300 Weatherby 230 Berger OTM load development

[jgarren]

Hello,

I recently purchased a 300 Weatherby Mark V Accumark and will be starting load development soon. This is the first Weatherby and I am fairly new to re-loading. Thus far I have only loaded 150 bergers for my 270 WSM.

I am hoping you guys might be able to help me out with a good starting point for this load. Starting charge, seating depths you have found to work well, etc..

For seating depth I was planning to follow Eric Stecker's article from Berger loading 24 rounds from .010 to .130 off from the lands. Although with the freebore I read about the Weatherbys having I am not sure how close to the lands I can get.

Thanks for any help you guys might have. John

Specs -
300 Weatherby
230 Berger OTM
H-1000
Norma Brass
Fed Mag large rifle primer

 

[barefooter56]

Hello,

I recently purchased a 300 Weatherby Mark V Accumark and will be starting load development soon. This is the first Weatherby and I am fairly new to re-loading. Thus far I have only loaded 150 bergers for my 270 WSM.

I am hoping you guys might be able to help me out with a good starting point for this load. Starting charge, seating depths you have found to work well, etc..

For seating depth I was planning to follow Eric Stecker's article from Berger loading 24 rounds from .010 to .130 off from the lands. Although with the freebore I read about the Weatherbys having I am not sure how close to the lands I can get.

Thanks for any help you guys might have. John

Specs -
300 Weatherby
230 Berger OTM
H-1000
Norma Brass
Fed Mag large rifle primer

jgarren,
The 230 OTM is a hybrid style bullet so start at .005 off the lands and work back in .005 increments. Do all your seating depth testing at the lowest powder charge listed for the bullet/powder/cartridge combination you are loading for. Once you find the seating depth accuracy node then work your load back up to find the velocity accuracy node. The Hybrid bullets are tolerant of "jump" and easy to tune for. We suggest you do not use other shooters load data due to the fact that every rifle is different. You have to tune the load to YOUR rifle. What powder(s) were you looking to use?

 

[jgarren]

I am wanting to start out with Hodgden H-1000. So according to the load data I received from your company that would be a starting load of 73 grains. Does that sound correct?

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

You'll have fun with this one...
I've been pulling my hair out on a buddies Accumark ( a misnomer to be sure) in 300roy for a year now... We had her below moa (not much) with the 220 sierra and 225 hdy but she seems to have loosened up a bit the last time out.... I'm hoping a fluke or something loose...
We are using 7828 but I don't think a powder switch would help... The rifle is positively a shotgun with factory ammo; even getting close to moa with hand-loads is a serious accomplishment...
The conditions weren't great but she only got down the 2.5" at 200 while my custom 7stw turned in a .52" 200 yard group... His browning 270 x-bolt shot a 1" 200 yard group with handloads for my 270...

ymmv.... and I hope for your sake it does.... I'm thinking of gifting my buddy a shilen 30 cal barrel and pointing him to my local 'smith (@ HH guns in Bis.) for a little bit of rifle tlc...

On the bright side; he'll have a really cool looking fluted crow bar after this is over... and a good shooting rifle.

 

[barefooter56]

jgarren,
Yes, that is correct. We will be watching this string so keep us in the loop!

 

[MudRunner2005]

You'll have fun with this one...
I've been pulling my hair out on a buddies Accumark ( a misnomer to be sure) in 300roy for a year now... We had her below moa (not much) with the 220 sierra and 225 hdy but she seems to have loosened up a bit the last time out.... I'm hoping a fluke or something loose...
We are using 7828 but I don't think a powder switch would help... The rifle is positively a shotgun with factory ammo; even getting close to moa with hand-loads is a serious accomplishment...
The conditions weren't great but she only got down the 2.5" at 200 while my custom 7stw turned in a .52" 200 yard group... His browning 270 x-bolt shot a 1" 200 yard group with handloads for my 270...

ymmv.... and I hope for your sake it does.... I'm thinking of gifting my buddy a shilen 30 cal barrel and pointing him to my local 'smith (@ HH guns in Bis.) for a little bit of rifle tlc...

On the bright side; he'll have a really cool looking fluted crow bar after this is over... and a good shooting rifle.

