Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors 300 H&H, Gas It Up

The .300 Wby Mag is a killer cartridge - perfect for NA big game in open country.

I've owned more than one pre 64 300 H&H which someone had rechambered into the .300 Wby. One of these rechambered rifles was done by Roy Weatherby himself, in the 1950s, I believe. As Roy Weatherby was trying to gain traction with his new cartridges, one of the things he did was offer very low-cost rechambering of non-Weatherby rifles into Weatherby cartridges. At the same time he was equipping big name hungers with these rifles and sending them on heavily publicized dangerous game hunts. A brilliant move, really, as it popularized the cartridges and therefore popularized the Weatherby rifles which had those chamberings from the factory.

Incidentally, those early rechambers done by RW have some nostalgic value to Weatherby fans, as they point back to the very beginnings of Weatherby's success. His barrel stamp was distinctive and a RW rechambered rifle is usually easy to spot - Here's a photo of one:



There is no doubt, the .300 Wby looked on paper to be a significant step up from the 300 H&H. What wasn't immediately obvious to everyone was that Roy's cartridges were a tad overpressured and would reduce barrel life compared to the lower pressure cartridges they were displacing. Regardless, they are terrific, flat trajectory chamberings which can really put some mustard behind a heavy projectile. Yours is a fantastic big game rifle!