The question: what is the minimum body taper that you can put on a belted Weatherby case? Are there any reasons it has to be tapered in the first place? Curious.

A noted reamer grinder and I discussed this, recently. He feels that anything less than .003 per side per inch can lead to difficult extraction. My own wildcats have had .0035 per in. per side and never had any problems. These are longer cases, European brass.

Thanks Jay.

I can't say what is minimum. However I have several wildcats based on the 280 rem that have a body taper of .0028 per inch. I have not had any extraction problems.

The least amount of taper I have ever dealt with in a wildcat was one thou per side, or a total of .002". There were no problems with chambering or extraction. - Dan