On the www.nitroexpress.com site a gunsmith (with his his own link to his rifles) has Weatherby bolt handles breaking off due to extreme pressure of factory ammo when used in the heat.

Do you think this could happen.

Mike

stuff I have heard about Weatherby...

- not accurate

- Mark V in 378 and 460 jam

- bolt lugs sheared off and bolt body went though a guy's face

- ammo too high pressure - stuck cases

- cracked stocks

So why wouldn't I believe that the bolt handles fall off too?

i have herd of it happening to remingtons but never weatherby i owen a weatherby and love it.weatherby makes the strongest push feed action on the market i think this is either a fluke or a weird rumour



but like any mechanical thing made by man there is a chance of failure if it did happen i think its still a fluke

oh and forgot to mention about the bolt lugs being sheared off anything can happen when you load to far high in pressure obviuosly that fella was a little to optimistic with his loads.

500 grains posted:

bolt lugs sheared off and bolt body went though a guy's face

Do you believe that happened?

Mike

it is very well possible but he would be the only guy on this planet who ever had it happen to him using a weatherby rifle. man weatherby rifles have been around since what the 60's at least and i have never ever heard of any major malfunctions with there rifles only normal stuff like a broken extractor or maybe a falty firing pin just small stuff and stuff than can be fixed and a minor cost at that.



i personaly know about 20 people who use weatherby and have talked to many more than that who use there rifles and most of every person i talk to loves there guns.



im not going to lie it is possible for a few leamons to make it out of the factory but that is why thre is warrentys if you have a problem bring it back and get it fixed.



i am more than happy with my weatherby and it is extremyl accurate and would highly recomend there rifles to any one looking for a high quality semi custom rifle for north american and african plains game.

I have had several Weatherby rifles, a 257, two 300s a 340 and a 416. Never a problem even when shot in the hot Texas summer.... But then my Blaser R 93's have not blown up either.

hey 450 how do you like your 257 wby there is a real nice lefty one up here for sale i was thinking about snaching it up and use it as a ground hog gun

700nitro
I no longer have any of the Wbys. The 257 shot very well [heck they all did]. I shot the 100gr factory loads, both the Hornady and the Nosler Partition and the 120 nosler Partition. The 257 shoots as flat as the 300 Wby with very little recoil. Should make a very good rifle for all game up to big deer sized animals.

My gun rack contains at least 40 centerfire rifles.....not a single one of them is a Weastherby!

Quality control is non-existant at Weatherby.

I had a Weatherby (inaccurate and giving feeding problems until I had it rebarreled with a quality bbl. + a little tweaking of feeding lips - after that, it became a peach). I sold it to a friend as I needed to finance another project and we remained friends. I own 2 R93's that never created any trouble. I also regularly read alarming reports about both brands (real or hearsay ?.) Proof again that nothing is really idiotproof...

my 378 and 300 weatherby's have NEVER given me one problem!

My LH Mark V in 300 WBY is over 30 years old. After thousands of rounds, It has Never had a feeding problem, the bolt is just fine (handle still in place ) and will shoot 3/4" groups all day with factory 180s.

Sounds like more internet BS rumors to me........

For the record, the Weatherby Mark V bolt body and bolt handle are of one-piece construction.........

AD

Allen,

I wondering how long it would take someone

Mike

500,

It would be an interesting load as it would need to shear the bolt handle off.

This was discussed at great lenght on a thread on 24Hour that was brought up by Ken Howell. From memory I think about everyone on the thread was of the opinion that if the lugs had been machined off and then the rifle fired the bolt would have stayed in the action.

Mike

The "bolt thru the face" incident is true!

A guy in Norway loaded a 7 mm Rem Mag round in a .270 weatherby by mistake. This neat trick stripped the lugs and the bolt handle clean off! The bolt hit the guy on the left cheek and damaged a few teeth and exided on the "backside" of the cheek below the ear. The bolt was inbedded in his shoulder going thru his shooting jacket made of leather first.

The guy recovered but had great difficulties fireing a gun both mentally and fysically.

Stefan.

Until someone invents the 'Fool-Proof-Fool', the 'Fool-Proof-Tool' will remain out of reach..........

