Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles New 6.5-300 Weatherby Caliber

At $95 a box I doubt too many are going to be wearing out barrels.

I doubt many hand loaders will buy them, those wanting a fast 6.5 will already have built a 6.5 stw or one of the dozens of fast wildcats out there.

6.5's are all the rage these days and Wby never had one in their stable.

I think the latest powders and the quality of current bullet offerings help open that door.

After the 26 Nosler made its debut, it's not surprising that WBY would follow suit, especially since this round has been around for a long time. It's not like they had to invent a new round. Lots of range time and load data were already available.

I don't think case capacity is much different from the Nos, not sure what they're doing with freebore. I think ole Roy used freebore to smooth out pressure spikes when 4350 was his main powder. With super slow burners like 869, I'm not sure how much advantage freebore will offer.

They claim to be squeezing an extra 100 fps out of this round, compared to the "competition" (the 26 Nos for sure).

Interesting.

DF

Mule Deer said a while back that the .26 is selling well so the market is there (regardless of actual need for such a beast). Not good for your image to be upstaged by a newcomer especially when there's a hotter round all ready to go that has your name on it. A similar situation to the .300 Rum and .30-.378 I think.

It's good for the brand to have hot stuff like this, even if you don't sell a bunch. A lot of slant-6 Dodge Darts were sold because they made the 426 Hemi.

So a couple less clicks that the .26? So what? mtmuley

Who cares about clicks when you own a Weatherby. Sight it in at 25 yards and go hunting!

And Herb Klein shot a 264 (6.5) Weatherby back in the 1960's. What's old is new again.

Yep, Wby had all the advantage with the 6.5/300. As posted, nothing new there, loads of data accumulated over the years.

Good move on their part. I like the way the boys are protecting and promoting the brand. Ole Roy would be proud.

With a 26 Nos already up and running, I don't think I'll be in the market for the Wby...

And, don't think 26 Nos brass is cheap...

DF

Whew, the world will finally be a better place. I'm holding out for the 6.5 T-Rex.

Those huge, overbore rounds are in a world of their own regarding reloading. I think some on this thread have found that out.

My experience with the 26 Nos leads me to the conclusion that only the ultra slow, Vulcan surplus type powders are useful in these big rounds. Even the slowest conventional powders, like RL-33, Magnum, Retumbo, MagPro, etc. aren't as effective.

Some have worked the .264 WM into almost the same performance range, although their pressure ceilings may be high. In the .264 WM, RL-33 and similar seem to work much better than in the 26 Nos and I would guess the same for the 6.5/300.

It must be disappointing to be burning that much powder and not getting a lot more than max .264 WM speeds.

It's still an interesting proposition. My 26 Nos really likes the 120 TAC-TX at 3,450 fps over a big charge of US-869, shooting half MOA at 400, which for that bullet seems to be an accuracy node. It does well with 140 NAB's and 140 NPT's, just a good bit slower.

DF