Yes, the Accumark name is certainly a tongue-in-cheek misnomer these days. They are overpriced junk. If I was wanting to roll the dice on a crap-shoot as to whether the next gun I buy will be accurate or not, I would rather take my chances on a $400 Wally World Rem 700 ADL (which is a good place to start for a custom build), instead of a $2000 Weatherby that claims accuracy in its own name, yet, over the years, Weatherby has gone up on the price, and down in the quality of components and work that go into building those rifles. Accumarks used to have cut-rifled Krieger barrels...Now they use questionable cheap button-rifled Criterion barrels. $2,200 MSRP and you can't even get a cut-rifled barrel? That's some bullcrap. The quality of workmanship on a 1970's Weatherby Mark V Deluxe is incredible...The workmanship on a new Weatherby Mark V Deluxe looks like it was cookie-cutter stamped and press-fit together.

My .257 Wby InAccumark that I bought new was the same way. Complete ***. After years of frustration, took it to the gunsmith to have it borescoped, he found that it had a bad bore from the factory. He said it was the worst one he'd ever seen. I ended up cutting my losses and traded it off last year. Best thing I ever did was get rid of that money pit.

OP, I hope your luck is better than mine and Lefty's buddy's was.

 

[gohring3006]

Hello,

I recently purchased a 300 Weatherby Mark V Accumark and will be starting load development soon. This is the first Weatherby and I am fairly new to re-loading. Thus far I have only loaded 150 bergers for my 270 WSM.

I am hoping you guys might be able to help me out with a good starting point for this load. Starting charge, seating depths you have found to work well, etc..

For seating depth I was planning to follow Eric Stecker's article from Berger loading 24 rounds from .010 to .130 off from the lands. Although with the freebore I read about the Weatherbys having I am not sure how close to the lands I can get.

Thanks for any help you guys might have. John

Specs -
300 Weatherby
230 Berger OTM
H-1000
Norma Brass
Fed Mag large rifle primer

Dont worry what other people tell you about these rifles being junk! There are alot more and I mean alot more Accumarks that are accurate than not. There is some guys on here that are able to help you get the most out of it. Some people will say everything is junk if it's not there beloved brand. Get some Reloader 25 and some imr 7828 to try if your current powder doesn't work. Some people even say Savage is junk, but I never have to take a Savage to a smith to get it to shoot....

 

[dgr416]

My 338-378 Weatherby accumark with kriger barrel shoots under 1/2 inch with most loads with nosler bullets .My favorite for Alaska was nosler partitions and reloaded 25 .I have shot some .25 inch 100 yard groups and under an inch at 300 yards .Mine was built by seco in Maine and is an awesome gun .I have three of them all awesome guns .The screws to the bedding have to be torwued to 65 pounds .I put that gun through hell and back in Alaska its an awesome gun.Mine hates horady bullets and you have to totally clean the barrel every 50 shots but its my favorite gun.I only paid $1000 for each one awesome guns for that price .It shot good in snow ,rain wind in Alaska always came through for me .

 

[jgarren]

Thanks for all of the feedback so far. Tonight I will finally get the scope mounted on it and tomorrow will be making up some test loads to try this weekend will post up results when done.

Hopefully I will get lucky and things will go well.

 

[jgarren]

Last week I was able to get my scope mounted up, and we also went ahead and bedded the mounts and action while we were at it. Scope is a 6-24X50 Viper PST mounted with lapped tally one piece rings.

Over the weekend I loaded up a few test rounds to get it on paper and close to a zero at 100 yards. That was about as far as I was able to get.

I started with 74 grains of H-1000 and a length of 3.71 which is a long as I could go without having a single shot. I did not set up the chrono and had a 20MPH cross wind.

Here are the results of two four shot groups after getting it close to zero at 100. It was pretty windy and I was not using a rock solid bench so I am pretty happy so far. It will probably be a couple of weeks before I will get the time to get back out again but will post more results as I get them.

 

[338edge]

Make sure you bed the action and adjust or replace the trigger. I have loaded for a few accumarks and they all seem to shoot half min with some fine tuning. Definitely try 7828. Good luck!!

 

[jjmp]

Never ever heard of WBY using Krieger cut -rifled bbls the lower grade Button rifled (C) yes ,just saying lightbulb

 

[Wedgy]

Just curious but what is the length seated at the lands ? The Weatherby magnums I loaded for had such along throat that I ran out of case. they all shot great though. Good luck !

 

[jgarren]

At the lands would be 4.035