grains of Trail Boss. I could feel a tiny bit more recoil with the 34.0-grain load, but both were light loads with modest recoil. Weirdly, the point of impact shifted sharply to the right with the lighter load, but it moved back to the center with the 34.0-grain load (and it was slightly higher). The Trail Boss loads shot okay, but they weren’t running in the same league as the load I had shot the prior week with 5744 propellant and the same Montana Bullet Works 350-grain bullet, as you can see from the 50-yard targets below.
I could see what I was getting with the Trail Boss and I could see that it wasn’t grouping nearly as well as the 5744 loads at 50 yards, so that stopped my testing with Trail Boss (that, and the fact that I had used up all my Trail Boss cartridges).
I was curious: How would Eleanor do at 100 yards? I still had some of the 5744 loads left, so I posted a couple of 100-yard targets and let Eleanor have her way. I first fired a 3-shot group and after looking through my spotting scope, I was surprised to see how well they grouped.
I thought maybe that target was a random success, and I didn’t want to ruin it by throwing more shots at it. So I fired another 3-shot group at the second target, and then another three at that same target. That’s the one you see below.
Before all you keyboard commandos start telling me that these results are nothing special, allow me to point out that these are 100-yard groups using open sights on an elephant rifle. I’m calling it good to go. Like I said earlier, when the elephants become an invasive species here in So Cal, I’m ready. The load is 45.0 grains of 5744 (it’s the load the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook specified as the accuracy load, and they were right), the 350-grain Montana Bullet Works .416 bullet sized to .417 and crimped in the cannelure, Hornady brass, and a CCI-200 primer. I didn’t weigh each charge; I just adjusted my RCBS powder dispenser and cranked them out. If you were wondering, I use Lyman dies for this cartridge.
A bit more about Eleanor: The rifle is a Ruger 77 that the good folks from New Hampshire call an Express or RSM model (I think RSM stood for Ruger Safari Magnum). They made them in 375 H&H, 416 Rigby, and 458 Lott (kind of a magnum .458 Magnum). Ruger also made a similar one in a few of the standard calibers (7mm Mag, 30 06, and 300 Win Mag, and maybe one or two others). These rifles were a bit pricey when Ruger sold them in the late 1990s/early 2000s, but evidently not pricey enough. They were too expensive to manufacture, so Ruger stopped making them. When you see these rifles come up for sale today (which doesn’t happen very often), they command a premium. I wish I had bought one in 30 06 when they were first offered; to me, that would be the perfect rifle.
The rear sight on a Ruger RSM rifle is of the African “Express” style. The elevation adjustment consists of a fixed and two flip-up blades, and they all have a very shallow V. I guess the idea of that shallow V is that it lets you see more in case an elephant is charging. The sight has two flip up blades behind the fixed blade; as range increases, you flip up the second blade, and if it is an even longer shot, you go for the third blade. I got lucky, for me, the fixed rear sight blade is perfect with this load. I made a minor adjustment for windage, and the elevation is spot on with a 6:00 hold at both 50 yards and 100 yards.
Incidentally, that rib the rear sight sits on? It’s not a separate piece. It and the barrel were turned and milled from one solid piece of steel. It’s one of the reasons these rifles were too expensive to manufacture.
The front sight is the typical brass bead (you can sort of see it in the featured photo at the top of this blog), which I usually don’t like, but with these results I can’t complain. I’ve shot better groups with two or three other open sight rifles using jacketed bullets at 100 yards; this is the best any cast bullet has ever done for me.
Want to see the first installment of the Eleanor story? It’s right here.
Tough to get to a gunstore to buy targets? Range fees for targets too high? Do what I do and order them online. They’re delivered right to your door and they’re less expensive, too.
Need a calipers for measuring your group size? This is a great place to find great calipers at a great price.
Want to check out Montana Bullets? Here’s a link to their website. Tell them Joe sent you. Trust me on this: These are best cast bullets I’ve ever used.
I don’t name my guns. Except for one. That’s Eleanor in the photo above.
I have a thing for big bore rifles, and chambered for the mighty .416 Rigby, Eleanor certainly qualifies. We don’t have too many elephants, rhinos, or cape buffalo in southern California. But if any ever become an invasive species here in the Peoples Republik, I’m ready. I’ve read all the African hunting stories, living vicariously through the adventures of folks like Theodore Roosevelt, Peter Hathaway Capstick, and others. It’s what prompted my path toward rifles like Eleanor.
But I digress. Back to the topic du jour. Sometimes you just wake up and think to yourself: I have to to load me some .416 Rigby today.
That’s what happened to me recently. I won’t get to shoot Eleanor for a few more days, but I thought I would share a few photos of the sausage-packing process involved in prepping .416 Rigby ammo. The drill on that fine day was for a couple of reduced-velocity loads using cast bullets and Trail Boss propellant. It’s going to be a fun day at the range when I light the candle on these puppies.
Reloading is sort of like cooking. You start with a recipe and the right ingredients. In this case, that includes .416 Rigby brass (something you don’t find laying around at the range) and Trail Boss propellant (which, like most reloading components, is pure unobtanium these days).
I’m well stocked with unfired, virgin Hornady brass and I used Montana Bullet Works cast 350-grain gas check projectiles. Because I’m loading cast bullets, the first step involved flaring the case mouth. I use the Lee universal flaring tool for this. You can see its business end in the photo below.
