Dear All,

I discussed the options for reloading a .300 Wthby with a friend, and I have a couple of questions.

Just let me set the stage first... The purpose is to try to duplicate Federal factory .300 Wby ballistics. Not only does this ammo seem to work well in my friend's rifle, we actually have access to the same bullets (not evident in Switzerland), 180 grs Nosler Partitions. My friend has a Zeiss scope set up with a drop compensator for the factory Federal load, and it would sure be nice to get as close to factory ballistics as possible.

Now a somewhat worrying aspect. My friend claims the Federal factory load was chronographed from his rifle at 3250 fps (180 grs NP). That seems awfully fast. Have any of you got an idea if this claimed velocity is realistic??

Now to the reloading part. I did a search here for .300 Wthby loads last night. Favourite powders seem to be IMR 7828, H1000 and RL22. Since a lot of you claim IMR 7828 gives the best velocity, I want to see if I can get my hands on some of this powder (again, not necessarily evident in Switzerland). What has me worried, is that I see a ton of references to max loads for 180 grs bullets at around 85-86 grs (Steve's Pages and Reloader's Nest also have references to such loads). That seems quite a lot, considering the IMR manual (http://www.imrpowder.com/data/rifle/300weathby.php) specifies a max of 80.5 grs with pressure of 53400 CUP. So where did the 85-86 grs max come from?? Presumably, you did not all just dream this up, or simply continued to add powder until the case was full? I don't have access to my printed reloading manuals right now, so maybe that is where that max load comes from??

I believe my friend's rifle will have a standard Wthby freebore, so that should not be an issue when trying to work up loads.

Thanks for any help in advance.

- mike

Mike I use IMR 7828 in my .300 Weatherby 83.0 Gr. with a 200 Gr bullet. The load is documented in Nosler Manual III and 4.

The 180 Gr. load is documented in Nosler Manual 4 at 84.5 and is listed as the most accurate load.

quote:

Originally posted by mho:

My friend claims the Federal factory load was chronographed from his rifle at 3250 fps (180 grs NP). That seems awfully fast. Have any of you got an idea if this claimed velocity is realistic??

Totally possible and realistic. I get 3200+ f.p.s. from my Remigton 700 .300 Wby, using 180 grain bullets, IMR 7828, Remington brass, and Federal 215 primers. With 200 grain bullets I get 3000+ f.p.s. RL22 gives me somewhat better accuracy, at a sacrifice of about 100 f.p.s. of velocity.

quote:

What has me worried, is that I see a ton of references to max loads for 180 grs bullets at around 85-86 grs (Steve's Pages and Reloader's Nest also have references to such loads). That seems quite a lot, considering the IMR manual ... specifies a max of 80.5 grs with pressure of 53400 CUP. So where did the 85-86 grs max come from?? Presumably, you did not all just dream this up, or simply continued to add powder until the case was full?

Older IMR manuals gave hotter loads for 7828 in Weatherby calibers. I found that those heavy loads were OK in my rifle. As always, start lower and work up.

I used to shoot 86 grs. 7828 in my last 300. My brother has been shooting 85 grs for years.

Barrel length is a consideration. Some Weatherbys have a 26" barrel, some have 24". If you have a 24" barrelled gun and are trying to get to velocites tested in a 26" barrel you may run into a wall. That two inches makes a difference. Sometimes as much as 75 fps per inch.

ZM

Thanks guys, much appreciated!

For those of you who shoot 83-86 grs of IMR 7828, how is your case life?? In particular, do your primer pockets stay tight??

Zeke, yes the barrel length will certainly be an issue. I'm not totally sure how long the barrel is on this particular gun, but if it is anything like current models, it should be 65 cm (25.6").

- mike

quote:

Originally posted by Zeke:

If you have a 24" barrelled gun and are trying to get to velocites tested in a 26" barrel you may run into a wall. That two inches makes a difference. Sometimes as much as 75 fps per inch.

Maybe so, but I get those velocities out of the 24" barrel on my Rem 700.

quote:

Originally posted by mho:

For those of you who shoot 83-86 grs of IMR 7828, how is your case life?? In particular, do your primer pockets stay tight?

Case life is normal -- I haven't counted but I get at least 6 loadings out of a piece of brass, and primer pockets remain tight.

I can't speak for the others who load heavy, but the 86.0 grains of IMR-7828 that I list is a compressed load, and it was fired in a Weatherby rifle with tons of freebore.

It showed none of the usual signs of excessive pressure. However, 86.3 sure did!

