Tag: Weatherby Mark V

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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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.

Gardner’s 145-grain 7mm cast bullets.
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.

Montana Bullet Company cast 200-grain rifle bullets. These are great bullets.

That’s it for now. I intend to be on the range sometime this week to continue the cast bullet testing, and when I do, you’ll read about it here.

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Reloading and Shooting the .300 Weatherby

I’m in the money with the Mark V .300 Weatherby now, but it took some doing to get there and the journey isn’t over yet.   My recent reloads with this rifle were all over the place at 100 yards.  I suspected it was more me than the rifle (or the loads) and I was probably right about that.  This rifle has serious recoil, way more than I am used to.  I was developing a flinch in anticipation of getting whacked by the Mark V.

I have a friend who shoots the .300 Weatherby a lot, and he’s about the same size as me.  I thought about him a bit, mentally picturing him on the range, and then I realized:  He uses a shoulder pad.  It was a click or two on Amazon until I found the Caldwell recoil shield.

I had the Caldwell recoil shield the next day, and I had to play with it a bit to find how to wear the thing.  I bought the thickest version, figuring that if some is good, more would be better.

I next researched the Internet to find ways to improve my bench rest technique and I immediately found two improvement opportunities:  Parallax, and how I positioned the rear rest.

With regard to parallax, it’s a real thing and a real issue.  Most scopes don’t have any adjustment for parallax, but the 4×16 scope I have on the Mark V does.  To adjust for parallax, you set the rifle in the rest and put the cross hairs on the target. Then, without touching the rifle, you move your head around and see if the reticle moves around on the target.  On a scope with parallax adjustment, what I read is that you ignore the markings on the parallax adjustment and move your head around, adjusting the parallax adjustor until the parallax is minimized.  I couldn’t completely eliminate the parallax on my 100 yard target, but I was able to greatly reduce it.  After making the adjustment I looked at the scope objective (the parallax adjustment feature), and what do you know, it was right on the 100-yard mark. I guess those Weaver boys knew what they were doing.

I had a rifle with me that has a non-parallax-adjustable scope and checked it for parallax at 100 yards, and wow, when I moved my head around the reticle was moving around a good 3 inches on the target (left to right, and up and down).  To control parallax with a non-parallax-adustable scope, the trick is to get your eye in exactly the same spot every time.  In fact, that’s good technique with any scope.

The next thing for me was to get the rear rifle rest directly under where my face rested on the stock.  You can see the front and rear rest in the large photo at the top of this blog (I use Caldwell equipment).  The idea behind getting the rear rest directly under where your cheek contacts the stock is that the downward force from your cheek is transmitted directly through the stock into the rear rest without flexing the stock.  It may not seem possible (or even detectable), but if your face is ahead of the rear rest or behind it, you will impart a torque into the rifle and it can be enough to shift the point of impact at 100 yards.

On to  my loads:  I reloaded the next set of .300 Weatherby cartridges, going with 73.0 grains of IMR 7828, the CCI 250 magnum primer, 200-grain Sierra MatchKing bullets, and every trick I knew of to improve accuracy.  This is a relatively light load.  I neck sized three different sets of brass (fireformed .300 Remington cases made from .300 H&H brass, Remington .300 Weatherby brass, and Weatherby brand .300 Weatherby brass).  I have a Lee .300 Weatherby collet die that squeezes the neck down to size, and I used brass I had previously fired in the Mark V rifle.  I also seated the bullets out much further (the reloading manuals all show the cartridge overall length to be 3.560 inches, but I seated the Sierras out for an overall length of 3.718 inches).  The Weatherby Mark V rifles have a lot of freebore.  The cartridges still fit in the magazine and the bullets did not contact the rifling, so I was good to go.

It was a quick trip to the West End Gun Club and I had the range to myself.  I got everything set up, pulled on the Caldwell shoulder pad, and went to work.  The Caldwell shoulder pad was awkward at first (as you might imagine), but it was wonderful.  The .300 Weatherby Magnum is still a beast, but the Caldwell pad did its job.  It greatly alleviated my fear of getting clobbered every time I squeezed the trigger and my groups tightened up immediately.

So my groups were way better, but I had a new problem.   Many of the cases were sticking in the chamber after firing. The bolt would rotate freely, but the cases didn’t want to come out.   When I pulled harder on the bolt, the extractor popped over the rim and the case stayed in the chamber.  I had to tap the cases out with a cleaning rod.  Other than the cases sticking, there were zero indications of excess pressure. No flattened primers or anything. The Remington cases were sticking almost 100% of the time (both the fireformed .300 H&H cases and the .300 Weatherby Remington cases).  The Weatherby brass did not stick in the chamber, although a couple felt like they wanted to.

On to the good news:  My best group was a .608-inch 3-shot group at 100 yards, which ain’t half bad on a fire-breathing monster like the .300 Weatherby.  Before you trolls tell me I should shoot 5-shot groups, I will share with you that in my experience it’s pretty difficult to get animals to sit still for five shots.  If your dead set on being critical, let’s get your butt out here.  I want to watch you shoot 5-shot groups with your .300 Weatherby.

The next morning, after cleaning the rifle, I rechambered a couple of the fired Remington cases, and then when I withdrew the bolt the cases stuck in the chamber again.  And again, I had to tap them out with a rod.  The Weatherby brass did not, but it was tight.  I measured each of the cases that stuck, and they all met the SAAMI .300 Weatherby specification.  My conclusions are:

      • I don’t have an excess pressure situation.  I loaded at the bottom of the propellant range, the bolt rotated freely, there were no pressure signs on the case base, and the primers were not flattened.
      • Neck sizing on my .300 Weatherby Mark V is not a good way to go (notice I said mine; your mileage may vary).  I full length resized one of the cases that stuck (a Remington case) and it chambered and extracted easily.  Weatherby brass is better (but it is hard to get).
      • I need to full length resize when reloading for this rifle.
      • The Weatherby Mk V extractor is weak.  For a dangerous game rifle, that’s not a good thing. Maybe the extractor spring is weak.

I think the real issue was the neck sizing approach.  I’m out of IMR 7828 propellant (powder goes fast with the 300 Weatherby) and no one seems to have any in stock, so I’ll try either H1000 or IMR 4831 next.  Like we always say, stay tuned.

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I reload with Lee Precision equipment.

A Tale of Three 300s

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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