Ruger Customer Service

The Bisley Revisited

By Joe Berk

One thing about Ruger: Nobody can top their customer service. Ruger may not explicitly state their firearms come with a lifetime warranty, but in effect, they do.

You may remember my story on the Ruger Bisley I won in a Rock Island Auction (I wrote about it several months ago). I had wanted a .357 Magnum Bisley for its heavy construction and longer barrel and, truth be told, I was surprised that my bid prevailed. When I won the Rock Island Auction, I ponied up all the nutty fees that come with such an undertaking (they are significant), and then when I received the Bisley I was disappointed. It wasn’t particularly accurate (the group sizes were mediocre), and it shot so far to the left the rear sight had to be adjusted all the way to the right to get the shots on paper.

I figured I was kind of stuck with the Bisley and my initial thought was I’d look at the gun for a while, stick it in the safe, and then maybe sell it somewhere down the line. But it bothered me. Owning a firearm that doesn’t meet my expectations doesn’t set easy. If there’s such a thing as having an obsessive-compulsive disorder with firearms that are less than perfect, I’d make for a good clinical study.

I wrote to Ruger and told them what I wanted, which was an accurate Bisley that didn’t shoot to the left. I told them the revolver left their plant in 1986, so I was more than willing to pay whatever it took to make me happy. I also mentioned that I wanted to buy new grip frame screws and a new ejector rod shroud (cosmetically, they looked beat up). And finally, I mentioned that extraction was difficult with hotter loads. I asked the Ruger folks to hone the chamber walls so the fired cases would extract easily.

Ruger charged me $45 for a Fedex mailer (which they emailed to me), told me how to package my revolver (a plain brown box, with nothing on the outside to indicate its contents), and advised it could be 4 to 6 weeks before I saw the gun again. Four days later, it was on its way back to me, with no additional charges other than the initial $45 I paid for the Fedex mailer.

The rear sight, approximately centered. This is way better than what it was when I returned the Ruger.

Ruger honed the chamber walls to prevent sticky extraction. The gun extracts flawlessly.

Ruger mentioned in the paperwork returned with the gun that they retorqued the barrel, installed a new ejector shroud, honed the chambers, replaced all the grip screws, test fired it, and sent it home. The first thing I looked at was the rear sight. Comfortingly, it was a lot closer to being centered than it was when I sent the gun to them.

So how did it do?

Yessiree, that’s what I’m talking about!

Just fine, thanks. The day I received it, I hopped in the Subie, motored over to my indoor range, and fired three different .357 loads at 10 meters. Now, I know 10 meters is only 30 feet, but I wanted to get an idea how the revolver was working. One load was a relatively mild Bullseye-powered concoction with cast 158-grain bullets, another was a gonzo 158-grain Hornady jacketed bullet load with a max charge of Unique, and the third was an even more energetic load with the same 158-grain jacketed hollow point Hornady bullet and a max load of Winchester 296 propellant. On that indoor range, even with my Walker electronic earmuffs, the concussion of the big Bisley and its full throated .357 loads was starting to give me a headache. But the targets? Oh, boy…the Bisley and I were back in business. I ran another target out to 50 feet (the longest range available at the indoor range), and that group was just as good as the ones at 30 feet.

Winchester’s 296, Unique, a finished .357 Magnum cartridge, the 158-grain Hornady XTP bullet, and the 180-grain Hornady XTP bullet.

A macro shot of the Hornady 159-grain and 180-grain XTP bullets. Viewed from outside the cartridge case, the bullets appear identical. The difference is in their length below the cannelure.

A couple of loaded .357 Magnum cartridges. I’ve always liked the .357 Magnum cartridge.

The day after that, I took the Bisley to our Wednesday morning Geezer get-together at the West End Gun Club. I had three things in mind: I wanted to show off a bit to my friends, I wanted to chronograph the two balls-out .357 loads I mentioned above, and I wanted to see how the revolver would do at 100 yards. Yes, you read that right: 100 yards.