Here’s the Lee’s flaring die and a flared case mouth.
This is what the cartridge case looks like after it has been flared. You can see the diameter opens up slightly at the case mouth. This prevents shaving lead off the bullet base as it is seated in the brass cartridge case.
The Montana Bullet Works bullets are impressive. Actually, they are beyond impressive. I think they are perfect. They look more like machined parts rather than cast parts. I loaded their 350-grain flatnose cast bullets (they are 22 Brinell hardness linotype bullets) with a gas check base (take a peek at the next photo). The blue stuff is lubricant.
I’ve fired the Montana bullets before with 5744 propellant in Eleanor and they work well, as you can see on the targets below (I order my targets from Amazon). Those were 3-shot groups at 50 yards using the same Montana 350-grain cast bullets and 45.0 grains of 5744 propellant. Eleanor is an elephant rifle with iron sights, and I’m getting groups that would work well with prairie dogs.
There’s no leading with the Montana bullets. The Lyman cast bullet reloading manual (which I believe to be the best) lists 5744 and the 350-grain cast bullet as the most accurate load in this chambering (I like the Lyman manuals better than any of the others).
The photo below shows a bullet just starting into the cartridge case. I had already seated CCI 200 primers into the cases.
Trail Boss is a reduced velocity propellant that is designed to occupy most or all of a cartridge case’s interior. It’s a light powder. The shape is unusual. The grains look like little washers.
Trail Boss is so big and fluffy my RCBS powder dispenser couldn’t throw a big enough charge with a single throw. I wanted to load these at 30 grains and 34 grains (suggested min and max with this propellant), so I set the powder dispenser to 15 grains (that’s what you see in the powder tray above) and threw two charges for each case, and then I did the same at 17 grains (again, throwing two charges for each case). According to the folks who make Trail Boss, the max load should not exceed the base of the bullet, and the minimum charge is 70% of the max charge. Here’s what a charged case with the max charge looks like.
I next seated the bullets. These cartridges are so long that you have to put the charged brass case into the shell holder, and then angle the bullet up into the die and set it back down on the case before you run the ram up. I do bullet seating and crimping in two operations. I’ll seat all the bullets to the required overall length without a crimp, and then I’ll adjust the die and run each round through again to get a good crimp. I use an old RCBS Rockchucker single-stage press I bought new in 1974. I’ve been using it ever since.
And here’s one last photo just to convey a sense of scale. From right to left, what you see below is a six-pack of .45 ACP cartridges in a moon clip ready for my 1917 revolver, a .45 70 round (I loaded some of those earlier today, too), and the .416 Rigby.
So how do these Rigby rounds shoot? I’m going to find out soon, folks, and I’ll let you know. Eleanor and I have a date at the West End Gun Club (don’t tell Sue). Stay tuned. It’s going to be fun.
It’s the .35 Whelen (not “wailin'”), but with a name like that, I had to have a little fun. I also considered “Win Some, Lose Some” for the title of this blog, but I’ll get to that in a minute. What this blog is all about is the beginning work in finding a reduced velocity load for my .35 Whelen Ruger No. 1.
Photos from the Gunbroker auction for my rifle (yeah, I saved them). The big featured photo above shows the wood with an orange tint, but that’s because I used flash for that photo. The rifle’s colors are closer to what you see here. It’s a beautiful rifle.
My .35 Whelen is the one you see in the photos above. I have a thing, you see, for Ruger No. 1 rifles. The first rifle I ever bought was a Ruger No. 1 in .30 06 when I was in the Army back in the ‘70s. I initially thought I’d wear out the barrel on my .30 06 and have it recut to .35 Whelen, but that ain’t gonna happen (I’ll never shoot that rifle enough). I have shot it a lot, though. An infantry division of jackrabbits in west Texas met their maker on account of me and my .30 06 No. 1.
Me, half a century ago with a 30 06 Ruger No. 1 and a very dead jackrabbit (one of many) in the west Texas desert. That was a 400-yard offhand shot. The older I get, the better I was.
Okay, back to the .35 Whelen: The concept of a big bore .30 06 stuck in my mind. I’d wanted a Whelen ever since I read about the cartridge. It was created by Townsend Whelen in 1922 (there’s some disagreement about whether it was Whelen or a guy he worked with, but there’s disagreement about everything on the Internet, and Townsend Whelen is the story I’m going with). Old Colonel Whelen ran a .30 06 cartridge case over a .358 expander, plunked in a .358-caliber bullet, and voila, he had created the .35 Whelen.
The .35 Whelen was strictly a wildcat from 1922 to 1988; in 1988 Remington chambered their 700 Classic rifle for it (my good buddy Jason has one and he recently took a nice buck with it). Then Ruger manufactured a limited run of No. 1 rifles in .35 Whelen maybe 5 or 6 years ago (I got mine from that run). Most of these rifles had very plain wood (both the Remingtons and the Rugers); when I saw the one featured in this blog on GunBroker, I jumped on it. The gun looks even better in person that it does in the photos (and it looks great in the photos). My mantra for many years has been that you just can’t go wrong with a Ruger No. 1 and fancy walnut. I believe these to be some of the classiest rifles ever made.