AD

Stefan,

Here the link to 24Hourcampfire where the Wby was discussed.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=226800&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=all&vc=1

The incident you described sounds as if the shooter was shooting prone and that is the case for the 24Hour discussion. However, in the case of the Wby in the 24 Hour discussion the bolt supposedly let go because of repeated firing of high pressure factory loads.

Mike

I think almost any mechanical failure is possible, given the right circumstances, but these stories of Weatherbys failing sounds a lot like urban legend. If you put a Rem 7mm Mag into a .270 Wby rifle, who knows what will happen? Can you actually do that? It may be possible and if it is possible, it sounds like the guy who did it was incompetent. I own three Weatherbys (.300, .378, .416), and I reload all my cartridges, and I reload all my cartridges so that bullets go fast, following reloading guidelines (usually). I use two of these guns routinely (.300 for spring caribou and .378 for all other seasons). These guns are tougher and more reliable than any rifles I have ever had. I have reloaded my .378 well beyond the powder capacities specified in the reloading manuals (all of them), and two things have happended: (1) tough bullets, like Swift A-Frame, and some not as tough, punch through most animals without expanding enough to create big holes fast, and (2) the plunger got struck in the bolt face. Little pieces of brass from the shell casing was forced into the space beween the recess where the plunger is seated and the plunger and that caused it to get stuck. It came unstuck on its own and with some shooting by me. So follow the guidelines. I still shot and killed a zebra with the bolt like that. That is what I think will happen if you over-charge, or even grossly over-charge, a Weatherby. Any Weatherby. I would not do that with any other rifle I have experience with.

The shell case of a Weatherby, like the case of any other cartridge, can hold only so much powder. You have to really work at it to over charge a bullet. In fact it is diffecult. In a .378 cartridge, try placing 115 grains of IMR7828 and then seat a 300 grain bullet. It is hard to do. There is not enough room. A charge like this will start making the plunger jam, after about 10 or so shots. Something has to give, but it is not the bolt. It is the bullet. It will knock any animal into next Tuesday right now. And that is what makes Weatherbys work.

I also want to say that I bet that there are more documented cases of Mauser actions jamming than any other action type. If push feed actions failed with the frequency that people say they do, they would have been out of business in 1970, years after they had been introduced.

I would accept the failed-bolt theory if people presented objective facts.

rwj

I can't get a 7mm cartridge to chamber in my Ruger 270. Something else must be at work here.

A .270 Winchester and a 7mm Rem Mag have different case sizes. The 7mm Rem Mag case is too large in diameter to enter the .270 Win chamber. The .270 WEATHERBY MAGNUM uses the same basic belted case as the 7mm Rem Mag and the 7mm Weatherby Mag. I can see where it might be possible (I haven't tried it so I don't know for a fact) for a 7mm Rem Mag or 7mm Wby Mag cartridge to enter the chamber of a .270 Weatherby Magnum rifle.

-Bob F.

The 270 Wby chamber would need to be quite loose around the neck for starters. Secondly the act of closing the bolt would also need to reform the shoulder on the 7mm Mag. The latter is seen when you make 270 Wby cases by running 7mm Mag cases through a 270 Wby die. If the 7mm Rem ammo was loaded with projectiles that had a .284 section extending outside the neck of the case then that would add some more resistance because the freebore section on Wby chambers is barely larger than bullet diamter

Assuming that shooter could get the 7mm Rem into the 270 Wby I don't think the pressure would be as big as some people might think. Due to the 270 Wby freebore max listed loads for the 270 Wby are already quite a bit higher than is shown for the 7mm Rem.

Mike

I'm a proud owner and shooter of many Weatherby rifles, in a variety of calibers. Some are good looking guns that really get pampered, and some are pure workhorses that get the run of altitude, weather, dirt and grit,and whatever else the planet can throw at them. I've never had a failure or any real problem with any of them.

I even tried to jam the things by unloading them while they were upside down. I did this after a debate on CRF or not on some of these forums. My son and I spent half a day loading and unloading our rifles in this manner, testing for a possible future problem. We had no problems what-so-ever.

