Interesting, as I was eyeing a particular 18 1/2 inch 300 weatherby for sale locally at an attractive price, and like the rifle but dismissed it due to barrel length affecting performance of such a cartridge. Already have a long barrel one so I wouldn't be jumping into a different round. Might have to go take another look today. Nobody probably wants it due to the above mentioned misconceptions which I also held myself.
Weatherby did a run of short barreled rifles in the 80's and I loaded for a 7mm Remington with the shorty tube.
It taught me that the same powders for a 26" barrel generated the best performance in a short tube so I did the test again with other rifles up to a 9.3x62 and found the same results. Also found a lot of lot to lot powder variation up to 6% per lot at that time, so many things have improved over the years.
Forget tube length and follow the reloading data for best powder vs highest velocity.
John
