7mm Weatherby: Why so little attention?

[WildRose]

I know exactly what you mean. This normally happens when you have a die that doesn't match up well with your chamber. In other words you have to bump the shoulder to much to get the base sized enough for easy chambering resulting in poor case life due to seperations. Bumping the shoulder the proper .002-.003 then results in the base not being sized enough. There are a few ways around this, the Larry Willis die is one. I size for 5 belted mags and have only needed this die once. My belted case normally bite the dust due to loose primer pockets more than anything else, never due to seperations. JME

Well when I was young and stupid I pushed my loads well beyond safe pressures regularly trying to get the most out of them so mine would often start to bulge by the fourth or fifth loading.

Rarely did I push them any further than that but when I did the cases would get marked with a Red X and disposed of after the next firing.

I did run some till the primer pockets got so loose the only way I could prime them again was using superglue or clear nail polish as an adhesive and they too got the Red X.

 

[Swiftkill]

It is an awesome cartridge, just not in a factory Weatherby with a super long throat. It would get attention if not for proprietary gun being so limiting to most shooters. If you build it, have the throat shortened so that the bullet you want to use can be seated from .005 to .025 off the lands so you can experiment with seating depths. My sweet spot is usually .010 off the lands or .005 to .015. At the furthest distance out you should still have the bullet at least one caliber (.284) of the bullet supported into the case, preferably.
HOWEVER, I have gotten my best accuracy in some guns with ridiculously long jumps to the lands. Especially with lead free bullets. It's kind of a crapshoot. But that's the consensus.

 

[tooth doc]

isnt your 270 already a 7mm

what????

 

[tooth doc]

It is an awesome cartridge, just not in a factory Weatherby with a super long throat. It would get attention if not for proprietary gun being so limiting to most shooters. If you build it, have the throat shortened so that the bullet you want to use can be seated from .005 to .025 off the lands so you can experiment with seating depths. My sweet spot is usually .010 off the lands or .005 to .015. At the furthest distance out you should still have the bullet at least one caliber (.284) of the bullet supported into the case, preferably.
HOWEVER, I have gotten my best accuracy in some guns with ridiculously long jumps to the lands. Especially with lead free bullets. It's kind of a crapshoot. But that's the consensus.

lead free seem to really like 50 to 120 thou off lands. at least my barnes ttsx loads

 

[Calvin45]

Well when I was young and stupid I pushed my loads well beyond safe pressures regularly trying to get the most out of them so mine would often start to bulge by the fourth or fifth loading.

Rarely did I push them any further than that but when I did the cases would get marked with a Red X and disposed of after the next firing.

I did run some till the primer pockets got so loose the only way I could prime them again was using superglue or clear nail polish as an adhesive and they too got the Red X.

And your still here to tell us about the things you did when you were young and stupid (I'm 30, not sure I've fully transitioned out of that part of my life yet ). Goes to show just how well made most rifle actions are.

I know a guy who knows a guy (cliche i know, take it all with some salt) who supposedly actually blew up a rifle action and suffered some injuries in all this (if true amazing it wasn't worse). The guy was a hand loader and blames the whole thing on handloading being unsafe for "ordinary people" to do…you have to do something tremendously wrong and miles away from recommended practice in published literature to not only ruin a rifle but blow the action (well probably the barrel/action junction but still)!!!!

 

[JohnnieB]

Love my 7Wby. Full custom, 8 twist, with a shortened throat. 169 Hammer Hunters at 3115, mild load and super accurate!

 

[Tikka300man]

Just tossing this out there to generate discussion and probably ruffle feathers but the more I see about this old cartridge the more I can't understand why it's so far removed from the commercial success of 7mm-"anything else"magnums. It's what the 7mm rem could have been but wasn't. It nips right on the heels of the STW, Nosler, and RUM cartridges out of ordinary hunting rifle barrel lengths with waaaay less powder. Whatever about the curvy shoulder voodoo, I don't know that there's anything to that, but it hasn't been crippled by an arbitrarily low SAAMI pressure and hooray for freebore. (Also the .270 weatherby comes to mind for the same virtues…).

So what are your thoughts? It wouldn't be hard to fire form brass, and we love tinkering with things enough that the weatherby case design and expensive factory ammo can't possibly be all there is to why this round isn't more popular…can it?

If I ever get a 7mm of any kind this will probably be the one.

