Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ask John Barsness Questions About "The .300 Weatherby"

I, too, pretty much gave up handloading for the 300 Wby as the factory stuff always proved very good, accurate and fast. I most often shoot the 200 grain Nosler Partition. The only time I've bothered handloading for it (in recent history) is when I wanted to try something different (240 grain Woodleigh load).

I used to shoot a 300 Wby and its a very good cartridge and much prefer it to the RUMs that are too much of a good thing...but my true love is the 300 H&H and I can get almost Wby velocity with the 200 gr. bullets, but not the lighter bullets...however it is all that I will ever need...

I am also a big fan of the .300 H&H and have a nice walnut-stocked custom rifle on a Model 70 Classic action. It looks nice and shoots very well. It shoots 200 Partitions at 2900+ very well. Still a hard to beat round for general hunting....

I love the H&H but the Weatherby is just too easy for accurate factory ammo,and brass.My Weatherby is a rechambered H&H. I figure,long action, H&H or weatherby....what's the difference!

I have been a 300 WBY slut for years, having killed all but 3 of my elk with this cartridge. My initial intentions were to get a "500 yard elk rifle". Well,I have shot 10 or so since this decision and all have been under 100yds- go figure! I basically wore out the barrel in my Sako Finnbear and rebarreled it to 340 Wby. I figured it would be more of a good think. It's not, it's too big for practically anything BUT 500 yd elk! I may rebarrel it back to 300 again. With a 24" bofors barrel, I could easily get 3000 fps with various 200 grain bullets using H870- a filthy powder I might add! In this day and age, there are far better powders than this old dog! I had my best luck and still do with H4831 with the 165s. I never used any other weights in this rifle. I would get 3400 with the 165s. My Norma brass lasted an average of 11-12 reloads.

I built another one with a 28" barrel but broke the stock shortly after I started working loads up and have yet to fix it! I got 3700 out of factory 150 Hornady loads so I had to quit using factory ammo (no freebore in the chamber)I'm sure it's way over pressure. With exotic bullets- 140 and 150 grain OX bullets, I could get 3600 with reasonable pressure but decided it wasn't necessary with todays modern laser rangefinders and went back to the easier to shoot 165-168s. Yep, the 300 WBY with its magic radius shoulder is something to behold!

Great article

I load 180 grain Nosler Partitions to a velocity of 3100, according to both the Hornady and Sierra handbooks. I can't see the need for any other cartridge for hardly anything in big game.

Elk are supposed to be hard to kill. My one 6X6 was DRT with a shot through the lungs, which took out large segments of two ribs, BTW.

Wildebeeste and Zebra are supposed to be hard to kill. One shot each and they ran a few yards, falling over dead. Last month I killed a 5000 pound hippo with this load, one shot in the back of the skull from 50 yards, after wounding it with a .458 and running out of .458 ammo.

My rifle is super accurate. The barrel is 26" and it weighs under 8 pounds with scope and sling. After Hill Country Rifles accurized it, it consistently shoots under 1 MOA.

The barrel is stainless and the stock fiberglass. It has gotten rained on in Alaska with no effect. I would not hesitate to use this rifle with 200 or 220 grain bullets on Alaska bear, by the way, or on African Cape buffalo if that were legal.

It's the all-around big game rifle.

I enjoyed the Weatherby article, as well as practically everything JB has written. I am one of those people that has a custom long chambered 300 winnie, but still looks longingly at the Roy.

The article did nothing to help me get over this gun geek obsession. I would like to see another run down on all the 300 magnums even though I know it won't resolve which is the best.

I have to say that with the 300's my ranking follows the age of the cartridges some what with the Weatherby first, H&H second then Norma and my winchester a close third. This is only because I can't get my hands on a 300 Newton.

I have a custom .300 Roy built on a Sako action. It is a tack driver. I have had a .300 Wby of one description or another for about 35 years now. It is a great cartridge and I enjoyed John's article.

