Freebore excess in Weatherby rifles chambered in non-Weatherby rounds?

[Bart B]

I used to shoot with the man who worked for Roy Weatherby and designed and made the first Weatherby stocks. He was a good friend of Mr. Weatherby and often discussed what was needed for the Weatherby magnums do do what they did. Freeboring was needed to get the muzzle velocity up to what Roy wanted. My friend told Roy that accuracy may suffer a bit but Roy didn't care. Roy wasn't concerned about long range accuracy, just very fast bullets.

My friend was able to get Weatherby to make him two Mark V receivers without the magazine cutout; single-shot solid bottom ones he used for long range target shooting. They did pretty good after he lapped all 9 lugs into full contact And as far as anybody knows, they're the only two single-shot Mark V actions ever made.

Winchester made a couple dozen or so solid-bottom single-shot pre '64 Model 70 receivers, too. These, I've been told, were one reason Remington came out with their single-shot 40X.

[UT Shotgunner]

[ QUOTE ]

Winchester made a couple dozen or so solid-bottom single-shot pre '64 Model 70 receivers, too. These, I've been told, were one reason Remington came out with their single-shot 40X.

[/ QUOTE ]

A friend in Phoenix had one of these actions. Chambered in .300 Win Mag it was his across the course gun for Camp Perry. Eventually he sleeved the bolt face for a .308 that he used in Palma Match competition. When he passed away very young after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer I hoped to acquire it. It went to another friend, but I did acquire his single shot Mod 700 rifle that he won the Arizona State Silhouette championship with. That one is still in my safe.

[getsmart]

OldCenterChurch,

I should not say that I was pleased with my .300 Weatherby or Weatherby in general. When I first purchased my new Weatherby I expected good things from a weapon with a name like Accumark. Out of the box the rifle consistency was terrible. First round cold shots were 3 to 5 inches low in group. When Weatherby was called they told me to torque the bedding screws down to 65 in-lbs. This made the groups a bit better, but it was not until I posted on this site that I discovered that other had similar issues with the Accumark.

Kirby (Fiftydriver) was kind enough to discuss potential problems and it turned out that the action was not even close to proper bedding in the aluminum block. After a bedding job, then I was able to see sub-MOA groups.

I like the rifle now, but initially I was very frustrated.

Weatherby Accurizing thread from Jan 05

enjoy

eric

[Bart B]

[ QUOTE ]
A friend in Phoenix had one of these actions. Chambered in .300 Win Mag it was his across the course gun for Camp Perry.

[/ QUOTE ]I, too, knew well Richard "Turkey" Anthony. A good friend indeed. I attended his funeral when his ashes were scattered on the 1000-yard line at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility north of Phoenix. We all mourned his passing as he was one heck of a really good guy.

I loaned him my Palma rifle at the the 1992 world championships 'cause his Rem 700 based Palma rifle stopped shooting well.

His solid bottom pre'64 wasn't used for across the course matches. Nobody made stripper clips nor clip guides for the H&H cases and besides the action couldn't be reloaded for rapid fire matches; it didn't have a box magazine. That rifle was his single-shot long range rifle single-round loaded only. As I remember, Winchester made those single-shot ones in target rifles for the US Army Rifle Team originally barreled for .300 H&H Magnum. Some were rebolted by subsequent owners to use .30-06 head diameter rounds.