Ever since I started hunting back in 1965 I've admired and wanted a Weatherby rifle. It wasn't until 2009 that I finally bought one, a Vanguard chambered in .300 Wby. I've always liked beautiful walnut stocks and blued metal, so the Vanguard that I bought was a blued barrel and action in a walnut stock. However, the factory walnut stock on my new Vanguard did not have anywhere near wood grain that I had dreamed about.
The first thing that I did when my new Vanguard arrived was to take off it's factory stock and order a semi-inleted blank from Richards. From their catalog pictures I ordered a AA Fancy Feather Crotch Claro Walnut blank. Several months later my blank arrived, but it's wood grain was many grades below the pictures of that grade in their catalog. So I called them and they agreed that I could send that blank back and they would send what I wanted. Another several months went by and I finally got the wood that I wanted.
Since my first centerfire rifle that I made in 1967 from a Herter's .30-06 barreled action and a semi-inleted stock, I've enjoyed making stocks for my rifles, and have done a half dozen or so.
After over 100 hours of working on it, I finally had a Weatherby rifle that I was proud of. My work on this rifle included having a KDF muzzle brake installed on it, I glassed and pillar bedded the action and barrel channel, then free floated the barrel, put a recoil reducer in the stock, fit a Limbsaver pad on it, hand cut my favorite 5 panel wrap-around checkering pattern on it, installed a Timney trigger, and topped it with a Leupold VX 3i 4.5-14x40 CDS, side focus scope.
I've developed a number of sub moa 3-shot loads for it starting with 168 grain Nosler and Hornady HPBT bullets for practice, 168 grain Barnes TSX then TTSX bullets for hunting, and finally settled on 180 grain TTSX bulllets for hunting.
This quickly became my favorite hunting rifle.
Because of my satisfaction of my .300 Wby Vanguard I have since bought two more Vanguards, one chambered for .308 Win and one in .223. These rifles are both stainless barrels and actions and are in Weatherby's Griptonite stocks, that I really like. I pillar and glass bedded the actions, floated the barrels, lengthened to stocks 1/4", to fit me, and fit Limbsaver or Hogue pads on them, and paintrd them with a base layer topped with a spider web. I also topped both of them with Leupold scopes.