I WENT TO THE RANGE TODAY TO FURTHER TEST MY 7MM WEATHERBY.IT GROUPS BEST AT MAX LOAD BUT STILL WILL NOT DO BETTER THAN 1.5 THREE SHOT GROUPS AT 100 YARDS.I AM NOW EXPERIMENTING WITH LONGER C.O.L. AND AM DOING WORSE INTEAD OF BETTER.WHAT GIVES?I ALWAYS HEARD THE CLOSER TO THE LANDS,THE MORE ACCURATE YOUR GUN WILL BE.AND THIS IS HARD TO DO WITH SO MUCH FREEBORE IN THE WEATHERBY MAGS.NOT ONLY AM I HAVING TROUBLE WITH THIS,WHILE SHOOTING ONE OF MY 3 SHOT ROUNDS,I HAD 1 CARTRIDGE THAT THE BOLT WOULD NOT CLOSE.THIS WAS AT 3.365 C.O.L. ALL 3 OF MY NEXT LOADS AT 3.370 WOULD CLOSE WITH NO PROBLEM.I MIKED THE THE PROBLEM CARTRIDGE WITH SEVERAL BULLETS FROM THE REST OF THE BULLETS FROM THE SAME BOX AND THEY MEASURE THE SAME.DOES ANYONE HAVE AN EXPLINATION FOR THIS?THE BULLETS ARE 140 GRAIN PARTITIONS,IN FEDERAL CASES WITH 73.5 GRAINS OF RL22,USING FEDERAL 215M PRIMERS.

How many different loads did you try? It is possible the gun does not like partitions, or that there is a bedding or foreend pressure problem.

As a rule most guns like OAL's that bring the bullet ogive between .005"-.025" from the lands, but this is not always the case. If your Weatherby has as much freebore as they can at times, you will run out of magazine length well before you touch the lands.

I have had similiar problems in the past and will give you some of the things I screwed up.

1) Trim length of the case. Was the case of the shell that will not go into the chamber trimmed to under maximum length. Cases stretch differently. Checking one or two cases for case length will not catch the case that is softer than the others.

2) Is this a compressed load. If so did you bulge the case slightly when seating the bullet.

3) Is the crimper set on your seating die. If the case is longer than the the case you set your seating die with you could have caused a slight buckle in the shoulder or neck.

These are not all the screw ups I've made but some that resulted in not getting a bullet to chamber.

Good Hunting
Steve

------------------
Every man dies, but not every man really lives!!

Santala's comments are all good observations and possible sources of your problem.

But as for seating out toward the lands, if your gun is factory Weatherby, you ain't ever gonna get there! Weatherby uses a freebored chamber (no riflings in the first .3 inches or so of the barrel throat). Therefore, you simply can't seat a bullet long enough to reach the lands in a Weatherby chamber.

I think that this freebore is also SAAMI spec for Weatherby cartridges, so if your gun is another make or even custom, but chambered with a SAAMI spec reamer, you will have this freebore.

sll,
I often do load development for customers and the only rifle I have ever had that shot best way off the rifling was a Weatherby Vanguard in 7mm RM. It shot almost four inch groups against the rifling and eventually gave me a half inch 7mm (0.275") off the rifling. Most work well touching the rifling or a little way off but that rifle just got better and better as I worked into the case.

------------------
Gerard Schultz
GS Custom Bullets

GERARD,I WAS THINKING ALONG THE SAME LINES AS YOU JUST PUT IT.WHEN I SHOOT WEATHERBY FACTORY AMMO IN THIS GUN,IT SHOOTS GROUPS MORE CONSISTANT AND TIGHTER THAN THE LAST FEW LOADS THAT I HAVE LOADED BY EXTENDING THE BULLET.AND THEY MEASURE AT 3.300,.075 LESS THAN WHAT I LAST TRIED.I JUST LOADED SOME AT THAT LENGTH AND WENT IN .010" INCREMENTS LONGER UNTIL I GOT TO 3.360".I WILL TRY THIS AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS.WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT TRYING H4831 IN THIS LOAD?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gerard:
sll,
I often do load development for customers and the only rifle I have ever had that shot best way off the rifling was a Weatherby Vanguard in 7mm RM. It shot almost four inch groups against the rifling and eventually gave me a half inch 7mm (0.275") off the rifling. Most work well touching the rifling or a little way off but that rifle just got better and better as I worked into the case.

---

STONECREEK,I STILL HAVE NO EXPLINATION FOR THE 1 ROUND THAT WOULD NOT CHAMBER.I SEATED THAT BULLET .030" MORE AND THE BOLT STILL WOULD NOT CLOSE.IT HAS TO BE SOMETHING WITH THE CASE,BUT I HAVE MEASURED EVERYTHING AND AM AT A LOSS.I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT I FULL LENGTH RESIZED THESE CASES AND NOT NECK SIZED.I AM NEW AT THIS BUT I AM TOTALLY STUMPED WITH THIS ONE.SOMEBODY SHOOT ME.

What brand of reloading dies are you using?

I'm working on a theory.

I think H4831 is better suited to the lighter bullets than RL22. It will yield more speed for a given level of pressure for a start. The round that would not chamber - Take a black felt tip marker, blacken the entire round, let it dry and try to chamber it. When it stops, jiggle the bolt so that the ink is rubbed of the contact point between the round and the chamber. (Watch that trigger finger while you do this.) That will tell you where it is oversize for the chamber. Tell us what happened.