Why a reduced load? Hey, why not? I’ve got other thumpers, and if I ever hunt dinosaur, I can take my .458 Win Mag. I thought finding a way to make the Whelen work with less energetic loads would be fun. Factory-level loads are tough at both ends, and I want to have fun with this rifle. Folks say the .35 Whelen is as good a game-dropper as a .375 H&H. That may be, but it’s irrelevant to me, and besides, those kinds of energy levels come with big recoil. Finding a load that makes a thumper less of a thumper is my idea of fun. I just think the cartridge looks cool, too.
So I’ve had the Whelen a few years now, but until recently, I had never fired it. Then, for reasons I won’t go into, I no longer have a .357 Magnum handgun but I have a couple thousand 200-grain cast .357 Mag bullets. Hey, I thought…let’s see if they’ll work in the .35 Whelen. I looked online and found that other guys are doing it, my 200-grain bullets are sized at .358, and I thought it ought to work.
The Lyman cast bullet data for this bullet in the .35 Whelen.
I looked in the Lyman cast bullet book and I think the bullets I bought are the very same 200-grain Lyman bullet their cast bullet manual shows for the .35 Whelen (the profile is exactly the same). Whoa, this just might work, and it would give me something to use those big pills in.
A big heavy 357 Mag/38 Special bullet. It does well in the .357 Magnum revolver (I’ve shot 3-inch groups with this bullet in my Ruger Blackhawk at 100 yards).
I actually have .35 Whelen brass, but I wanted to make some the old-fashioned way like Townsend Whelen did. I ran 20 new .30 06 cases through the .35 Whelen sizing die to open the case mouths to .35 (from .308), I flared the mouths slightly with the Lee case mouth flaring tool (that’s so the cast bullets will start into the case mouth without shaving lead), and then the brass cases went into the tumbler. They came out looking good.
.35 Whelen brass crafted from .30 06 cases.A .30 06 case on the right, which is what the .35 Whelen cases are formed from.
I selected Unique as the propellant for this first load because I have some on hand, and because it shows the lowest velocities in the Lyman manual. I went with 15.0 grains as a starting point. My 200-grain .357 magnum cast bullets leaded the bore a little bit in my .357 Magnum Blackhawk revolver, so I was mildly concerned that they would lead the bore in my Ruger No. 1. Hold that thought, because we’re going to return to it in a second.
15.0 grains of Unique.Seating the bullets in my RCBS Rockchucker press.
My .35 Whelen cartridges looked good, and they chambered with no issues in the No. 1. I was eager to get to the range to see how they would group.
A finished .35 Whelen cartridge. It’s a handsome cartridge, I think.I loaded 20 rounds for a trial run. This is good-looking ammunition.
So how did it work? Well, that brings us to the “lose some” portion of the tentative title I mentioned at the start of this blog. You know, as in “Win Some, Lose Some,” although I don’t think any No. 1 with wood like the one you see here could be filed in the “lose some” column.
Bottom line? The cast bullet load didn’t perform well at all. The bullets didn’t tumble in flight (as would have been evidenced by their keyholing through the target), but they didn’t group worth a damn, either. I’m talking 12-inch groups at 50 yards. Hell, on a mediocre day I can shooter smaller groups at a hundred yards with a handgun. A quick look at the bore revealed the culprit: Leading. Lots and lots of leading.
A severely-leaded Ruger No. 1 barrel. The bullets I used are intended for handgun velocities. I was hoping for a miracle. It didn’t happen. Not surprisingly, accuracy was nonexistent. Good buddy Greg commented that there was probably enough lead in that barrel to cast another bullet or two.
Okay, it’s knowledge gained, and that’s not a bad thing. These handgun bullets won’t work in my No. 1. But there are cast bullets out there made specifically for rifles, and I knew where to go to get some. I like the cast bullets made by Montana Bullet Works. I called them when I got home, I had a nice conversation with Bruce (the owner), and a hundred of his bullets are on their way to me now. Bruce’s bullets are from an RCBS mold, they have a gas check, they’re hardened to 22 BHN, and they’re heat treated (to prevent breakup when hunting). Everything I’ve read about these bullets on the Internet indicates they are great, and I’ve had good experiences with Montana Bullet Works when using their bullets in a different big bore rifle. I’ll update you with a range report when I try them.
Montana Bullet Works 200-grain flatnose gas check bullets. It will be interesting to see how these perform in the .35 Whelen.
In the meantime (while I’m waiting for the Montana Bullet Works bullets), I explored the Internet and my loading manuals for more information on a reduced .35 Whelen load. I didn’t do well with the 200-grain cast .357 Mag bullets but in researching this more, I found that others have had decent results using jacketed .357 Mag bullets, and there are loads published for this in the Lyman manual. The .35 Whelen rifle bullet diameter is listed at .358 and the jacketed pistol bullets are listed at .357 (we’re talking inches here, folks), but guys on the Internet are saying they get good results with the pistol bullets. So I loaded 20 and made a quick run to the range.
Hornady 158-grain .357 Magnum jacketed flatnose pistol bullets. These grouped well in the Whelen.The Lyman manual’s data for using 158-grain .357 Magnum pistol bullets in the .35 Whelen.20 rounds of custom-made, good-looking .35 Whelen ammo.
