Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Vanguard sub-MOA vs Synthetic?

My newly purchased Vanguard with the Black stock in 300 WBY came with a target with 3 shots 2 were touching, the spread outside to outside was 15/16 inch inside 5/8 inch and that new trigger is unbelievabley crisp. Hope I don't have to mess with the stock. Seems upward pressure on forend is too much. But we will see. Have any of you floated this stock or would you leave it alone.

Dufur, I think I have to agree with you that the Sub Moa stock is not a B C Medalist. I think it is a Pillar bedded B C Carbelite stock.

leave it alone. If its anything like my factory sub moa stock. see comments i made earlier in this thread. You'll have to hog out so much stock material in order to keep the flexing fore arm from touching the bbl when you shoulder the gun that it will look dorky with all that gap. trust me. Mine looks dorky now till new stock is purchased. Hope the triggers are better on these newer guns. Otherwise, I suggest buying the standard model sythetic vanguard for $399 or whatever; toss the trigger and stock and start anew with a timney and quality handle. Heck, the wood handled sporter looks like a deal now. at least you can bed that and float it with confidence. Otherwise by the time you invest in trigger and stock you have ate up your great $399 deal. That said...I have a standard synthetic vanguard in 223 that I had to put a timney in but shoots good as is otherwise.

I got my Weatherby Vanguard in 257 Roy last month. It is the synthetic/stainless model. My local reloading store had half a box of Weatherby 100gr ammo and 20 pieces of new brass. I bore sighted it at 150 yards, lazer bore sighter, put it right on paper at 100 yards. I used 2 further rounds to zero it and then shot a 3 shot group of around an inch, better than factory target. I am this no expert on Wetaherbys but, the trigger is very nice on my rifle, no creep and breaks cleanly at around 3 pounds. I am certain that with reloads sub MOA will be no problem. I need some more brass but, dang, it ain't cheap or easy to find. Love the rifle, can't wait to get better aquainted with it.
I have 2 Tikka T3's with superb triggers and expected the Vanguard to be a dog in the trigger dept, based on some things I read online. I do not know if I was lucky or if they have upgraded them but I am more than happy.

The advice to "buy the synthetic and stock it to suit" is pretty sound. I have a sub-MOA model (300WSM), which does indeed shoot sub-MOA with preferred factory ammo. I also have a synthetic (257 Wby Mag) which I restocked. It also shoots sub-MOA, as does an old Vanguard VGX (270 WIN)which I eventually restocked. Three things helped make both of the non sub-MOA models shoot sub-MOA groups. 1) Not every sub-MOA shooter gets picked to be a sub-MOA model. 2)I ordered the synthetic from a dealer with a large inventory who was willing to open boxes and look at targets for me, and 3) I replaced the triggers on all three of these Vanguards with Timneys. I hear the new triggers are much improved, but can't verify that personally.

I bought my Vanguard sage country this year and the trigger isn't bad, but does have some creep. I'm going to try to have it adjusted by a gunsmith before looking at a Timney.
Do you like your Timney?

+1 on the Timney's...all of my Vanguards wear them..Only exception is an old S&W 1500 (Howa) with a sweet factory trigger.

That Sage country Vanguard sure is a sweet looking rifle. But I think that I've seen enough to understand that my best bet would be to buy the synthetic and work it up from there. Looking around on the internet yesterday and for the price of the Sub-Moa I may as well go ahead and get a Mark V synthetic or fibermark. But my wallet can't quite handle that right now and I'm not much waiting.

I bought a synthetic in 300 Roy on closeout at wallys in o7 for $300. Before I came here and learned B&C was no good I put a Medalist stock on it and finally a Timney. I had the factory trigger good but it won't compare to the Timney. My 300 is sold MOA performer but the factory target was right at 1 inch. My 257 is a wood stocked Sporter and all it got was a Timney. It shoots lights out and the factory target was 1.3".

I can't tell you how all Vanguards are, I can only tell you how mine is.

Purchased it new a couple years ago, test target showed 3-shots going into 1.25". Not bad, not great. But I figured it would do better with a different ammo. (Rifle is in .30-06, and the test target was using 150gr.)

I tried some Federal Premium 180gr Gamekings, and the average group size was right at 1" for three shots.

I restocked it in a Boyd's laminate, bedded the action with Marine-tex, and threw a Leupold 3-9x40 VXII on it. At the same time, I started to work up a few handloads, some with 180gr partitions, some with 175gr matchkings, and some with 165gr Gamekings.

