A year or so back a shooter in Norway was quite badly wounded when feedning a .270 Weatherby with 7 mm Rem Mag rounds. All the 9 lugs on the bolt was stripped clean and the bolt whent thru this guys face and ended up inbedded in his shoulder. The young guy have recovered resonably well but have a hard time to fire a high power rifle.....

It would be wery interesting to se what would have happened to a M-98 with the same mix of rounds. I hang around a Swedish forum similar to the AR and in a thread about Weatherby rifles I stated that if the Norwegian shooter had have a M-98 action he would PROBABLY wouldn�t have to pull the bolt out of his shoulder........

Anybody that have any ideas about the strength of the Mark V action and how a M-98 stands up against it if things go out of control.

Stefan.

I believe that Weatherby touts 200,000psi as their threshhold. What does that mean in the real world? Not much. A hot load with excessive headspace can reek havoc on many a good action. You're talking about a tremendous amount of back thrust on the bolt face. A Mauser design with two massive opposing locking lugs, as well as a third lug at the rear of the bolt, makes me feel much safer than those tiny things that Weatherby calls lugs.

[ 03-08-2003, 23:12: Message edited by: SST ]

There is a simple way of answering your question. 1) The Weatherby action is fairly strong. 2) enormous pressures can occure under those conditions. 3) the use of any action under those conditions can result in death. Fronting calculations on theoretical strength does not condition what happend in "this" shot. Id say he is a lucky man.

Stefan----

It's MUCH more likely the Weatherby you refer to fired with the bolt out of battery and a firing pin adjusted too far out.

Firing a 7mm Rem Mag in a .270 Weatherby rifle does NOT result in the damages and injuries you describe. It's been done MANY times.

Jack, what are you talking about? I mean no disrespect but I've seen pictures of a 270 Weatherby that attempted to fire a 7mm rem mag cartridge and it wasn't pretty. Maybe I am misinterpreting you but I wouldn't want to be near this type of an experiment.

Chuck

In the March-April 2001 issue of Rifle magazine, Ross Seyfried has an article about a Winchester Model 70 that was destroyed in exactly the same way, by firing a round of 7mm Rem. Mag. in a 270 Weatherby. The pictures are truly amazing. The shooter was uninjured. They couldn't even *find* all the parts of the gun after it let go. The entire top half of the front ring was gone. The bullet jacket was still in the barrel! Very spooky stuff.

Best,
Joe

Jack.

I got the info from a Swe. hunting magasine. I have no idea if the details in the magasine was correct but it stated that the bolt was closed and everything was normal untill the trigger was pulled.

There was several pictures of the gun in the magasine and it was quite clear that all the lockinglugs on the bolt was ripped clean of. Is this possible if the bolt isn�t closed?

Last year there was a incident here with a Tikka rifle that involved a fireing pin sticking out while closing the bolt. The hunter lost his thumb.......

Stefan.

G'day Stefan,
Any chance of posting the photo's from the magazine?
I am really intrigued about this accident and the history of the rifle leading up to this incident.

I assume the bolt closure would be very difficult to start with,noticeable recoil increase and it just gets uglier from there.

I use Weatherby rifles a lot and this is the first incident I have heard of one being damaged and coming apart this way.

Thanks ,
Regards,
Charlie

Here are some pictures of a m70 that went to pieces. I was told it was from an undercharge.
The reason for posting them is to stress the point that when it comes to shooting and reloading you can't be too careful.
Also any action that we use, whether it be Rem., Rug., Weath. Sako or what ever, is plenty strong enough to handle an over charge or probably even the 7mm/270 thing that happened to the Weatherby. The fact is you my never know just why the Weatherby you refer to or even this Winchester came to pieces. We should all be careful pay attention and not be the next guy to have to ask way did my gun blow up.
Also JBelk are some of the others that attended the Guild show can elaborate on the m70. I believe David Christman told me it was at the show.
Any way good luck and SAFE shooting to all.
Shawn

G�day Charlie M!

I�ll try to look up the magazine with the blown up Weatherby and post the pictures.

Stefan.

Jim Dubbell was going to show me that M70 last time I saw him in Spokane but I couldn't hang aroung 'til the next day. Interesting pictures. In a case like this I can't help but think that a sharp cut at the base of the lugs is contributory to the failure.
I aggree with Jack that a 7mm through a 270 shouldn't be a real problem for the MKV action. Again, if there were some metalurgical flaw or machining flaw it could be another story.
I have told of the guy who brought the Savage 110 in after having fired some 7x57 shells through his 270. There was no problem but he did say it didn't really shoot that well and seemed to kick more than he remembered! Regards, Bill.