I loaded at 24.0 grains of 5744 because I have that powder on hand and I didn’t want to dip into my stash of discontinued 4759. While I was loading these, I was a little leery about shooting .357-inch diameter bullets in a .358-inch bore. About 45 years ago in another life I tried loading .45 ACP bullets in a .458 Win Mag (I know, I was young and dumb). The difference there was too much (the pistol bullets were .451 inch and the bore diameter for a .458 Win Mag is .458). Those rounds fired okay, but accuracy was horrible. The bullet was a whopping 0.007 smaller than the bore. Here, with the .35 Whelen, I’m 0.001 smaller. Maybe it would work, I thought.
I arrived at the range in the late afternoon and set up a target at 50 yards. At the West End Gun Club, the rifle range points about 20-degrees north of due west, and what that means is that late afternoon shooting involves shooting into the sun (the sun is off to the left about 20 degrees). Everything I’ve read about the effects of lighting on bullet point of impact says that the point of impact moves in the opposite direction that light emanates from, but my experience has always been exactly the opposite. If the light is coming from the left, my point of impact is to the left, and that’s what I experienced with the Whelen.
My Ruger has a brass bead front sight (which I think is the worst kind of front sight), and it had a decided flare on the left side from the sinking sun. Sure enough, my first group was sharply offset to the left. Tight, but to the left. I shifted the sight over to the right, and my guesstimate put the point of impact dead even with the centerline of the target. I fired a 3-shot group, moved the front down a hair, and then fired a 5-shot group. All were gratifying small, given that I was shooting almost into the sun by then and using iron sights (well, brass and iron, but you know what I mean).
My 50-yard .35 Whelen target. The first group (a 0.795-inch group) was off to the left. I drifted the rear sight to the right and shot the 0.490-inch, 3-shot group. Then I moved the rear sight down a hair (or was it a hare?) and shot a 5-shot, 1.133-inch group. The top 3-shot, 2.037-inch group was with full power, 200-grain Hornady jacketed bullets.
This is looking good. I am very satisfied with the accuracy I’m getting with the reduced velocity jacketed pistol bullet groups. They’re maybe about 1500 feet per second, and that just feels right.
Then, just for giggles, I fired another 3-shot group with “real” .35 Whelen ammo, loaded with the 200-grain Hornady jacketed softpoint bullet and 52.0 grains of IMR 4320 ammo. That’s at the low end of the big bore loads in the Hornady manual, recoil was substantially higher, and as expected, the group was quite a bit higher (I had the rear sight all the way up for the reduced velocity loads). It wasn’t as tight as the pistol bullet reduced loads, but it’s the first load I tried in the big boy .35 Whelen load region. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was, by now, nearly directly even with my line of sight. I have a million excuses, folks.
The real deal…a big boy .35 Whelen load with a 200-grain Hornady bullet designed for big game rifle shooting. Recoil was more than with the reduced loads, but it was not overwhelming. I’d say it was about the same as a 30 06, but this was at the low end of the .35 Whelen propellant range. The reduced loads discussed above are more fun.
Overall, this is good stuff. At least it is to me. I’m sure there’s a clown or two on Facebook who shoots quarter-inch groups offhand in the rain at 500 yards with his .35 Whelen (it’s always a guy, never a gal, making those insane claims), but for a geezer like me shooting iron sights, this ain’t bad for the second time I’ve had this rifle on the range. You can bet there will be more.
You might be wondering: Why not just go with a full-bore, factory-equivalent load? I’m way ahead of you there. I’ve got a hundred rounds of factory-level .35 Whelen loads ready to go with 200-grain and 250-grain jacketed Hornady bullets (well, now it’s 97, as three of them went through that target you see above). Me? I’m on a quest to develop a decent reduced load for this rifle and I am making good progress. I can shoot the full bore stuff later; for now, the reduced load quest continues. I’ve got good results with the jacketed 158-grain Hornady pistol bullets; when the Montana 200-grain cast bullets arrive, I’ll let you know how they work.
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More Tales of the Gun and good reloading info are here!
I like fancy walnut. I won’t buy a gun unless it has exceptional wood and it’s in chambered in a round I already shoot (I don’t want to buy new dies and components, and with the exception of .22 Long Rifle, I only shoot what I reload). On rare occasions I’ll come across a rifle with wood so exceptional, though, that I’ll set aside my caliber rule. This is a story of one such rifle: A Kimber 84 Classic Select chambered in .257 Roberts.
The Kimber “Select” designation means the rifle has been selected for the figure in its stock, but I’d seen any number of Select Kimbers with mediocre wood. That’s not the case here, though. The two photos directly below were straight from the Gunbroker.com ad, and I’d never seen one as beautiful as the auction photos indicated.
I knew I wanted the rifle, but I was a bit skeptical because I’d talked to a guy at the range with a .257 Roberts Kimber. When I asked him how it shot, he just looked down and shook his head. “With that pencil weight barrel, it’s hard to hold 3 inches,” he said. “Good enough for deer, I guess.”
But still, that wood. When I saw those photos above online, I called the store behind the Gunbroker ad. “Is it really as nice as the pictures?” I asked.
“We were stunned when we opened the box,” the guy at the other end said, “so the answer is yes. We’ve never seen one like it.”
That cut it for me. The rifle had a “buy now” price posted on Gunbroker, and that’s what I did. The time to buy something exceptional is when you see it. I suspect if I had let the auction for the Kimber run its course, the bidding would have taken the price well north of the buy now number.