Mr. Barsness, Im considering buying a .300wby, i own a .300win that weighs 6lbs im looking at buying a vanguard, what kind of recoil can i expect with 180gr bullets??
Thanks for taking time to answer my questions!

I do certainly enjoy reading your articles in Rifle and Reloader both!

I'm not JB nor do I play him on TV, but if a 6 lb. 300 Win. doesn't bother you a full size Vanguard in 300 Wby. isn't going to either.

here is the weird part though, i let my dad borrow it, and i moved 900miles away and he hunts elk a lot more than i do, so after i moved a bought a brand new 300wsm in a browning aboltII, without the boss of course, and that thing really kicked, i dont know if i got a cherry in that .300win, or if the extra couple of inches really helped that much or what, but shooting that 300wsm was annoying, my dad shot it my brother in law and father in law all shot it and all of them agreed that the wsm's recoil was way worse than the 300win's was, so i bought a limbsaver and that helped some, but not enough i got rid of it. which is why i bring up the question about the recoil, the vanguard is a pound heavier than the wsm i had was,and is about the same weight as the 300win.

The stocks on the A-Bolts I've handled had narrow combs, no cheekpiece and what seemed like a good bit of drop. Did that gun tend to exhibit a lot of muzzle rise and chop you in the cheek when fired?

Even though it isn't my usual speed anymore (and doesn't get much respect on these boards) I get along pretty well with the Weatherby Monte Carlo and its forward downslope cheekpiece, at least up to the 300 Weatherby that I own.

oh yes the muzzle rise on the wsm was terrible! and yes it did nail you my dad got a bruise after three shells and he said he wouldnt ever shoot it again. im really intrested to try the wby style stock out, they pull up nice for me, my rem 788 in 22-250 has a custom stock on it with the monte style and i love it

Sounds like genuine frontier gibberish to me!

John{
Have you had ejector marks on the Norma cases on the first firing?
What about the same marks in Norma cases with maximum safe loads?
Thank you so much for a great article

Kuk

Nope, no ejector marks.

Glad you liked the article!

John,
As far as powders for the 180 to 200 gr. bullets, which would you say are the least temperature sensitive? Right now I am working with IMR-7828 SSC and 180 bullets, trying to work up a good load for my latest acquisition. The rifle seems to like this powder. I was wondering how this powder rated for temperature insensitivity, or if there were better choices.

Thanks for your help,
Steve

I haven't tested IMR7828 specifically, and haven't tested the SSC version at all. The IMR powders I have tested have shown anything from less than 2% velocity loss from 70 to 0 F., to around 5%, which is where point of impact sometimes starts changing at 100 yards--and that's the real problem, not 100 fps in velocity. If you rifle changes POI signficiantly with different powder charges when working up loads, then it just might change POI at lower temps as well.

When I am serious about making sure my rifle will maintain POI (and accuracy) in real cold, I use one of the Hodgdon Extreme powders. In the .300 Weatherby with 180's the Extreme to try would probably be H1000.

The Ramshot line is pretty good as well. TAC and Big Game seem to be about as good as the Extremes. Hunter and Magnum lose a little velocity in cold, but often not enough to change POI.

Thanks John! Great information. I really appreciate the help.

I hadn't thought about trying H1000. I'll have to look for some. I also found nearly a full pound of Magnum in my reloading box.....still not completely unpacked after my move. I will have to give it a try.

I have noticed the rifle seems to shoot the 7828 loads to nearly the same point of impact, even with a 2 gr. variation in load charges. I hope this means the rifle is not too tempermental. I've been very pleased with how well the rifle and cartridge shoots.

Steve

I want to buy some Norma .300 Wby cases and the three or four places I checked have them on backorder.

I want Norma because (a) they have more case capacity than Remington and (b) they cost less than Weatherby.

Anyone know where to get any, or....is there another alternative with the same case capacity? Midway or someone listed an off brand but I have no experience with it.