Regarding WBY action strength they seem to always focus on those NINE lugs. But I often wonder , even with modern manufacturing, just how MANY of those nine lugs are mating up well enough?
Roy Weatherby seems to me to have been a great showman. Nothing against his guns or those that like them. I just have a hard time BELIEVING all his claims for the Wby actions. Including the figures regardin the amount of pressure they can take.

FN in MT

Ackley actually ran some experiments several years ago with oversized bullets. If I remember correctly, he was firing 6.5mm bullets through a 257 barrel. That is exactly the same difference as quoted above. He did this with little apparent impact. I believe the purpose of the study was to study the effect of oversized bullets, due to the .318/.323 bullet situation. His finding was that bullet swaging added little real pressure to the round. (He also actually fired a rifle with another bullet welded in the barrel. The action (Jap ) didn't let go.)

If you think about it, there are a lot of guys with 8x56 Steyr's out there resizing 338 bullets to 329 by simply using lube and a Lee sizing die. If you can do this by hand in a reloading press, I doubt that the impact on a 50,000psi cartridge is catastrophic. I would have to guess that there was something else wrong and the little bit of pressure put it over the edge.

Stefan:

Was the bolt handle sheared off the bolt as well as the lugs?

B

Buliwyf.

I think the bolt handle was sheared off as well as the lugs. It�s a few years back and I havent managed to find the magazine yet. I�ll keep looking for the magazine and post some pictures of the wreck if I find it.

Stefan.

I just found the magazine with the pictures of the Weatherby!

I think I mixed the magazine up with a Norwegian one that had a lot more and better pictures of the blow up. The only picture in the Swedish magazine doesn�t say mutch besides that all the lugs are gone and the stock is shattered.

The bolt handle was sheared as well, it says so in the text.



Stefan.

Stefan---

That's a sure sign of a detonation, not improper ammo. I'm surprised I haven't seen reference to that occurence before.

Sheared lugs are almost unheard of. The only lug failure I've seen was the result of Bullseye or low charges of slow powder. Both equal the same thing.....detonation.

I'd be interested in any information you could supply on this accident.

Stefan:

Thank you for bringing this discussion to the forum. I shoot a Weatherby and would like to understand this incident better. I have recently taken more interest in the engineering design of how actions handle an upset condition.

I'm hoping you will answer JBelk's request if possible.

Thank You.

Buliwyf

I�ll get in contact with my friends in Norway and se if they could get some more info about this.

I�ll post another picture of the guy tha got hurt when the Weatherby came apart. If you look close you can see where the bolt hit the face. It hit at the tip of the nose and penetrated into the chin at the base of the nose. The exit is just below the ear. His nosebone (or what it�s called in eng. ) and the bone under the eye was broken.



Stefan.

I would love to see a picture of the front receiver ring of the action and also the chamber area of the barrel.

It would also be interesting to see the rear of the recever since the bolt handle was sheared off.

I have a bad feeling about this given it was supposedly brought about by firing a 7mm Rem in a 270 Wby.

I think Jack Belk knows what I am talking about and if what I think is right this time we will be on the same side.

Mike

[ 03-10-2003, 13:52: Message edited by: Mike375 ]

G'day Stefan,
Thankyou for posting the pictures of the Weatherby.
I noticed that the bolt nose has disappeared of the front of the bolt, this for example ,would lead me to believe that it was something more than just a matter of firing a 7mm Mag In a 270 WBY.
Any body else have any definitive ideas or information?

Regards,
Charlie

Stefan this is very interesting. I would like to see the receiver also. That is one VERY lucky young man!

Neither the Weatherby nor the Model 70 safely handles overpressured loads. Only a case hardened mauser action does that well, but of course there is still danger. Model 70's are known to come apart like hand grenades (so are Enfields) and Weatherby bolts like to travel straight back and through the cheekbone. In contrast, mauser lugs set back, the third lug takes hold, and the gas ring protects the shooters face from most of the gas.

ughhh

I agree with Jack. I don't think this was a simple ammo switch. I recently had a horrible brain fart and shot a 338 Win Mag through a 300 Jarrett on a 700. I had to take the barrel off to get the bolt open, but the only problem I could find was a slight bulge in the chamber.