I was a little leery of the .257 Roberts cartridge having had zero experience with it, but everything I read about it was good. Ned Roberts (a gun writer and wildcat cartridge developer in the 1920s) necked down the 7mm Mauser round to .25 caliber (the actual bullet diameter is 0.257 inch). Remington added legitimacy to the cartridge by offering it in 1934. Folks say it’s perfect for hunting everything from groundhogs to deer. All that sounded great, but I remembered that guy with his .257 Bob at the gun club. I need not have worried, though. You’ll see why in a minute.
So how did the Kimber shoot? In a word, it was fantastic. How about sub-half-minute groups the first time out?
The secret sauce for the Kimber is 36.5 grains of IMR 4320 propellant under the 100-grain Sierra jacketed softpoint bullet (their No. 1620 bullet). My Lyman manual lists a propellant range for that bullet of 36.0 to 40.0 grains. I had three loads prepared that went up to 38.0 grains, but I found the 38.0-grain load too hot (the bolt was difficult to open). You should always start low and work up, and I had just proven that. Every rifle is different (even when they are identical), and 38.0 grains was too hot in my rifle. The 36.5-grain load was the Goldilocks load: It was just right.
More beautiful wood and secret sauce reloading recipes? You can read them right here!
Henry Single Shot rifles. The steel-framed ones have a conventional pistol grip stock. The brass-framed rifles have a straight grip. They are available in chamberings ranging from .223 to .45 70.
About four years ago I went to the range with my good buddy TK. TK is a cool guy and he had a rifle I didn’t know much about. It was a new .44 Magnum Henry lever action rifle with a brass receiver and, in a word, it was stunning. The brass and the bluing were highly polished, the walnut stock was highly figured, and wow, was it ever accurate. I’d seen Henry rifles before but I had never handled or fired one, and when TK let me shoot his…well, let me put it this way: Wow! TK was impressed with my marksmanship and so was I. I put five .44 slugs through a hole you could cover with a quarter, and folks, with open sights, that’s good shooting. The rifle looked, felt, handled, and shot the way a rifle should.
Just a couple of weeks ago, good buddy Greg and I were on the range again and Greg had a new toy. He had recently purchased an older Harrington and Richardson break open rifle in .223, and it was nice. Harrington and Richardson stopped making their rifles some time ago, and I always thought having one in .45 70 would be the right thing to do. But I had never gotten around to scratching that itch. Maybe it was time to do something about that, I thought.
I like the concept of break open rifle, and I love the concept of a single shot. They are just cool. You have to make every shot count, and that’s appealing to me. A Ruger No. 1 or a Ruger No. 3 single shot rifle has always been my first choice. There’s something about a single shot rifle that floats my boat.
Seeing Greg’s H&R single shot .223 got me to thinking about Henry rifles again, probably because I’d seen something on the web about Henry having introduced a new single shot. I remembered the quality of TK’s Henry, and I love the break open configuration I was seeing on Greg’s H&R. It reminded me of my very first rifle…a .177 caliber pellet gun I’ve had since I was a kid wandering the woods in New Jersey. What I had in mind was a Henry single shot rifle with a brass frame chambered in .45 70 (one of the world’s all-time great cartridges). Throw in some fancy walnut, and it would be perfect. It would be just what the doctor ordered.
One of the artisan’s at the Henry plant handling a .45 70 single shot rifle. Check out the walnut!
Hmmmm. Brass. Walnut. .45 70. The wheels were turning, and that prompted a visit to Henry’s website. What’s this? A contact form? Hmmmm again. Would it be possible to get a Henry Single Shot in .45 70, brass framed, with hand-selected walnut? Well, it seems the Henry folks had checked out our ExNotes gun page, and the answer was swift: Yep, they could help me on this.
So, to make a long story a little less long, I’ve been corresponding with Henry USA and I bought one of their brass frame single shot rifles. The good folks at Henry assured me it will have nice walnut. I’m talking to the Henry marketing director to learn a little more about the company tomorrow and I’ll be posting a blog about that in the near future. I’ll soon have a new Henry rifle in the ExNotes armory, and you can bet I’m going to have lots to say about it.
Stay tuned, folks. You’ll read all about it right here.
Sometime in the late 1970s, when I was an engineer on the F-16 program at General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas, I visited a company called National Water Lift somewhere in the Great Lakes area. What we bought from NWL had nothing to do with water (they made the F-16’s hydraulic accumulators). It’s a lead into this story, which is about my Browning B78 rifle. You see, every time I had to visit one of these distant places on my business travels, it was an opportunity to check out the gun shops in the area. Which I did, and the one that stuck in my mind had a Browning B78.
The Browning B78 Rifle
The B78 was a competitor to Ruger’s No. 1 single-shot rifle, and the design was basically a resurrection of the old Winchester High Wall. Ruger did surprisingly well with the No. 1 back in the 1970s (the idea of a single-shot rifle was intriguing to me and many others), and I guess Browning wanted in on the action (pardon the pun).
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Rugers outsold Brownings probably 10 to 1 (or more) in those days because they were less expensive and Ruger’s marketing was better. But the Browning was (and still is) a very elegant rifle. I saw one at that store (I want to say it was in Kalamazoo, Michigan, but I can’t remember for sure), and it was nice. It was a 30 06 and it had an octagonal barrel, which was all very appealing. But the Browning was a good $100 more than the Ruger and in the 1970s, that kind of money was out of my reach.
