{"id":3774,"date":"2019-04-17T05:43:30","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T12:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=3774"},"modified":"2022-01-18T16:25:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T00:25:23","slug":"the-7mm-weatherby-magnum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/04\/17\/the-7mm-weatherby-magnum\/","title":{"rendered":"The 7mm Weatherby Magnum"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a hot rifle with a cool story. Folks, check out this left hand 7mm Weatherby Mark V\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"
A 7mm Mk V Weatherby. Note the left hand bolt and the exquisite walnut.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s one of the great ones, and the story behind it goes like this. About 35 years ago I was an engineer working for Aerojet (we manufactured cluster bombs and artillery ammunition) and the Weatherby plant was just up the road from us in Southgate, California. Weatherby had a retail sales outlet there, too. \u00a0 It was awesome.\u00a0 Hunting trophies (including an enormous full body mount of a standing polar bear that must have been 10 feet tall), all kinds of shooting gear, beautiful Weatherby rifles…you get the idea.<\/p>\n

I stopped in one day and mentioned to Pat, the sales guy I had come to know, that I wanted to buy a Weatherby in 7mm Weatherby Magnum for my Dad.\u00a0 I told him it had to be a left handed action (Dad was a southpaw), and I wanted a rifle with exceptional walnut.\u00a0 “If you see one that has particularly nice wood, let me know,” I said.<\/p>\n

Pat’s answer was immediate:\u00a0 “Let’s go in the back and pick one out now,” he said.\u00a0 In those days, they would take you into the Weatherby warehouse deep in the facility to select the rifle you wanted.<\/p>\n

It was awesome.\u00a0 Imagine being in an Army armory, you know, the ones with the plain wood racks and zillions of rifles stacked in them. \u00a0 Now imagine those same plain wood racks filled with Weatherby Mk V rifles. \u00a0 That’s what it was like.\u00a0 I could have spent a year in that room, but after an hour I got it down to two rifles and I told Pat it would be cool if I could tell Dad that Roy Weatherby helped me select the rifle.<\/p>\n

“Let’s go,” he said, and that\u2019s exactly what happened. In two minutes I was in Roy Weatherby\u2019s office and there he was.\u00a0 I remembered my father and I studying the Weatherby catalogs when I was a kid. \u00a0 They all had this photo of Roy Weatherby in his office, surrounded by animal skins, his personal gun collection, and hunting trophies.\u00a0 Suddenly, Pat and I were in that photo.\u00a0 And there was Mr. Weatherby.<\/p>\n

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Roy Weatherby, in his office. I was there. Photo from the Weatherby catalog.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Roy Weatherby was one hell of a man.\u00a0 He spoke to me like we had known each other for years, and I guess in a sense we had.\u00a0 He knew his customer base, and I had read about Mr. Weatherby growing up.\u00a0 He wanted to know about the velocities of the 25mm ammo we manufactured at Aerojet, he wanted to know about me, and he wanted to know about my father.\u00a0 Dad was a world-class trapshooter, and Roy wanted to know all about that, too.\u00a0 The entire time we chatted (maybe 30 minutes), Pat and I were holding the two Weatherby rifles I had selected.<\/p>\n

Finally, Mr. Weatherby said to me, “Joe, I understand you’re buying a Weatherby for your Dad and you need help selecting the rifle.”\u00a0 We hadn’t told Mr. Weatherby that yet, but he knew. \u00a0 Then he said to Pat, “Pat, let’s put those two rifles up here on my desk,” and we did.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, from this side I like that one best,” old Roy said.\u00a0 “Let’s turn them over.\u201d We did, and then he said, \u201cOh, I see the problem.\u00a0 From this side, I like this one best,\u201d pointing to the other rifle.<\/p>\n

Then he looked at me and said, \u201cJoe, which one do you like best?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI like this one,\u201d I said, pointing to the rifle in the photo on top of this blog.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the one I would have selected,\u201d Roy said, with a knowing smile.<\/p>\n