100 yards with the Bisley. The first 30 shots or so were with the Unique load. When i switched over to the 296 load, the group tightened. Next time I’m out I’ll try the 180-grain bullets with 296 and dial in a little windage.

My buddy Kevin spotted for me with his spotting scope, and he was amazed with the first load (8.0 grains of Unique and the 158-grain Hornady jacketed hollow points). Kevin gave a hearty “whoa!” and I suspected things were looking good.

Kevin said several of the shots (after I had warmed up a bit and got into my long-range groove) grouped like I was shooting a rifle. I sure didn’t mind hearing that. I checked the chronograph and the velocities were respectable, too. The bullets were hitting to the left a bit, but I had room to adjust the rear sight to bring that in. And where a gun prints on target is a function of how it is held. I wasn’t consistent with the Bisley yet (I actually haven’t shot it that much).

The 158-grain Hornady bullet with 8.0 grains of Unique. It’s a max load and velocities were respectable, but not like what I attained with Winchester 295.

Then I switched to the heavier-duty 296 load (with the same Hornady XTP bullet), and wowee, I was keeping them in the black on that same 100-yard rifle target. And those loads were smoking hot. Winchester;s 296 propellant is good stuff. Check this out.

Whoa, baby! 1500 fps plus! 296 is a dynamite powder in the .357 Magnum.

All the cartridge cases extracted easily and even with the 1500 feet per second 296 load above, there were no pressure signs (other than a hellacious muzzle blast). As mentioned above, Ruger honed the chambers for me and the prior extraction issues had evaporated.

With replacement of the grip frame screws and the ejector shroud, the Bisley looks like a new revolver. And other than me paying for the initial shipping to Ruger, it was all on the house (Ruger’s house, that is). Bear in mind what I said earlier in this blog: The Bisley, purchased used, is a 38-year-old revolver.

The Bisley went from being a regret to a gun I’m excited about owning. You probably know that Ruger also made these guns in other chamberings, to include .44 Magnum and .45 Colt, and you might be wondering why I wanted the .357 Magnum. Back in the 1970s when I was a handgun metallic silhouette shooter, I competed with a .357 Magnum and I was a rarity. While everyone else was shooting a .44 Magnum or a .45 Colt, or custom-built bolt-action handguns shooting what were essentially rifle cartridges, I was one of the very few people (in fact, the only one I knew of) who shot a .357 Magnum in that game. With the right loads, the .357 would topple the 200-meter rams (the toughest target to knock over) more reliably than either the .44 Magnum or the .45 Colt, so there was a certain coolness (and a bit of smugness) on my part associated with that. The other reason is weight. When Ruger chambers different cartridges in the same firearm, the gun’s external dimensions remain the same, so the .357 Magnum Bisley weighs more than the .44 Magnum or the .45 Colt versions. More weight means the gun holds steadier and that means greater accuracy.

What’s next for this revolver is working up a load with Hornady’s 180-grain jacketed hollow point bullet and 296 powder and getting the sights dialed in at 50, 100, 150, and 200 yards (the four stages of a handgun metallic silhouette competition). When I used to compete in metallic silhouette competition, I used a cast 200-grain bullet, but nobody makes that bullet commercially. Well, almost nobody. I previously found a guy who sold a 200-grain bullet for the .357, but his bullets leaded terribly and accuracy fell off after the first three or four rounds (and cleaning the bore was a pain). If I can get the 180-grain jacketed bullets to group well, I think the metallic silhouette rams at 200 yards won’t know the difference between a 200-grain cast bullet and a 180-grain jacketed bullet, and I may get back in the game. We’ll see.

That term: Balls out. You might think it’s a crude anatomical and testicular reference, but it’s not. Engine governors used to use lever-suspended rotating metal balls that moved further away from their axis of rotation as rpm increased. When the engine speed reached a preset maximum value allowed by the governor, the centrifugal outward movement of the balls operated a lever that prohibit engine speed from going any higher. At that point, the engine was running “balls out.”