It does alright.



Not too hard on the eyes either.

There a couple of different moving parts on this thread.

I own a sub-moa 270wsm. I bot it right after my dealer showed me the test target that was just a ragged hole (actually .374"). Yes, I know that that one three shot group is not comprehensive accuracy evidence, but I was willing to take a chance.

I would submit that your chances of getting a really accurate regular Vanguard after the introduction of the sub-moa are significantly lower than prior to introduction.

Why?

The ones that shoot the little bug hole test targets are pulled out to be sold as sub-moa!

As I stated above, a small three shot group is hardly an accuracy guarantee, but a 7/8" group is nearly guaranteed not to be 1/2 moa.

I would be willing to buy another sub-moa just to have a hand picked barreled action and take my chances with its ultimate accuracy. This is much cheaper than buying a Vanguard at Wally World for the action then building the rifle. I can always sell it if it only shoots 1 moa!

Regarding the stock. It is awful! Way too soft. I, being cheap, embedded a couple of steel rods in the forend and it is now stiff, although no where near a Micky or Bansner. As an interesting side note, during a conversation with a Weatherby employee I mentioned the poor stock. He initially took um bridge to my comment, but then admitted his 257 Vanguard wore a Bansner stock!

The Timney trigger is just a lay-up. It takes less than five minutes to install and is a delight to shoot.

I like the sub-moa and would not hesitate to purchase another. I believe you will have difficult time finding this level of accuracy for the money elsewhere.

I got a stainless/synthetic a couple of years ago, and other than slinging a 3.5 x 10 Leup on it in Talleys and putting in the Timney have done nothing. I hate the look of the stock but it fits....and I'm afraid to put a Bansner or other stock on it because it consistently goes less than .5 at 100 yards with factory ammo.

shot a 300 yard group in a 15 knot crosswind that measured one inch high by two inches wide. For a basically untouched factory rifle with factory ammo, I'm not sure how much improvement I could possibly have gotten by buying the MOA.

It is also smoking death on whitetails. this is one of three it accounted for last year:

Re. Timneys, yes, I am a huge fan. All three of my Vanguards wear Timneys. It is ALMOST a simple drop in, as someone noted, but you will likely need to dremel out a small notch inside the right side of the inletting to allow for the greater forward travel of the safety lever arm (the Timneys convert from a two-positon to three-position safety). It's not difficult, and what needs doing is fairly obvious in the doing. 405WCF has a point re. chances of getting a sub-MOA shooter being diminished since the introduction of the sub-MOA model. That doesn't mean it can't be done. Some very tight shooters make it past the screening. My .257 Wby Mag was one of them. Having said that, he's probably right about it being cheaper to just buy a sub-MOA rather than buying an ordinary rifle and restocking, swapping triggers, etc. Then again, it's not nearly as much fun as tinkering. I set out to prove that I could turn a regular Vanguard into a sub-MOA Vanguard -- and there's a certain amount of satisfaction to be had in doing so. Overall, I love my Vanguards, except for situations when a controlled-feed action provides an increased sense of security.

My experience with vaguards pretty much mirrors what everyone says.Good stuff. The Sub-MOAs are apparently picked as described, put in the better stock and off they go. My query- probably should be to Weatherby instead of all you guys- is that I have seen a LARGE number of Vanguard test targets that were sub moa, and quite a few that were real eyebrow raisers...How come they didn't make it into the Sub MOA pile???

ingwe...two thoughts, were the Vanguard targets you examined produced before or after the introduction of the sub-moa?

It is my understanding from Weatherby that the best Vanguards are used for sub-moa. This would not preclude some very good rifles going to the regular Vanguard line. An example could be that a run of targets show group in the .3s are used for sub-moa rifles and .5s are sent the standard route. All are very good, some however, are slightly better.

Of course the three shot target will certainly produce inconsistencies.

Regards
405wcf

I'm speaking of after the intro of the sub MOA, but I think you are exactly right, they really nail down the cream of the crop, I'm guessing...
Ingwe

Bought a new 7MM Rem Mag, with Desert Sand Synthetic Stock. Was not MOA, but does pretty good with handloads.
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The Sub-MOA rifles are .75" or better at the factory. If a Vanguard shoots a .76" group, it heads to the regular Vangurad line because in order to guarentee .99" or better, Weatherby only selects those rifles that shoot .75" or better. Thus, you could get a regular Vanguard who's test target is Sub-Moa. At least is the way I understand it.