Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 22-300 AYE or 22-300 Weatherby

Posted over on Rokslide looking for info there too.

Short history.We had a relative that was a gun nut that lived in Houston TX. His last name was Aye. 22-300 AYE is stamped into the barrel.
He had this rifle put together for my grandfather as a varmit gun.Pretty sure the gunsmith was Dale Layne from Houston as his name is stamped into the barrel also.
22-300 Weatherby.14 twist with descent rifling in the barrel.

RCBS loading dies,some 52 grain Speer hollow point bullets and some loaded rounds came with the rifle but no load data.
My grandfather and father only shot the rifle a few times and then into the closet it went.They could not get it to shoot.
I ended up with the rifle and it is nicely built on a Mauser 98 action.

The ammo that came with it started to corrode and I had to trash it.
I did do an autopsy and roughly tried to duplicate the round.
The original rounds looked like the bullet was melting down on paper.
My only attempt at reloading left perfect keyholes (Barnes) or shrapnel bites (don't remember the brand).

RCBS did not have any data on the round and all people involved with the rifle before me are gone.
It was built sometime in the 60's and that is about all I know about it.
Before I rebarrel it I thought I would give it one more go.

I'm a big fan of fast 22s, but can you say "overbore"?!!

Have you ever ran any rounds over a chrono?

Sounds like a great candidate for a re-bore to, oh maybe .300 Wby.

Maybe someone with Quick Load will run the numbers for you.

Never could keep a bullet stabile enough to chronograph it. my guess is someone was going after the magic 5000 fps and it didn't quite work out.

Re-bore or re-barrel is what I am planning. Just looking for anyone who might know anything about the gunsmith or the rifle.

Complete rifle.

Barrel stamps

Dies for the rig.

22-300 Wetherby next to a 300 WSM.

If it were mine, I'd really try to keep it as is. I'd have someone with a bore scope check it out. If the bore looked reasonably smooth I'd try some 40 or 50 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips - they'll stand up to velocity better than thin jacketed hollow points.

Also, if you decide to rebore, shoot me a pm with a price on the dies.

If I remember correctly, the Barnes bullets were unstable also. My thoughts are, in order to make the rifle shoot,the load would have to be throttled down to 22-250 speeds. The 14 twist is the problem.

Will do. Just looking for history on the rifle. My grandfather was a hunter who loved his 264. He would smile watching a 6.5-300 W. at launch.

If you're talking about Barnes TSX bullets, then it makes sense they wouldn't stabilize. The 14 twist isn't a "problem", you just have to find bullets that will stabilize in the twist and hold up to the velocity.

It looks like the cartridges lack the Weatherby double radius shoulder? Hard to tell from the pics.

Agreed. I used the Berger twist rate calculator and could not make anything work at the speed this thing will produce. Barnes original X bullets are what I tried.

I can't see all this capacity being used for a 22-250.

Factory 300 Weatherby brass is pictured as I formed these loads myself. The rifle has always been intriguing just seems to not have a logical purpose. Until this week, it has only been out of the safe 2-3 times in 20 years.

The rifle came with a set of full length dies. When the original loads started to corrode I sent some to RCBS to have the form dies made up.
The rounds in the picture are nickel plated brass with a moly coated Barnes on top.

Lazrbeam-

I fiddled a bit with the jbm stability calculator on this problem. The shorter solid copper bullets from Barnes, Cutting Edge, and Lehigh were not positively stable at 4100 fps with a 14"-twist.

As suggested above, a trial with a shorter lead-core bullet constructed to hold together at high velocity may be worthwhile. Nosler's manual #8 shows the 40-grain Ballistic Tip at 4200 fps in the 220 Swift and 4400 fps in the 223 WSSM, Hornady's manual #10 lists the 40-grain Vmax at 4300 fps in the Swift. Some forum members having experience with these bullets may be able to confirm whether they hold together at these velocities. It would be interesting to see whether they can stand still higher speeds from your rifle.

Alternatively, it may be possible to shorten your Barnes bullets with filing or other technique. Removing length starting at the nose would give the greatest change in length for the least change in weight. This certainly wouldn't help ballistic coefficient and may detract from accuracy, but you might obtain a bullet form that wouldn't keyhole.

--Bob

BullShooter, thanks for the suggestion. The Berger calculator seemed to be pointing at short bullet as maybe working also.

I think I have some of the 40 grain B.T. stashed back and am all in to try to get the rifle to shoot.


prarie_goat thanks to you as well. I may get to melt the barrel yet.


The original loads came with some loose bullets that were 52 grain speer hollow points( had the box at one time) but they did not fly well. They looked like they were nickel plated.