------------------
Gerard Schultz
GS Custom Bullets

RCBS FULL LENGTH

quote:

---

Originally posted by JMac:
What brand of reloading dies are you using?

I'm working on a theory.

---

GERARD,I TRIED WHAT YOU SAID AND IT IS HITTING RIGHT BELOW THE SHOULDER.AS I WAS JIGGLING THE BOLT TO RUB THE INK OFF ,THE BOLT ACTUALLY CLOSED.BUT THIS IS THE ONLY TIME I HAVE EXPERIENCED ANY TYPE OF RESISTANCE.I MIKED THE CASE WHERE IT WAS RUBBING AND IT MIKED .491".THE RELOADING BOOKS SHOW THAT IT CAN BE .492".NOW WHAT?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gerard:
I think H4831 is better suited to the lighter bullets than RL22. It will yield more speed for a given level of pressure for a start. The round that would not chamber - Take a black felt tip marker, blacken the entire round, let it dry and try to chamber it. When it stops, jiggle the bolt so that the ink is rubbed of the contact point between the round and the chamber. (Watch that trigger finger while you do this.) That will tell you where it is oversize for the chamber. Tell us what happened.

---

I have heard long before I ever found this website that Weatherbys like about 50/1000th's jump.

sll,
Best would be to disassemble that round. The problem is probably that that case was over length. When seating the bullet, the case bottomed out in the die on the case mouth and crimped it, at the same time putting downward pressure on the shoulder and bulging it slightly below the shoulder. Pull the bullet and resize the case. Measure it for length and trim if necessary. If it measures within spec, you may want to seat your bullets with more care (slower) as pushing them into the case too quickly can also have the colapsing effect below the shoulder. This is aggravated by insufficient chamfering of the case mouth and or a slightly undersize button. Remember to lube inside the case mouth to ease the passing of the button through the case neck, not too much, just a light scrape on the lube pad with the edge of the case mouth every couple of cases is sufficient. Sort of like scooping a bit of lube into the case.

On the sizes you measured: CIP specs state that commercially loaded ammo must conform to a set of specified maximum dimensions and may be up to 30 micron smaller. The chamber specs are similarly stated but at a minimum size and may be up to 30 micron larger. It could be that the chamber is out of spec on the small side (happy days!) or that you measured with a digital caliper that reads to plus or minus .005" and is giving you a false reading. If you did use a mike, it should be a digital capable of four decimals otherwise the same error could occur. Let us say the actual measurement is .4914, the reading will be .491 and if your chamber is nice and tight, it won't go. Similarly, a three digit instrument will display an actual measurement of .4916 as .492.

I am not critising here, and do not want you to take offense but you may want to type in upper/lower case. Using all capitals is like shouting in internet speak and I hate wearing my earmuffs while on the net

------------------
Gerard Schultz
GS Custom Bullets

[This message has been edited by Gerard (edited 08-12-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Gerard (edited 08-12-2001).]

The reason I asked about the die set was that I had a simular experience with a Remington Classic in 7mm Weatherby.
With factory ammo it shot about an inch and a half. More or less consistantly. For about two years I played around with about every bullet between 140 and 160 grains and every powder that seemed reasonable. It might shoot 1 good group then the next time a pattern. Seating depth never seemed to make much of any difference.
Then I started to notice a few things.
One, ammo loaded with new brass shot better than fired, re-sized brass.
Second, the effort to close the bolt wasn't consistant. When I checked the loaded shells
like Gerard suggested, mine were rubbing in the same location as yours.
I was using RCBS full length dies. Setting the die down a bit farther helped but I ran out of room between die and shellholder before the problem went completly away.
When I measured cases before and after seating a bullet, I couldn't see any difference.
So basicly I'm wondering if RCBS could have gotten the taper or shoulder diameter off or if this is a case of tolerences stacking up?
If it is a die problem I'm sure RCBS will do anything necessary to make it right.
Me, I rebarreled the action.

The Weatherby has free bore design and you can not reach the riflings by trying to seat the bullet against the lands. Weatherby rifles will exibit best accuracy with the bullet seated .005 to .060 off the lands. Free bore design by Roy Weatherby gives the rifle the ability to show higher velocities than a standard chamber. Once fired new brass from your rifle can be sized for best accuracy by using a neck sizer die. Maintain proper case length by trimming. Match bullet weight to the twist of your bore. Powder choice IMR-4831 H-4831. Weatherby rifles tend to show groups a smidge larger than standard chambered hunting rifles because of the free bore design. Some rifles do not and will not show very good groups with Nosler Partition bullets. The reason is the two compartment design of the bullet. The Nosler two compartment design is a failsafe mushroom quality by Nosler used in big game hunting. This upsets the bullets flight by placing the bullet weight to far forward. Any accurate shooting hunting bullet must have the majority of it's weight near or at the rear of the bullet for best flight characteristics. Nosler sacrifices the best in flight characteristics for better bullet performance on game.

Reloader66,
I agree with all of your post except about Nosler bullets...Most of my guns shoot Noslers better than any other bullet...

Accruacy has more to do with barrel viberations etc., than any particular bullet design and that is why all guns shoot better with some brands and worse with others.

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com