I recently acquired a new 6.5-300 Weatherby Magnum with a 26” barrel, no brake. Any advice or tips would be appreciated. I’ll probably buy a couple of boxes of factory ammo and some dies for reloading after barrel break in. Thanks in advance.

I bet you will like it. I have a 26 Nosler, load 140 Ballistic tips with 869 powder. Accubonds would probably be better, but the Ballistic tips kill just fine on the deer and pigs I hunt.

Go forth and shootith said firearm . . . and reportith back . . .

I’d consider your sight-in to be your break-in. Save the barrel for something more meaningful.

Yeah, the reamer marks will be burned out of the throat after the first box of ammo.

I do think barrel wear will be a consideration for sure. I’m at less than 200 rounds on my .300 Weatherby and about 120 rounds on one 7mm and over 500 in another 7mm Wby Mag. I plan to keep a shot log on it from the start. On my others, I keep records of ammo loaded which approximates rounds fired plus or minus one or two boxes of factory loads. I fired exactly 5 factory loads in my .300 Weatherby and zero in one of my 7mm’s. The rounds fired are approximate since I’m not at home with access to my logs. Happy Trails

Have owned both a 26 Nosler and 6.5-300 Wby., and in general found the barrel life to be far better than many (who've often never owned one) would guess. Traded away my 26 after almost 300 rounds, and while there was some visible erosion in the throat, it had just started to touch the lands, and accuracy was unchanged from when I worked up the original hunting load.

Nosler reports most hunters get at least 1000 rounds before accuracy goes, and one guy sent his back to them for rebarreling after 1500. Of course, it depends on how hot you shoot the barrel too. I would suspect the 6.5-300 would do a little better, both due to its slightly longer neck and the freebore.

In my experience the potential velocities are just about the same, even though Weatherby factory ammo is listed as a little faster. I just grew weary of the recoil, which is out of proportion to the velocity, as it is in any cartridge that uses a lot of powder to push bullets a little faster. Afert getting my 6.5 PRC built, found I wasn't shooting or hunting with the big 6.5s as much. But many hunters apparently believe recoil is directly proportional to "killing power." I have not found that to be true, but that's me.