I would mostly agree with you as the 7mm Weatherby is a truly great round and if taken care of properly, should have almost double the barrel life of the 7mm STW and at least triple or better than the 7mm RUM. And I would agree that it is what the 7mm Rem Mag could have been but never will be. However a minor point is that the SAAMI pressure for the Remington wasn't arbitrary. All calibers have those few loads that don't work well, giving large pressure spikes with small powder increases, before the normal mean average maximum is reached. In the case of the big Remington, it was found to have a lot more loads giving early pressure excursions, than other calibers. So the mean average maximum was reduced for safety reasons. It originally had a higher pressure limit but was subsequently reduced. Other than this minor point, I think you nailed it. The 7mm Weatherby is an overlooked gem

 

[Dragoon300]

And your still here to tell us about the things you did when you were young and stupid (I'm 30, not sure I've fully transitioned out of that part of my life yet ). Goes to show just how well made most rifle actions are.

I know a guy who knows a guy (cliche i know, take it all with some salt) who supposedly actually blew up a rifle action and suffered some injuries in all this (if true amazing it wasn't worse). The guy was a hand loader and blames the whole thing on handloading being unsafe for "ordinary people" to do…you have to do something tremendously wrong and miles away from recommended practice in published literature to not only ruin a rifle but blow the action (well probably the barrel/action junction but still)!!!!

Just mistakenly use the wrong powder. And it can be done very easily, I know.
The wrong powder in the wrong case can be extremely devastating.

 

[Calvin45]

Just mistakenly use the wrong powder. And it can be done very easily, I know.
The wrong powder in the wrong case can be extremely devastating.

No doubt. I suppose that was under the umbrella of "tremendously wrong" for me but it's also why I'm a huge fan of single stage reloading and weighing each charge by hand. I don't shoot thousands of rounds a year, and the worst thing for handloading both in regards to safety and therapeutic value is to be in a hurry! No rush, work slow, and if I have the option to do things the simple, manual, one-at-a-time way I do. But I can certainly see how if you're loading tons of different cartridges, using progressive presses, and using charge throwers this wouldn't be so hard to mess up.

Even still, it'd have to be a very different burn rate than intended to not only seize the bolt but actually make a gun explode.

 

[Calvin45]

I would mostly agree with you as the 7mm Weatherby is a truly great round and if taken care of properly, should have almost double the barrel life of the 7mm STW and at least triple or better than the 7mm RUM. And I would agree that it is what the 7mm Rem Mag could have been but never will be. However a minor point is that the SAAMI pressure for the Remington wasn't arbitrary. All calibers have those few loads that don't work well, giving large pressure spikes with small powder increases, before the normal mean average maximum is reached. In the case of the big Remington, it was found to have a lot more loads giving early pressure excursions, than other calibers. So the mean average maximum was reduced for safety reasons. It originally had a higher pressure limit but was subsequently reduced. Other than this minor point, I think you nailed it. The 7mm Weatherby is an overlooked gem

Do you think the rem mag is so "spiky" pressure wise just because it has effectively no freebore?

 

[timo308]

What are the drawbacks of a belted case

There are none that are truly worth the time to mention.

 

[WildRose]

And your still here to tell us about the things you did when you were young and stupid (I'm 30, not sure I've fully transitioned out of that part of my life yet ). Goes to show just how well made most rifle actions are.

I know a guy who knows a guy (cliche i know, take it all with some salt) who supposedly actually blew up a rifle action and suffered some injuries in all this (if true amazing it wasn't worse). The guy was a hand loader and blames the whole thing on handloading being unsafe for "ordinary people" to do…you have to do something tremendously wrong and miles away from recommended practice in published literature to not only ruin a rifle but blow the action (well probably the barrel/action junction but still)!!!!

If you actually blow one up it's going to take a whole lot more than a handloader's errors to accomplish it.

Virtually all of the non semi auto's I've ever seen blow are due to a plugged bore.

You could theoretically do it using pistol/shotgun powders in a rifle case but that's' no error, it's improving the gene pool.

 

[WildRose]

Do you think the rem mag is so "spiky" pressure wise just because it has effectively no freebore?

All factory rifles have ample freebore for the cartridges/bullets they are designed to shoot.

Not to do so would put the companies at such high risk labiality wise they wouldn't be in business for long.

 

[villagelightsmith]

Redundancy. Unless one is a collector of chamberings, just for the sake of their great variety, there is little that can be done with the 7mm Weatherby that cannot be accomplished just as well or better by several other chamberings.