Good Deals on Gunbroker
Fast forward 40 years, the Great Recession was upon us, and all kinds of exotic and collectible rifles were popping up on Gunbroker.com (a firearms auction site). I saw what appeared to be a nice B78 on Gunbroker, with an octagonal barrel, in God’s caliber (that would be .30 06), and I pounced. I paid too much, but we never say it that way. I bought too soon. Yeah, that works. I just bought too soon.
A earlier photo from one of my first range trips with the Browning B78. .30 06, one shot, great walnut, an octagonal barrel…this rifle is elegant.The B78 is sharp from either side. That’s a Weaver 2×7 scope, and it gets the job done.
After I bought the B78, I wanted to put a period-correct scope on it (you know, from the 1970s) and I found a nice Weaver 2×7 on another auction site. Weavers are good scopes and the ones from the 1970s were blued steel and made in America. It was just what the doctor ordered, and it looks right at home on my B78.
My B78 is used, and it’s got a few nicks and dings on it. But the metal work is perfect, and the walnut is (in my opinion) exhibition grade. Take a look, and you tell me.
Good wood. This is exhibition grade walnut……and it has fine figure on both sides.
Preferred B78 .30 06 Jacketed Loads
I’ve owned the B78 for about 10 years now, and it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve never seen another B78 on the rifle range, and I’ve certainly never seen one with an octagonal barrel. It’s just a cool firearm. But it is finicky. It likes heavier bullets and with the right load it’s accurate, but getting there took a lot of experimenting, a little bit of forearm re-bedding, and a lot of load development. I’ve got two loads that do very well in it…one is a heavy-duty jacketed load, and the other is a cast bullet light load. The heavy load is with a 180 grain Remington jacketed softpoint and a max load of 4064 (I’ve shot three-quarter-inch groups with this load at 100 yards). That load has big recoil, but it’s tolerable. I tried 180 grain Nosler bullets (that’s a premium bullet), but the rifle does way better with the less-expensive Remington bullets. That’s a good thing, because I found a good deal on 900 of those bullets and they have a home on my reloading bench now.
A Preferred B78 Cast Load
My cast bullet load is a short-range low power load, and it’s recoil is almost nonexistent compared to the jacketed load. It’s a 180 grain cast lead bullet (with a gas check) and 17.0 grains of Trail Boss power. After zeroing the Browning for the jacketed bullet load mentioned above at 100 yards, I had to crank the scope up a cool 85 clicks to bring the cast bullets back on paper at 50 yards (I was surprised there was that much adjustment in the scope). But wow, those cast bullets at 50 yards cloverleafed consistently. It was essentially putting them through the same ragged hole. At 100 yards, getting the cast bullet load back to point of aim involved another 25 clicks of elevation on the Weaver, and again, I was surprised there was that much in the scope. At 100 yards, the cast load groups opened up to about 2 ½ inches, and that’s still okay. What’s nice is I can shoot the cast bullet load all day long. The barrel doesn’t heat up and the recoil is trivial. As you might imagine with a load like this and the gas-checked bullets, there was virtually no leading.
When I go for deer later this year, it’s going to be with this rifle. One shot. I think that’s all I’ll need. We’ll see.
The word “wow” might have been invented in anticipation of the .300 Weatherby Magnum. It’s that impressive. I’ve owned and fired a lot of different cartridges over the years, and the one that I find the most interesting, the most intimidating, and the most coolest ever is the .300 Weatherby. For a lot of years it was the most powerful .308-caliber cartridge on the planet. Roy Weatherby, my personal hero, created the cartridge in 1944 and it’s only been in the last few years that two or three more powerful .30-bore cartridges emerged, but these new .30-caliber cartridges are overkill. In fact, I could make a good argument that the .300 Weatherby is overkill. But I won’t. I love the round and I love the fact that it scares me a little every time I shoot it.
A sense of scale. From left to right, it’s the .22 Long Rifle, the .45 ACP, the .223 Remington (essentially, our M-16 round), the .30-30 Winchester (America’s premier deer cartridge), the mighty .30-06, and the last two are .300 Weatherby Magnum cartridges. Every cartridge shown here (with the exception of the .22 Long Rifle) is a reloaded round.
The first rifle I ever bought chambered for the .300 Weatherby, oddly enough, was not a Weatherby. It was a Winchester Model 70 that I bought maybe 35 years ago. It was a limited production item and that might have been a good reason to buy it, but the thing that grabbed my attention on this particular rifle was the walnut. You just don’t see factory Model 70s with fancy walnut, but this one had it in spades.
A 1980s Model 70 Winchester in .300 Weatherby Magnum, wearing a Weaver T-10 telescopic sight.The right side of the .300 Weatherby Model 70.Ah, that beautiful walnut. It’s not often lumber like this appears on a Winchester.Both sides, too! When I saw this rifle I was still in my 30s. I really couldn’t afford it, but I couldn’t afford to let it get away, either.
I think I paid just over $400 for that rifle back in the 1980s, which is what they were going for then. I had a Weaver T10 target scope I had used when shooting metallic silhouette and it went on the Model 70. It’s most definitely not the scope for a .300 Weatherby, but it’s what I had at the time. The scope is a collectible item all by itself…it’s steel and it was manufactured when Weaver made their scopes in El Paso.