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A Tale of Two Rugers

By Joe Berk

Rifles, that is…two Ruger rifles. I’ve written about them before, but it’s been a while since I shot either one and with the stream crossing to the West End Gun Club almost manageable these days (more on that later), I thought I would take them out to the 100-yard range. I shoot handguns regularly (at least a couple of times a week) on the indoor 50-foot pistol range closer to home, but there are times when the high-powered-rifle-on-a-football-field-length-range itch needs to be scratched.

The two Ruger rifles in this article are two of my favorites: A Davidson’s Circassian-stocked Mini 14 (the one in the photo above) and the Ruger GSR (GSR stands for Gunsite Scout Rifle). The Davidson’s Mini 14 1was a 2009 offering with (as the name implies) a Circassian walnut stock. Back then the Circassian Mini’s $700 price seemed high, but I’ve been at this for a while and I know that when a gun’s price seems high it only means I’m buying too soon. The price will always catch up with the calendar, and that’s certainly been the case with this rifle. It originally came with two 30-round mags and a flash suppressor. California being what it is meant I couldn’t own the rifle as Ruger built it. I had to leave the 30-round mags with the out-of-state dealer, and because of the flash suppressor, it had to ship to the Class III dealer here in La La Land.

Circassian walnut from the port side. It sure looks good.

The California-legal muzzle brake. I wonder what the California legislators were smoking when they passed that law.

The California Class III dealer replaced the flash suppressor with a muzzle brake (which I think looks even more intimidating and I had to buy a 10-round La-La-Land-legal magazine for my Mini.

Circassian walnut from starboard side. This is the fanciest Mini 14 I’ve ever seen.

You might be wondering: Where can I get a Mini with a stock like this one?
The short answer is: You can’t. I watched the gun sale websites for months looking for a Davidson’s Circassian Mini 14 until I found one with nice wood (most had straight-grained, broomstick grade wood). When I saw the one you see here, I pounded (and I’m glad I did). You just don’t see Mini 14 rifles with wood like this one. It’s all mostly black plastic stuff on the range these days, which is almost a crime against nature.

The Techsites rear sight on my Mini 14. It has a slightly smaller aperture and better adjustability than the stock Mini 14 rear site.

I’ve done a few mods to my Mini 14 to improve its accuracy, and I’ve detailed this in prior blogs (I’ve provide a link at the end of this article). The Reader’s Digest version is I’ve added a Techsites rear aperture sight to replace the Ruger sight, I’ve glass-bedded the action, and I’ve done a fair amount of experimentation to find the right load.

So how does the Circassian Mini 14 shoot? It does very well. I grabbed two loads: A full metal jacketed load with Hornady’s 62-grain bullet, and another with Hornady’s 55-grain V-Max bullets. You can see the results below.

A bunch of shots at 100 yards with one of my favorite loads: The 62-grain Hornady full metal jacket boattail bullet and 25.0 grains of XBR 8208 propellant. This ammo was necked sized only, which usually is more accurate in my Mini 14. I held at 6:00 on all targets shown here.

Another 100-yard Mini 14 target with two different loads, both using the 55-grain Hornady VMax bullet and 24.5 grains of ARComp propellant. The very tight 5-shot group was shot with bullets that were not crimped. The larger group was the same load, but the bullets were crimped. Surprisingly, both loads were full length resized. As mentioned in the photo above, neck-sizing usually provides better accuracy in this rifle.

The second rifle in this Tale of Two Rugers story is the Ruger GSR in .308 Winchester. This is an amazing (and amazingly accurate) rifle, but it didn’t start out that way.

