In 96 I bought a Rem 700 SS BDL in 300 Weatherby for a moose hunt. The rifle didn't group very well (4 -5 in shotgun pattern) at 100 yds and I ended up using my primary rifle another Rem 700 in 7 Mag (this rifle is an outstanding shooter). I put the 300 aside till this year when I got the bug to make it shoot. Well, I've tried everything, new composite stock that I glass bedded and floated the barrel. Different scope (Leupold VariXIII from 7Mag, lapped rings. Several different weight bullets, different grade bullets, different powders, full length size, neck size (Redding dies)and nothing seems to make any real difference. Shoots the same shotgun pattern hot or cold. I have come to believe that the problem is in the factory barrel or in the fact that you can't seat the bullets anywhere near the lands (between .2 - .3 off! to fit in magazine) before running out of magazine length. I am going to try seating the bullets out (turning it into a single shot)to satisfy my curiosity. Do you guys think this normal for a 300 Wthby ? All the manuals say accuracy is good. Ken Waters book says he got 1" groups, how? I would like to rebarrel with a Shilen (steel too soft ?) in the same caliber but am wary of the bullet OAL problem. I bet somebody on this board has tried one for long range shooting, besides the normal action tuning are there special tuning tricks to get these freebored calibers to shoot ?

I used to own a mark 5 in 300 weatherby and was not impressed by 1-1/4" groups(after much load development) but this sounds good compared to what you are getting.I would suspect a problem with the barrel or crown.I have had rifles that shot well with a jump of .150" to the lands and most of my guns are actually limited to .070" to .090" to the lands because of the magazine length but I can still get 1/2" groups with them with the correct load.I have seen custom 300 weatherby rifles built on 700 actions that were very accurate so this cartridge can be made to shoot very well.I have barrels by pac-nor,schneider and kreiger and all appear equally accurate.I have no shilens but a friend does and his rifle does shoot equally well.

Charlie in CO
I quite conviced that you got a dud barrel. Remington barrels are nothing to relly on

David Miller and Mr Echols are both building very accurate rifles in 300 wby and soo does many other gunsmiths. I had a 300 wby that shoot extremly well all day long. 9mm 3 shoot groups with nosler partition and 10-12mm with most premium bullets.

I have new 300 wby under construction, hope it will be just as accurate

Cheers
/ JOHAN

Charlie,

Assuming everything OK "elsewhere" you could have two problems with the barrel.

Firstly, a dud barrel as has been suggested. Although bad barrels often put shots together but with lots of flyers occuring, rather than a big open pattern. Or you find a load that looks like it is good, then it goes off. In other words, everything is very fussy.

The other problem maybe the diameter of the freebore section. This should be as close to bullet diameter as possible. If it is not they generally will not shoot well and do in fact shoot open patterns. This is one reason why you will see on these forums so much variation on the accuracy reporting on Wby rifles.

As to long range rifles in calibers like 300 Wby, you generally find these rifles are not chambered with standard Wby chamber. For example, a mate of mine has a pair of 257 Wbys on Rem 700s and with Jewell triggers. But these are not chambered with standard 257 Wby chamber.

Mike

Well this certainly very frustrating! I've never had a rifle that I couldn't make shoot. Then again I've never had a freebored rifle. Yes, a chamber cast may be in order. I don't understand this, I wonder if it was another case of Rem putting out a rifle that shouldn't have gotten past the QA people.

I have loaded for several Weatherbys, also in .300. They were all finicky about accuracy.

If you have a dud barrel (which I would assume if the following recipe doesn�t work) only a change would help. I got very good results in the past with McMillan match grade barrels (don�t know if they are still in business.) I would also glass bed the action and free float the barrel.

AND:
1) use the hottest primers for big cases, Federal 215 are definitely superior to others in my experience
2) use a bullet which needs some distance to the throat for good accuracy like the Barnes "X"!

Would be interested to hear from you.
Regards and good shooting
Peregrinus

If the crown is not damaged I'd put my money on a bad barrel. The last factory chambered 300Wby I worked up loads for was a s/s M70, and it was a very good shooter. Not fussy at all, it shot several bullets into sub MOA groups with boring regularity.
I'd have the crown examined and if it's okay then I would just have a new Krieger or PacNor barrel installed and start over. PacNor can short throat a chamber for 300Wby and that will also help with the bullet jump. They did one like this for me and it worked really well.

if you short throat the 300 Wby (remove freebore), back your loads down before you start testing again. Most Wby load data uses the free bore, eliminating it effectively lessens your case capacity, hence, higher pressures. - Dan

You guys are convincing me that a rebarrel is in order. I had a similar experience with a 7X30 Waters in a Contender. The throat was off center to the bore. I had it rechambered to 7 Bellm (444 necked to 7mm) that cleaned out the old chamber and it then shot great. Too bad the Weatherby is too long to rechamber, guess its rebarrel time.

I went through the same with a factory Win 70 .338 barrel and I came to suspect the bbl. after glass bedding and 224 test loads (I know, some learn faster ). I've since rebarrelled with a premium Lothar Walther and this one only requested 58 rounds before finding and confirming a load that puts 5 x 250 Sierra GK into .75 MOA (also, copper cleans out with regular powder solvent + bore brush).
If I were you, I'd have the present bbl. recrowned, just to be sure, and if that doesn't work, go for a new quality tube. Many good ones on the market but I'm partial to Lothar Walther.

[ 08-19-2002, 13:42: Message edited by: Andr� Mertens ]

Sounds like a bad barrel to me, too. I've got two 700s in 300 WBY. The first is the AS version - one of the first guns in this chambering. Ross Seyfried reviewed this model and told of sub-1" groups at 200 yds. My gun was apparently cut from the same reamer. Its so accurate its scary.

The newer gun is a BDLSS (no DBM). Its easily a 1 to 1 1/4" gun.

I seat the heads out as far as the mag. box will allow. I'm using relatively mild loads with 4350 and 180 gr PSPCLs to around 2950 fps. Win LR primers. WBY/Norma brass. Nothing special in the way of bench rest techniques.

Have you slugged the gun to determine diam., rough spots, tight spots, etc.?? Sounds like you'll need a new barrel, but I'd at least try to figure out what was wrong with the factory barrel. Also, if you have access to a borescope you may find a visible problem, such as a gouge, etc. One of my friends squawked after he found a problem and ended up with a new barrel from Remington for little more than shipping.

Sam