I had to post this. After buying/trading/selling guns for over 40yrs I made my first used rifle purchase "on-line". Never did that before as I'm used to holding/haggling/etc so this was new to me. Anyway I see a Rem721 in 300H&H pop up on a site. Man, I always wanted to play with a 300 H&H and cant afford a pre64 mod70 so I keep looking at this. Well I call dude and buy it...for 50 buck extra, he sends me dies,brass,some factory ammo and some reloads. Figure I did good on that. So rifle shows up and its a little rough, but thats ok. I FINALLY got my 300 H&H!. I took rifle apart and cleaned all 50yr old grease and cleaned barrel. Well weather was nice so I GOT to shoot this rifle. I went out back and set a target at about 50yds to see if gun functions and try it with iron sights and my old eyes.Target had a 4in black bull. Well I put 2 older Rem factory loads in magazine to see how they feed. Slicker than snot. (as a side note I immediately pulled bullets from cases that were some dudes reloads, I dont use anyones reloads). So I touch one off and dont see hole in white of target so I'm hopin its in black.I work the bolt empty goes flying and load in the remaining round and fire that one.Eject round and dont see a mark on target so I walk down to see if in black or totally misses. Well both shots in x ring I'm tickled. I'm smiling at how well an old dope like me with poor eyesight can still shoot and cant wait to get a scope on my new 300 H&H to see what it can do. I was SOOO happy!
I get back to the bench and bend down to pick up the two fired emptys....much to my despair there are two 300 Weatherby cases there!!!!! Man was I pizzed. How can that be??
To dudes credit he called me within minutes of me sending him a nasty email, thinking I might have to get the postal service and batf fraud dept after him. And he graciously offered a full refund. His story is he used once for elk, didnt reload, and its been in his safe for 15yrs. Dont know where reloads he sent me came from but oh well lesson learned.
Sorry for long disertation...and what does this all have to do with JB's article in Rifle you ask??
Well I'm reading the article AFTER the above happened and there it is is black and white....on page 285... I quote "unmarked rechamberings are something to watch for, ESPECIALLY (my highlight) with any older 300 H&H rifle, because many were rechambered to some blown-out version, often the 300 Weatherby Magnum."
There it was staring me in the face.
What a coincidence, and story of my life.
Sounds like you got a good one. Now it can shoot H&H or Wby ammo safely and accurately. That was a great deal.