How I purchased this rifle is kind of a funny story. I had oral surgery to start the process of installing two fake teeth, and the doc knocked me out with anesthetics. They warned me I would be in no shape to drive home, so good buddy Jim Wile volunteered to do the driving. Jim’s gone on to his reward (RIP, Jim). On the ride home, in a drugged but conscious state, I told Jim about this new GSR rifle Ruger had introduced, and we somehow managed to convince ourselves we each needed one. They say you should not buy guns when you’re under the influence. Like Hunter Biden, though, I didn’t heed that advice and Jim followed my lead.

The Ruger GSR on the range at the West End Gun Club.

The GSR is Ruger’s interpretation of the Scout rifle concept first put forth by a gun writer named Jeff Cooper. Cooper’s concept was a short-barreled rifle that would hold a scope in a forward location and make for a sort of do-anything long gun. Steyr built the first commercially available Cooper-inspired Scout rifle, and then about a decade later Ruger followed suit. Mossberg has one now, too (good buddy Johnny G has one). The Steyr is crazy expensive, the Ruger started out at a reasonable price but has since gone kind of crazy (along with everything else), and (in my opinion) the Mossberg is the best value (it’s a fine rifle and one I’ll probably own some day).

The left side of the Ruger GSR. Note the laminated stock, which provides a very stable bed for the barreled action.

The Ruger’s aperture rear sight. It’s similar to the original Mini 14 site. Techsites doesn’t offer a replacement rear site for the GSR; if they did, I would have a Techsites rear sight on this rifle.

The Ruger GSR flash suppressor. It’s the same type that originally came on the Mini 14. On a bolt action rifle, it’s legal in Calilornia; on a semi-auto, it is not.

When I first took delivery of the GSR, it was a real disappointment. As had been the case with half the guns I bought in the last couple of decades, it had to go back to the manufacturer. The problem was that the rifle printed way to the right, and there wasn’t enough adjustment in the rear aperture to get it back to the point of aim. I returned it to Ruger, they greatly relieved the stock around the barrel, and I had it back in about a week. When I took it out to the range the same week it was returned, I was astonished by its accuracy.

A target I shot a few years ago. The GSR can be amazingly accurate. The difference between the two groups is probably due to how I held the rifle. The upper group is one of the best I’ve ever shot with open sights.

But that group above was then and this is now. I had not fired the GSR in a few years. I grabbed two loads for this rifle (a load I had developed for my M1A Springfield, and a box of Federal factory ammo with full metal jacket 150-grain bullets).

Federal American Eagle .308 ammo. I bought a bunch of this a few years ago for the brass; this ammo was about the same price as .308 brass.

My reloaded ammo. This load shoots extremely well in my Springfield Armory M1A.

I only fired a couple of 5-shot groups at 100 yards with the GSR. It was getting late in the day, I was getting tired, I had not fired the rifle in a long time (shooting is a perishable skill), and I realized I wasn’t giving the rifle a fair shake.

With the same rear sight adjustment used for the previous GSR target shown a couple of paragraphs above, the Federal factory 150 grain load shot high and to the left. The group is considerably larger than the load with 180-grain Noslers and Varget propellant.

Another 5-shot group, this time with 168-grain Sierra hollowpoint bullets and IMR 4064 propellant (the accuracy load for my Springfield M1A). The load doesn’t perform as well in my GSR as it does in the M1A, but it’s still substantially better than the Federal factory ammo. It’s why I reload.

That stream crossing I mentioned at the start of this blog? Lytle Creek flows across the dirt road going into Meyers Canyon, and it can be a real challenge at times. With all the rain and snow we’ve had this past winter, the reservoirs are full and the snow up in the San Gabriels is still melting. You may remember the blog I wrote about the time I high sided my Subie attempting a crossing. The stream is down a scosh since then, but it’s still not an easy crossing. Here’s a video I made on the way out on this trip after visiting the range with the Mini 14 and the Ruger GSR.

I’ll be shooting the GSR more in the coming weeks now that I’m back into the swing of shooting a .308 off the bench, so watch for more stories on it. I think I can do better than the groups you see above.

More stories on good times at the West End Gun Club are here.

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 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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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.

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

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