That being said, I did see a Weatherby shotgun fail once, at a trap range. The shooter had a box of reloads that had several double charged rounds in the box, or maybe even some triple charged loads. He admitted that he'd screwed up during reloading, as he was having trouble with his reloader. He just kept shooting them, to get rid of them. 15 shots or so into the box, and the gun blew up. The side plate stuck into the inside of his left arm, cutting an artery. He was just minutes or seconds from bleeding to death, and at first we didn't know what to do. Luckily, one of the club shooters was an old Vietnam medic, and he knew what to do. His quick action saved our friend's life.

I'm sure that there is some degree of failure among all guns. Perhaps more among some than others. But, I think that reloading off the books is just asking for trouble, I don't care what kind of gun is in your hand.


/

I am afraid that you are wrong. Two years ago here in Norway a poor guy was testing some 270 Wby handloads in a friends Mark V rifle. Accidentially he was handed a 7 mm Rem Mag cartridge which he chambered and fired. The rifle litterally exploded. Stock splintered totally, barrel was splintered and torn off the action AND all 9 boltlugs sheared from the bolt. The bolt handle was teared off and the bolt head seperated from the bolt. It entered the tip of the nose of the poor shooter. It penetrated his lower face and exited the cheek in front of his ear and lodged into his shoulder (through a leather jacket). The guy was hospiticed for a while but survived. Only thing you could see on the photo a year after was a scar on his nose. Talk about beeing lucky..

Ulrik.

That�s the same incident that I saw a article about in a Swedis hunting magazine.

Stefan.

UH,

I find the bolt head separating from the bolt to be especially interesting. What exactly do you mean by separating. If it was a Rem 700 then that would be clear as the bolt head is a separate fitting to the bolt body.

Mike

mike, do you have any idea what has happened to 24hourcampfire.com? Cannot call it up.

No idea.....I just tried and got..The page cannot be displayed

Toby: I abolutley agree. Reloading 'off the books' is asking for trouble. Guns are dangerous enough without adding unneccessary risks. I over-charged my .378 for only one hunt in 2001. I still load the .378 to shoot fast. But I follow reloading guidleines and others should too.

24 Hour is getting a new server.

I have a hard time with the story also. I have a friend who loaded 109 grains of 3031 instead of 99 in his 378 and touched it off. He had to beat the bolt open with a 2x4 and then it ripped the case in half leaving half in the chamber. It set back all of the lugs and expanded the races and the chamber. It broke the stock in three places.

If ever a bolt handle was going to break that was it. Weatherby sent him back the open sights and kept the rest. They stated the pressure was probably in excess of 120,000 psi. They did send him a certificate that allowed him to order another for $525.00.

Mickey



If 99 grains of 3031 was the right load in your mates 378....he must have been using light bullets...200 Sierras and maybe even 220 Hornadys.... a roo shooter for sure



Most of these stories have an element of truth in them, which is then expanded.



For example, posted on this site some time ago was the 30/06 blown up with 57 grains of Bullseye or Green Dot. Well, you won't get even nearly that much in the 30/06 case. But the bloke probably put one of the Alliant flake powders in the Powder Measure when it was set for 57 grains of IMR 4350 and therefore assumed it was 57 grains of Bullseye or Green Dot.



But I would still like to know how the bolt head separated on the Weatherby I am assuming that the principle involved is the same as the poster on NitroExpress.com who said the bolt handle was broken off while hammering with a rock.



People need to stop confusing Rem 700, M70 and Wby Mark V.....that is...apply the story to the correct action



One of the better stories a couple of months ago was on a M70 bolt handle falling off while bashing the bolt open. Obviously the writer had learnt that the M70 has a separate bolt handle....but he did not know it was splined on I think I remember Allen Day busting his seams over that one.



Mike



PS. Contrary to informed opinion, those Weatherby Mark Vs must have good cam forward power so as to reshape the shoulder of a 7mm Remington while at the same time forcing the 7mm Rem into a 270 neck diameter No doubt about it, Roy Weatherby was a genius...54 degree bolt lift with the cam forward of a Mauser or M70....which have narrow lugs to maximise primary extraction and cam forward.



How did Roy manage this...He was a fucking genius

I bought my Mk V in 1990,I know at least 5 persons using one and never heard about a single problem