Mr. Weatherby obviously had done this before. He had helped in the selection, but it was my choice.\u00a0 This was a wise man.\u00a0 In a different time, I could imagine him suggesting slicing the baby in half like old King Solomon.\u00a0 Just being in his presence was an amazing experience. Like I said, he was one hell of a man.\u00a0 It was easy to understand why he was successful.\u00a0 My guess is everyone who met Roy Weatherby loved the guy.<\/p>\n

“Do you think your Dad would like a Weatherby catalog?” Roy asked.\u00a0 Would he ever, I thought.\u00a0 I still have memories of Dad reading those Weatherby catalogs when I was a kid.\u00a0 They were big, glossy, full color affairs showing Weatherby custom rifles, famous people who hunted with Weatherby rifles, and more. \u00a0 Roy pulled open a desk drawer, took a catalog from it, and inscribed the inside cover with a big Roy Weatherby signature.\u00a0 It was a moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life. \u00a0The he gave me a Weatherby hat and a Weatherby belt buckle, and he said, “Give these to your Dad, too.”\u00a0 It was an incredible day.<\/p>\n

I was a Weatherby fan when I went in; when I left I was even more so.\u00a0On the way out, I bought a Weatherby scope and a Weatherby rifle case.\u00a0 Pat, the sales guy, told me they had other cases and other scopes that cost less, but I knew that wouldn’t do for me.\u00a0 It had to be a Weatherby product.\u00a0 If they had a guy there offering Weatherby tattoos, I would have opted for one of those, too.<\/p>\n

I gave the rifle to Dad and he loved it. We spent several days on the range shooting the Weatherby, and then shortly after that, Dad’s number came up and he was gone.\u00a0 Dad had heart disease, and it was his time.\u00a0 That was a tough pill to swallow, but life goes on.\u00a0 It was one of the lowest and saddest times of my life, but I will forever be grateful that I was able to give Dad the Weatherby and see him enjoy owning and shooting it.<\/p>\n

The Weatherby had not been out of my safe since then, other than to run a patch through the bore and to keep it oiled. I didn\u2019t shoot it because it\u2019s left handed (I\u2019m a righty), and then one day recently I was thinking about that. My Dad was left handed and he shot right hand bolt action rifles, so I reasoned that as a righty I could shoot a left hand rifle. And last year, I did.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Me, with Dad’s Weatherby.\u00a0 Dark striped walnut runs the length of the stock on both sides.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That 7mm Weatherby Magnum cartridge is a real powerhouse. It\u2019s hotter than the 7mm Remington Magnum by about 200 feet per second and the bark is ferocious. The recoil is significant, but truth be told, when I\u2019m hunting I never feel the recoil and I never hear the shot.\u00a0 That’s because my concentration is elsewhere.<\/p>\n

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My reloaded 7mm Weatherby Magnum ammunition. Weatherby cartridges have a unique double radius shoulder. The theory is it provides higher projectile velocities.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m working on different loads trying to zero in on the secret sauce that will provide the tightest groups in his magnificent old rifle. And I\u2019m having a lot of fun doing it.\u00a0 Every time I head to the range with the 7mm Weatherby Magnum, I’m thinking of Dad and that day with Roy Weatherby.<\/p>\n

\n

See all our Tales of the Gun<\/em><\/a> stories!\u00a0 Never miss an ExhaustNotes blog entry by signing up for our automatic blog email updates.\u00a0 You’ll automatically be entered in our quarterly motobook<\/a> contest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a hot rifle with a cool story. Folks, check out this left hand 7mm Weatherby Mark V\u2026 It\u2019s one of the great ones, and the story behind it goes like this. About 35 years ago I was an engineer working for Aerojet (we manufactured cluster bombs and artillery ammunition) and the Weatherby plant … Continue reading “The 7mm Weatherby Magnum”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[654,235,84],"tags":[659,658,657],"class_list":["post-3774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventure-motorcycle-books","category-amazon","category-guns","tag-7mm-weatherby","tag-roy-weatherby","tag-weatherby-mk-v"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/160903_4032-900.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3774"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3879,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774\/revisions\/3879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}