So that’s the first rifle in this trio of .300s. The next is one I bought exactly 10 years ago, in 2009, at the height of the Great Recession. I was lucky in 2009…I was working, and lots of folks were selling things to raise cash, including more than a few gun stores. An outfit called Lock, Stock, and Barrel advertised a new-in-the-box Mark V Euromark on Gunbroker, and I was on that in a New York minute. The store was in the upper Midwest somewhere and they stated in their ad they would not sell to California (our state commissars make life difficult in a lot of ways, and more than a few sellers simply won’t ship to California). But I wanted that Euromark something fierce (the Euromark is a Mark V Weatherby with a satin oil finish, rather than the Mark V’s usual high gloss urethane finish). I called the guy, did my “woe is me” routine, and he agreed to ship the rifle to my FFL-holder here in the Peoples’ Republik.
Saw it on Gunbroker, saw the wood, and I couldn’t say no.It was nice on both sides, too. Rosewood accents, beautiful walnut, and the mighty .300 Weatherby Magnum in a Mark V. What’s not to like?
I bought a new Weaver 4×16 scope, put it on the rifle, and then I put the Mark V in the safe. It stayed there for 10 years. I fired it for the first time this weekend, for this blog.
You know, the funny thing is my good buddy Marty saw the Weatherby before I put it in the safe and he decided he needed one, too. He tried calling Lock, Stock, and Barrel a week after I received mine, but they had already gone out of business. The Great Recession was rough. My grabbing that rifle was a lucky break.
These photos impart a bit of an orange hue to the Mark V’s stock. It’s really a bit more subdued.Like the Model 70, this Mark V is pretty on both sides. The stock profile is the classic Weatherby Monte Carlo look, which actually works very well in reducing felt recoil.Unlike the other Deluxe Mark V rifles, the Euromark has a classic, low-sheen satin finish. It works well with the rosewood accents.It was sunny when I was on the range this weekend. I get better photos when it’s overcast, but you get the idea. The 4×16 Weaver on this rifle is a magnificent optic.
The last .300 Weatherby I’m going to talk about today is my Vanguard. It’s one of the original series Weatherby Vanguards, and it has what we tongue-in-cheek refer to as the Tupperware stock. I’ve written about this rifle on the ExNotes blog before. I wasn’t looking for a Vanguard when I bought this one, but I saw it at the Gunrunner gun shop in Duarte, the price was right, and, well, you know how these things go. It came home with me.
My Series 1 Weatherby Vanguard with the plastic stock. It’s accurate. And it’s hard-hitting (on both ends).A view from the port side. You can see the profile similarity between the Vanguard’s composite stock and the Mark V’s walnut stock above.The Vanguard came from the factory with a Bushnell 3×9 scope. It needs more eye relief. Before I go into the field with this rifle, I’m going to replace the scope.
The deal on the Vanguard rifles is that Weatherby wanted to bring a lower cost rifle to market without cheapening their flagship Mark V, and they contracted with Howa of Japan to build the Vanguards. The principal difference is that the Vanguard has a 90-degree bolt lift compared to the Mark V’s 54-degree bolt lift, and the Mark V sells for about $1400 more than a Vanguard. I’m here to tell you that the Vanguard is an outstanding rifle, every bit as good as the Mark V, and in many cases, more accurate.
So how do these three puppies shoot?
Like I said at the beginning of this blog, the .300 Weatherby is intimidating. I like to think I’m not recoil sensitive, but the .300 Weatherby is right on the edge of what I think I can handle shooting from the bench. It’s not an easy rifle to shoot for accuracy. To get the best groups from any rifle, I like to minimize contact with the rifle. I let the rifle lay in the benchrest, lightly hold the fore end with my fingers, barely touch my cheek against the stock, move my head to an appropriate position to get a full image through the scope, and just touch the recoil pad with my shoulder. The idea is that I don’t want to exert any force on the rifle, as that can move the rounds around on the target, and I’m shooting for the tightest group. That works with rifles that have light to moderate recoil, say, up to the .30 06 level. Try that with a .300 Weatherby, though, and you’re going to get popped in the face by the scope when you drop the hammer. Really. Trust me on this; I know. Nope, when you shoot the .300 Weatherby from the bench, you need a solid grip on the rifle, and you need to pull it firmly into your shoulder. It’s a little harder to get tight groups doing that. But it’s easier than getting smacked by the scope.
Before I get into the accuracy results, I’ll share my impressions of the three rifles based on trigger pull, felt recoil, fit, and optics.
The Mark V has the best trigger. I broke cleanly at about 3 lbs, and it made shooting the rifle easier. I guess that’s to be expected with a rifle that has a price tag like the Mark V (these things ain’t cheap). The Model 70 had a crisp (no creep) trigger, but it was heavy. That made it a little harder to shoot well, especially when shooting it right after I shot the Mark V (I got spoiled; it’s pretty hard to follow the Mark V act). The Vanguard trigger had a bit of creep in it, and it was about as heavy as the Winchester’s trigger, which is to say both the Vanguard and the Winchester triggers were heavier than the Mark V’s trigger.