500Grains,

From your posting:

Weatherby bolts like to travel straight back and through the cheekbone.

Is this something that has occurred on some regular basis or is it an assumption based on some design fault with the action.

Mike

Oversize bullets don't blow the front end off a bolt...I had a ranch hired hand shoot a deer with my Savage 99 243 except he shot a 250-3000 in it..It kicked him like hell he said, killed the deer and he couldn't open the action, and from now on would I just let him use the 22 like always...

I hammered the action open and got a blown case out of it..but the gun was fine..The case had the head blown off and the case was near welded to the chamber sides but I got it out...

It doesn't take a magnum round in a Weatherby Mk V to cause lots of damage. Last year at our range during "Sight-in Days" we had a couple present...a fella shooting a .308 Winchester,and his wife shooting a .257 Weatherby Mag.

At one point they got into a slightly heated discussion, then she sat down at the bench to shoot. Next thing we knew, the magazine floor plate was bulged and bent almost beyond recognition, there was a 4" long section of stock missing from the left side of the front receiver ring, the follower had disappeared, and the lady was crying, then swearing.

Seemes her husband had left his box of .308 factory ammo on the bench and she had chambered one in her .257 Weatherby and touched it off.

We had to remove the barrel to see what else had gone on. Bullet had not moved beyond the throat in the barrel, but bolt was no longer useable. Receiver ring looked O.K., but after a blue pill like that, who knows?

Likely, the receiver was fine and it was all the loose gas around that small case in that big chamber which did the damage, but we had no way of checking to be sure.

Incidentally, we had an almost identical set of damage done to a 7 m/m Remington Mag the year before last when a store clerk sold a new shooter some 7x57 ammo to fire in his 7 m/m Remington Mag chambered rifle. (It was neither a
Remington rifle nor a Weatherby)

It goes without saying, it is almost always dangerous to fire rimless ammo in a rifle not chambered for it.

Of course, there were the pictures the NRA ran in the American Rifleman in around 1960, of the 6.5 Japanese rifle which had been rechambered by some dolt to .30-06...and used successfully to hunt with!! The NRA tech staff also fired US military ball '06 in the rifle, and showed pictures of the recovered bullet...which was greatly elongated!! Because the ammo fit the chamber well, the small barrel simply swaged the bullets down and continued to perk right along.

The owner (and the NRA) did report that the recoil was something ferocious though....

[ 03-15-2003, 07:35: Message edited by: Alberta Canuck ]

My buddy in Norway that could have some more info in this matter is on a trip to US and when he return to Norway I�ll try to get him to do some investigations.

Stefan.

There is a difference in some of these scenerio's.

One : Oversize bullet, but one that does enter the throat of the barrel. This bullet starts moving late due to needing a much greater pressure build up behind it, but once it moves it gets swaged down to fit the bore and the (very high) pressure is released. This was the case in Ackleys tests, the Arisaka article, and 250 Savage in a 243 Winchester examples given.
Two : a bullet that doesn't enter the throat and gets popped out of the case by the primer and into the barrel throat before any real pressure builds from the powder, and STOPS in the bore of the barrel. Then pressure builds from the powder, but due to inertia the bullet doesn't get a chance to move again before the pressure release from the action getting blown apart. And remember, you now have an underload of slow powder situation due to the much larger than intended chamber resulting in detonation and a very fast pressure rise. This was the case in the 7mm RemMag in a 270 Weatherby, 308 in a 257 Weatherby, amd 7x57 in a 7mm RemMag examples given.

Two different scenerio's leading to two different results. Of course the thing to do is only fire the correct ammo in the first place.

Are you sure it was a 7mm Rem Mag that was chambered in the 270 Wby?

Something in the back of my mind made me wonder about chambering a 7mm Rem Mag in a 270 Wby. I have both and I tried to chamber a new (empty case) 7mm Rem Mag in my 270 Wby (rebarreled Mauser, not a MK V) and could not close the bolt. There was no resistance to the larger diameter neck, but the 7mm case was stopped at the shoulder, preventing me from closing the bolt. I may have been able close the bolt using excessive force it, but it felt very solid. A little checking in my reloading manuals showed that the base to shoulder measurement on Rem is about .025 longer than the 270 Wby, plus the effective shoulder angle is much lower, making the shoulder/chamber contact point effectively even further out.