BTW, I used the Sierra 180 grain HPBT bullet for those tests.

Thanks guys. I'll be careful when I work up - the issue of pressure signs appearing at 86.3 grs could be an indication it might be sound to stay a grain or two below that weight...

- mike

mho, the French loading manual (and I believe you can get French powders as well where you are) shows a starting load of Tubal 8000 of 81.8 grains for the 180 grain Nosler Partition, giving a velocity of 2840 fps. Tubal 8000 is the slowest of the french powders and you will probably fill up the case before running into overpressure situations. The manual doesn't give a maximum load, I don't know why. If you can't get any speed out of this powder than you could try Vihta 165 as well.

I get right at 3300 fps with 84.5gr IMR 7828 with a 26" barrel MK-V with no pressure signs that I can tell. Ambient temp was right at 90 deg. jorge

mho, can you buy American powders in the CH?

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Wink, we can get some US (marketed or manufactured) powders here in Switzerland. It appers my friend managed to order some IMR 7828, we shall see if we can achieve the velocities cited here. Hogdon and Alliant powders are also somewhat available here - although not all types at all times (not even wanting to speak of prices!!). I have never come across the French powder (Tubal) you mentioned in your initial post. But then again, perhaps I simply have not looked hard enough.

- mike

quote:

Originally posted by Wink:

...the French loading manual (and I believe you can get French powders as well where you are) shows a starting load of Tubal 8000 of 81.8 grains for the 180 grain Nosler Partition, giving a velocity of 2840 fps.

But, if the figures you cite are correct, that is almost no velocity gain over what you can get from the 30-06 with 180 grain bullets (you can get 2800+ f.p.s. with 180 grain bullets in the 30-06), but you are using about 20 grains more powder! So there is no advantage at all to using this powder in a .300 Weatherby.

LE270, the French tables are a little different than all of the others (why is no one surprised?) but in some ways more useful. Here's a link and you can look for yourself:

http://www.nobelsport.fr/nobelsport/fr/schedules/armes_epaule.pdf

You will notice I said "starting load". The table also shows that this load yields a chamber pressure of 2800 bars while the CIP max is 3800 bars (or 3900 bars if measured by transducer). Most tables don't give this information. So, you can still go a very long way before getting to the max load. The French give you a lot of information and then let you go off and blow up your rifle on your own. I've never loaded the 300 Weatherby so I don't know if you can fit much more Tubal 8000 in the case or not. Tubal 7000 is a little faster so if you run out of space you could try that of course.

Wink, I did check the link you gave and I looked at those loading tables.

I notice that they give a load using 72 gr. of Tubal 8000 that produces 3018 f.p.s. from the .300 Winchester Mag., using 180 gr. Speer bullets. That's a respectable result, although I think you might be able to get up to 3100 with another powder.

But the load for the .300 Weatherby uses 82 grains of Tubal 8000 powder to get only 2838 f.p.s. with the 180 gr. Nosler bullet in the .300 Weatherby. I haven't used that powder, but I doubt that you can get much more than that in the case -- maybe you could get 4 or 5 grains more.

Switching to a faster-burning powder is unlikely to give you good results -- the Weatherby cartridges, due to their large capacity relative to bore size, tend to work best with the slowest-burning powders.

My overall conclusion is that it is unlikely that any of these French powders will give anywhere near to ideal results in any Weatherby caliber.

Lloyd, you may be correct. Does anyone know of a table which gives volume to weight ratios for the different rifle powders? The Lee tables come close to this if I remember correctly, at least for the pistol powders. I think this would be a great help for reloaders who are considering a powder they don't yet have but are considering using.

quote:

Originally posted by Wink:

Does anyone know of a table which gives volume to weight ratios for the different rifle powders? The Lee tables come close to this if I remember correctly, at least for the pistol powders. I think this would be a great help for reloaders who are considering a powder they don't yet have but are considering using.

The instruction sheet that came with the Lee Perfet Powder Measure that I have gives this information -- it gives the volume of 1 grain of powder in cubic centimeters for many different powders. Nearly all the powders mentioned on this forum are included, including those from Alliant/Hercules, Accurate, Mulwex/Australia, V-V, Hodgdon, IMR, South Africa, Nobel-England, Norma-Sweden, Scot, and Winchester, but not the French Tubal ones. The instruction manual I have is copyright May 1, 1995. Perhaps a more recent one would list additional powders.

Thanks for reminding me of the Lee tables sold with powder measures. I think I may even have one for the French powders since I bought a Lee powder dispenser here some years ago.