The Mark V is a clear winner from a felt recoil perspective. There are several reasons for this. One is that it is the heaviest of the three rifles, with its dense walnut stock and 26-inch barrel. Another is the Weatherby stock profile. Folks make fun of it, but it works. When the gun recoils, it draws away from your cheek, and the perception is that it has less recoil. Another factor is Mark V’s recoil pad. And the last one is the Weaver 4×16 scope’s eye relief. Head position isn’t critical, and you’re far enough back from the scope that it doesn’t hit you in recoil. Don’t get me wrong: The Mark V still packs a wallop. It’s just easier to shoot than the other two. The Winchester Model 70 was a close second, most likely because it also has a real stock (read: walnut), but it’s thinner recoil pad made it slightly more punishing than the Mark V. Third place from the felt recoil perspective was the Vanguard. It has a big recoil pad like the Mark V, but the plastic stock and 24-inch barrel make the gun lighter, and like we say in the engineering biz, f still equals ma. Also, the Vanguard’s low end Bushnell Banner scope does not have generous eye relief, and I got smacked a couple of times. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to get my attention.
I’ve already started talking about scopes, so let me continue that discussion. The Weaver 4×16 I purchased for the Mark V is a killer scope. It’s incredibly bright, crisp, and clear. In fact, it’s so good I didn’t realize I had it turned down to 4X for the first couple of groups I fired. Eye relief on this scope is generous enough for a bucking bronc like the .300 Weatherby. It’s the clear winner.
The Weaver T-10 on the Model 70 was out of its element. It’s a target scope. Eye relief was good enough, but alignment and distance were hypercritical; move just a little too far forward or backward, or left or right, and you’ve lost the image. I like the scope (I’ve owned it for over 40 years), but it’s in the wrong place on a hunting rifle.
The Vanguard’s Bushnell Banner…what can I say? Maybe this: Halitosis is better than no breath at all. I played around with the focus adjustment, but the Bushnell just isn’t as clear or crisp as either of the Weavers. That said, it’s considerably less expensive than the other two scopes. When I bought the Vanguard, it was essentially in as new condition, and the Bushnell was part of a factory package (it came with the rifle). If I was do it over, I’d get the Weaver 4×16, or maybe a Leupold, for this rifle. I may do that anyway. I know this is heresy, but I actually think the Weaver has a crisper image than a Leupold scope.
Of the three rifles, the Mark V fits me best, with the Vanguard a close second. I like the Weatherby profile. It just works for me. If I had to choose one of these three rifles for a hunting trip in the mountains (and I do, as I’m chasing deer with good buddy J later this year in Idaho), it would definitely be the Vanguard. It’s lighter, and that counts on a hunt like the one I’m headed into. Yeah, I know…a .300 Weatherby is a bit much for deer. You take what you want when you hunt. I’m taking my .300.
Okay, so the big question emerges: How about accuracy?
I almost didn’t include this. I did a bit of accuracy testing, but my advice is to take my results with a grain of salt. A big grain. Maybe a barrel of salt. I hadn’t been on the rifle range in a month or two, and firing 50 or 60 rounds of .300 Weatherby Magnum ammo in one sitting is not the best way to do this kind of shooting. Stated differently, I was not really giving these rifles a fair shake in this test. The first few groups you see below are me getting settled in, and the last few groups you see below are more likely than not me deteriorating after getting smacked around all morning. These rifles are better than what the results below indicate.
That said, here we go. All groups you see in the chart below were 3-shot groups at 100 yards from the bench. There was no wind, it was a bit warm, and conditions were about ideal.
The loads. Don’t take my word for this stuff; get thee to a load manual, study it, and do your own testing. Start low and work up.
I knew from past dealings that IMR 7828 propellant is good stuff in the big magnums, and I think that my 76.5 grain load with the 180-grain Remington jacketed softpoint bullet is a great load. I was a bit off on the first group I fired with this load (two shots were touching; the third was a flyer most likely induced by me) and then the other two groups with this load were at minute of angle. I could do better if I shot this rifle more (yeah, that’s another factor; this was the first time I had this rifle out and the barrel is not broken in yet). This is not a max load (I could go hotter) and the group size was smaller with the warmer of the two loads I tried with 7828 and the Remington 180-grain bullets. That suggests an even warmer charge of 7828 under this bullet is where greater accuracy lives, but I just don’t feel a need to go there. No animal on the planet would be able to tell the difference from an energy-on-target perspective and minute-of-angle accuracy is close enough for government work (especially for the game I plan to hunt). Dead is dead. There’s no sense getting beat up by more recoil to make an animal more dead.
The 80 grains of 7828 with the 165-grain Hornady bullet I show in the table above is near a max load, and I think it’s obvious I was losing my edge toward the end of this range session. I shot a 0.507-inch group at 100 yards with that same load in the Vanguard a couple of years ago; I just couldn’t duplicate it near the end of my range session this past weekend.
Yeah, this dog will hunt.
The difference between a cup of coffee and my advice is you might have asked for a cup of coffee, but I’ll give you my advice anyway. If I was going to get one rifle in .300 Weatherby, I’d get the basic model Vanguard with a walnut stock, and I’d put either a Weaver 4×16 or a Leupold scope on it. You’d be getting the Vanguard’s accuracy, with the walnut stock you’d get a little added weight to soak up the recoil, and you’d save a cool $1400 over the Mark V. I think the Weatherby Vanguard is the best rifle value on the market today. Shop around on Gunbroker.com for a bit and you can find new walnut Vanguards for about $600. That’s a phenomenal deal and owning a Weatherby will make you thinner, taller, and better looking. It will make you a better man. Trust me on this.
One last comment: The results you see above regarding different loads are my loads in my rifles. Your mileage may vary. Consult a load manual, and always work up your own loads starting at the low end of the manual’s recommended propellant charges.
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below, and remember it was a cold and windy day when I shot these.
