I've been toying w/ the idea of 7 wby and was looking at the specs and mentioned to a friend that this seemed a better design than the Remington because in a truly long action (Rem/Win) the freebore allows the bullet to be seated out, not taking up powder space. The Rem. is something like .125 while the Wby is .378 (I think?).

I was told that bullets, esepcially light bullets (140 gr.) can't be seated far enough out to be near the lands. Is this true? Anyone w/ personal experience w/ the wby would be greatly appreciated.

The Freebore is not there so you can seat the bullets out very long. It's there so you can produce more velocity safely w/ standard OALs. It allows you to use a heavier powder charge than the 7RM. The bullet has to jump before it engages the lands which cause less pressure w/ the greater charge than if the bullet were kissing the lands.

This has always been my understanding of the Weatherby Rifles and their design. Anyone heard something different?

The 7 WEA is a fine cart even w/ the jump, but if you think you are going to be able to have much more powder capacity by seating long, you are going to create a very dangerous situation.

If you use the Wea Mark V action, your mag box length will usually dictate seating depth unless you like single shots.

If you want to really burn the 7mm pills, might as well get the STW or Ultra Mag. Heck they are even cheaper to load for as well.

Good Luck

Reloader

Reloader is essentially right, BUT. I re-chambered a 7 M/M REM MAG to 7 M/M Weatherby for my son because of the same reason you want to. I specified that my reamer not have the Weatherby freebore because I wanted to be able to seat the bullets to touch the lands. The Weatherby doesn't have any case capacity over the Remington so, if you use low end Remington data and work up you won't run into any problems. The Weatherby definately is a better design from a handloader's point of view and I would say go for it.

After numerous studies on throating chambers and seating bullets next to the lands,Noslers tech said that this did not improve accuracy at all and all it did was increase pressures,and velocity.Just seat the bullets to the factory OAL.and let the rifle do the rest. Don,t believe all this mumbo jumbo that are in some of the gun magazines. My Wby shoots just great,and i have never had to load anything in it greater than the 154gr Hornady bullets or the 139gr. Hornadys. van

The other way to go with this would be to just long throat a 7 RM.

If you have the box room it would be a whole lot easier.

Just my thoughts

Mark D

Thanks gentleman. I was aware that seating the bullets out longer in a WBY would increase preasures, so would need to sart w/ 7 Rem data and work up. It just seemed easier to use a reamer w/ the long throat already there, than have the 7 Rem, throated.

Van, of course every gun is different, but after owning & shooting 3 - .223s, a 22-250, a .257 Imp., a .260, a 6.5x55, a 7mag, a 30-06, a 300 win and 3 - .338, my experience has not been in harmony w/ the "nosler tech." In all these guns, closer to the lands (usually .010-.030) gave better accuracy, sometiems significantly.

There were only two exceptions in this: 1) the military 6.5x55 has such a long throat and short magazine, I can't seat them that close, so I have no way of knowing the improvement or not. 2) Barnes Bullets in pretty much all these rifles & single shot pistols like to be seated away from the rifling. The Barnes manual says .050, but it seems that even seated much further back than that doesn't seem to make much difference in accuracy (I haven't tried the TSX, though).