I just acquired a 300 Weatherby or more correctly bought a 300 Wby barrel for my 458 Lott Mauser M03. As you may know the M03 is going out of production so the Australian distributors were having a runout sale and the barrel was half price! I've always read that the famous Weatherby double radius shoulders didn't really do anything much, just marketing hype but didn't do anything bad either - so I thought.
I've been reading Pierre van de Walt's "African Dangerous Game cartridges" and he says that you need to anneal Weatherby brass each firing or the brass will be short lived (and they are expensive) and that this is due to the double radius shoulder.
What is the opinion here? Does the double radius cause a weakness in the shoulder/neck area compared to a straight angled shoulder? Or is it just handloaders chasing Weatherby velocities and the shoulder makes no difference?
regards
JohnT
The advantage of the internet is that you no longer have to rely on "one man's opinion" so you can either "shop" for the opinion that matches yours or the collective of opinions that make you more comfortable with your own observations. Emphasis being, that direct observations are of greater importance that someone else's opinion which cannot be as easily qualified as based on experience.
I have something around 45 years experience loading for Weatherby rifles and cartridges and in Oz, that meant more experience that all the writers combined. I have never had or seen nor heard of a split neck on double radius shoulders. That doesn't mean I am I right in my opinion, it does however, mean that my statement of personal observation is entirely correct.
The Readers Digest version is that I do not agree with your source.
