Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Weatherby Mark V troubles

Hi all. I’m working on dialing in a 7mm weatherby Mark V. I’m having some accuracy issues. Has anyone ever had success sanding out the barrel pad in the stock to float the barrel?

Example of troubles. Clean barrel today. 1 shot 4” low, 2nd and 3rd 6” right, 4th and 5th dead nuts bull on top of each other, and 6th back to 6” right.

Figured the first was a clean barrel flyer.

Waited 5 minutes between each shot.

This gun shot well last year but I recently installed a new trigger and tightened up the action bolts to the specs and pattern described by weatherby. They were pretty lose before.

With tight action screws, is it putting more pressure on the Fore end barrel pad and causing issues?

Anything I should be looking at?

Thanks.

Assuming you checked the usual culprits like scope mounts, if you don’t remember what the pressure was like before you took it apart, I wouldn’t do anything permanent. Maybe try and shim the action to decrease pressure on the pad, shoot it, and see if it helps? This isn’t a permanent fix, but may get you some ideas.

I’ve never shot my Mark V, but hope to today. It has a pronounced speed bump. Is it just me, or does the Mark V seem to have a bunch of things that normally hurt accuracy? Speed bumps, lots of jump, and all those locking lugs that I can only assume are square…

Which Mark V do you have ?

Japanese

Wood or synthetic?

Wood. Don’t think the synthetic stocks have the barrel pad in the forearm….wish I could find one on the cheap to try.

Synthetics have a barrel pad in the forearm. I would not tighten a wood Mark V more then 35 inch lbs. If the foreend has the bump then just glass behind the recoil lug the wood was compressed from over tightening. I have never had one not shoot really well, especially the 7mm WBY.

How would I put / maintain / ensure the correct amount of pressure on pad?

And what would be the disadvantage of removing the pad?

Sounds like a scope, mount/rings issue. That would be the first thing I'd look at. What scope? Is the front scope base screw in contact with the barrel threads? Who installed said mounts/rings and scope?

Scope was installed by our resident expert…..no doubt in his skills and attention to detail. But I can look into it.
It’s a newer leupold vx 3

Is this a 24" #1 contour or a 26" #2 contour barrel. Forend pad is perfect as it comes from the factory, now if the rest of the action inletting is compressed from over tightening that is a different subject.

I suspect that there are a few step by steps that may solve accuracy problems. The riflescope, bases and rings are important, but they’re going to be the last check point. The reason I say that is the discussion of a so called barrel pad. I don’t have a Mark V, however I can tell you that a quality rifle bedding job with a free floated barrel would never want a barrel pad up front.

In doing a proper bedding job and free floating the barrel it would allow you to take the barreled action out (you did this when replacing your trigger) and with replacing the barreled action back in the stock, it would very closely mimic the previous accuracy, albeit there maybe some slight scope adjustments, but not much.

Back to the barrel pad, you need to slide a dollar bill down between the barrel and the stock. A properly floated barrel from a bedding job would easily allow movement of about 9-inches down the barrel with no friction and would stop the bill at about an inch or so in front of the recoil lug area. In bedding the tang screw area and recoil lug properly the barrel should not ever be tensioned at all, only the action from tang to recoil lug.

This allows you to pull the barreled action out for cleaning, maintenance and such and reinstall and still hold previous zero (or very close to previous zero) when hand tightening screws to a snug torquing. Thereby no tension on the barrel just the action.

All bedding jobs, especially in the barrel channel starting in front of the recoil lug should remove all material where barrel contact would prohibit a free path (dollar bill test) to floating the barrel as defined above.

Finally turn to the riflescope, bases and rings. Smooth the rings and use a bubble leveler when mounting.

I would never own a turn bolt barreled action that isn’t bedded and barrel free floated in this manner.

Every rifle is different. If you are stuck on only one method, then you are screwing yourself in the end. These are mechanical in nature and often times require some experimentation. I've had good luck bedding weatherby rifles as you say, but have also had good luck adding a pressure point to some skinny barreled rifles. I suspect those are ones that have stressed induced from machining. Not my favorite's, but they are not all the same. I suspect you may have had some that "dont shoot well" and probably have given up on them. All of my rifles shoot well. Just sayin.. Also, a rifle shooting 6" groups, is not a bedding issue. There is more at fault than just the bedding IMHO.. The first thing I'd do is pull the scope off and use a "proven" one. Mount the sob myself. If you can't mount a scope properly, you probably don't need to own a gun.. The OP said the scope was mounted by the "resident experts". That is scary in itself. I've seen and had to fix many scope mounting situations such as this. From places like Bi-mart, Coastal farm and ranch, and Sportsman's warehouse.. Those dudes are far from expert at anything..

Oh, I can mount a scope and have mounted many. This is my fathers rifle I’m working on and his buddy mounted the scope. Again, I’d trust him (buddy) to mount a scope for me, even with me being super anal with things like that. That’s the reason I’m looking at the scope mount last.

Weatherby rifles have action screw torque sequence and specific amount torque in inch pounds .Google it for your configuration...mb

My preference is always geared around barreled action removal for maintenance and cleaning (western Nebraska and Wyoming sand and grit are hell on a rifle). A properly bedded and free floated barreled action takes a great deal of guess work out of the equation. Shimming is something I avoid as it never solves the problem, it’s just a temporary bandaid IMO leaving a lot of guesswork and non repeatable accuracy every time you tension the tang and recoil lugs and add that tension to the barrel. It also has some causal effects regarding barrel heat and stock material that come in contact. It doesn’t take much to set up a nice bedding job and free floating a barrel, once done it may not solve anything if the barrel is a bad one, but it eliminates all those variables like shims, barrel tension and several other anomalies that can waste time when trying to hunt down the culprit. Only one man’s opinion.

I would suspect something in the scope/mount/rings department first, based upon it shooting well before the work you mention.

Make sure there is nothing binding with the new trigger also. If mounts and rings were properly installed, as you mention they were, my first suspect would be the scope. I’d put on a different one that you are sure is operating properly, and eliminate variables one by one. Seems odd that the bedding was OK before, but bad now (unless a gorilla compressed the wood, as mentioned above).

DrGnarr:

What weight of bullets are you shooting now? And what weight of bullets were you shooting when it was working better?

I have four Mk Vs and love them all, but my 7mm Wby one doesn’t shoot most heavy bullets for sheet.

It has a retarded 1/10” twist, instead of a non-retarded 1/8” twist.

It shoots CorBon-loaded 160gr TSX’s extremely accurately for some reason, but won’t shoot anything else over 140grs with any type of acceptable accuracy.

I shot some factory-loaded Federal Premium 160gr Trophy Bonded Tip ammo out of it, and all of the bullets were making oval holes at 100 yards—meaning that all of the bullets were hitting while yawing at an angle.

The 1/10” twist simply does not stabilize heavier bullets.

So, I gave that 7mm Wby to my eldest son with some 140gr TTSX loads that work in it, and I replaced it with a 6.5-300 Wby Accumark, which shoots lights out.

The action screws were lose when I got my hands on it. I installed the new trigger and reinstalled the action screws at 35lb and in the pattern that weatherby recommends.

I’ll start taking things apart and digging into it here in a bit.