Hi,

I just bought a new factory Weatherby 340 barrel for the Mark V action I bought a while ago.

What are the implications of the Weatherby freebore concept? Does it result in accuracy problems? Any benefits what so ever?

There's been so much cussing and discussing this feature of Weatherby that it's hard to keep up with it.
Some Weatherby's shoot really, really well and other don't, just like any other gun. I think we can conclude from that, that freebore is not all together a bad thing. I think it is used to lower pressures and keep reloaders out of trouble, to a certain degree.
My personal theory is that if the freebore is bullet diameter or close, accuracy can be very good, as alignment is assured. If it's much larger than bullet diameter, then the bullet has the chance of entering the rifling crooked, thus poor accuracy. Also, the beginning of the rifling has some play it this too, a coned or ramped rifling is more likely to help with bullet alignment than an abrupt transition, which might help cock the bullet.

In the end, shoot it, if it's accurate, cool. If not it's trading fodder.

Bobby has it in one...freebore diamter.



Consider that HS Precision guarantee half inch grouping in their 30 calibre and down rifles and 1 inch for above 30 calibre and they chamber for all the Wby calibres.



Mike

Bobby,

I think you hit the nail on the head. I reload and hunt a little different than most folks. I only load one round in the chamber and one in the mag. The use of the feed ramp allows more room for COL. Since I'm not concerned with factory or manual COL I tend to have pretty good luck with Weatherbys. The worst two I have had have both been the UL models.

FWIW,

Jim