questions on 257 Wby Mags and Bergers 115

[bob4]

Have a friend that swears it's all but impossible to get anything above a 100 Gn to stabilize in his 257 Wby Mag. He's usually correct and I don't own this caliber. But he went and bought Bergers 115GN hunting bullets( only choice for hunting in this cal).
Anyone have advice or experience in 275 wby Mag and stabilization issues??
His is a Rem 700 with a 26inch barrel 1/10 twist.
I've been there and used my Hornady OAL gauge and touching the lands is all but impossible.
Also any advice on the Bergers for this rifle would be great.
I do have him convinced of the Berger method of finding a load. He's very skeptical of the 115's.
Told him I would ask here as most advice is pretty sound.

 

[Shooter264]

When I had a .257 W I had good luck at 72 grains Retumbo with the 115 VLD. Mine was a 10 twist as well. I'd start at 70 grains and work up.

 

[huntwithme]

sorry I don't user that bullet in my vanguard moa. I use 110 accubound with 68.5 grns of rl-22 gets me .57 groups

 

[jdlancaster]

Shooting 115gr berger in vangard 24 in. barrel . I was able to get one ragged whole at 100 yds, @200 group was .5 in but you have to let the barrels cool on the vangards. Tried many powders,. 71.2 gr of 7828 . I had to jump the bullet almost to the lands, so more powder was necessary. OAL 3.503 or berger style CBOG 4.074 .. This is pushing around 3400 fps. I never had any signs of excess pressure. Im not sure about a remington in a 26 in barel but you should get better than me. I'm not that great of a shot but dialed up a gong at 600 yds. with this round. 5 in off center. so good luck.

 

[Dosh]

bob, I've loaded the 115 VLD for my .257 Wby 1in10 Mark V for 5 years. Never encountered any stability difficulties out to 500 yds which is as far as I need. Very accurate with H1000 and 215M primers. The Weatherby freebore has the bullet falling out the neck prior to touching the lands, try mag length to start. Used the same bullet, powder and components for a 24" Vanguard with great results. Will use the .257 for desert mule deer this Nov. Some .257 Wby chamberings in non-Weatherby rifles don't have the freebore Weatherby factory barrels have. Good luck

 

[AZShooter]

Berger says a 1 in 10 twist will stabilize the long 115 VLD. According to Remington's site the Remington 257 Weatherby has a 1 in 10 twist.

If your friend's rifle won't shoot this bullet there must be a different reason. VLDs don't shoot in all rifles. Might be best to move on. When he wears out that barrel he can rebarrel to one that will shoot the 115 VLD:

A friend and I decided to order a 257 Weatherby reamer from Pacific Tool and Gauge around 10 years ago. We specified that we wanted to shoot the 115 VLD. End result was a reamer with a throat angle of 1 degree 30 min, jump to rifling of approx. .100".

The barrel we used was the Lilja #3 profile SS 3 groove 1 in 10 cut to 24" and 26". We eventually made two more rifles with #5 fluted 28" barrels ALL shot tiny bugholes. Later another friend built one with a lilja #3 three groove 26" and his shot this combination as well.

This year I chambered and installed barrel #6 which is a 26" 3 groove SS #3 that also shoots the 115 VLD.

Sure is nice to have found the perfect combination that has not failed to work. I am through with factory chamberings and only use reamers to my (our) specs. Believe it makes a huge difference. Dan and I own a total of 18 reamers.

 

[bob4]

Thanks everyone, this is encouraging.

The Weatherby freebore has the bullet falling out the neck prior to touching the lands,

No kidding! I thought I was doing something wrong. There is no getting this one near the lands.
I'm pretty certain he hasn't tried H-1000 or Retumbo yet. It will be interesting to see if these ( 115 Bergers) work or maybe it's something with the rifle that he can't stabilize anything over 100GN.

 

[AZShooter]

Why not verify the twist? Use a cleaning rod with a tight patch. Using a sharpie mark rod so you can see when it makes a full rotation. Then mark the rod where it is even with the edge of receiver then push it forward for one turn. Make second mark even with edge of receiver. Measure the distance between the two receiver marks for twist.

If your friend is serious about trying to get the VLD to shoot he should try Berger's advice:

Load 24 rounds at the following COAL if you are a hunter (pulling a bullet out of the case with your rifling while in the field can be a hunt ending event which must be avoided) or a competition shooter who worries about pulling a bullet during a match:
1..010 off the lands (jump) 6 rounds
2..050 off the lands (jump) 6 rounds
3..090 off the lands (jump) 6 rounds
4..130 off the lands (jump) 6 rounds

Shoot 2 (separate) 3 shot groups in fair conditions to see how they group. The remarkable reality of this test is that one of these 4 COALs will outperform the other three by a considerable margin. Once you know which one of these 4 COAL shoots best then you can tweak the COAL +/- .002 or .005. Taking the time to set this test up will pay off when you find that your rifle is capable of shooting the VLD bullets very well (even at 100 yards).

Regards,
Eric Stecker
Master Bulletsmith

 

[bob4]

Why not verify the twist? Use a cleaning rod with a tight patch. Using a sharpie mark rod so you can see when it makes a full rotation. Then mark the rod where it is even with the edge of receiver then push it forward for one turn. Make second mark even with edge of receiver. Measure the distance between the two receiver marks for twist.

Thanks. Love learning this kind of stuff. I'm assuming 1 rev should be 10 inches.

If your friend is serious about trying to get the VLD to shoot he should try Berger's advice:

I have been doing it this way now for a few mos. I have showed it to him recently and I don't think he'll do it any other way again. It really works, for us anyway.I've been impressed with the Bergers so much is the reason he decided to give them a try in this rifle.

 

[scottishkat]

The 115 vldh is superbly accurate in my 257 WBY accumark and like a hammer on these whitetails in VA and H1000 with the 251M is excellent. I have never had a problem with a 1in10 twist stabilizing them. Need to try Retumbo myself I am sure it will be great as well.

I started with a really short CBTO on my original work up and lengthened .030. I can get to the LANS with my accumark but the length was so long grip was limited to like .100.


Good luck and shoot straight

Bob

 

[GTN]

I'm running 115VLD's out of a 27" Shilen on a Remington action. Pushing them with RL-22 and setting them off with a fed 215. Shoots very very good and I used Bergers recommendations on seating depth. I don't have my data in front of me to tell you my seating depth but they wound up fitting in a factory Remington mag box.

I went to the Berger because I am running them in a few other guns and really like them. I was running the Barnes TTSX out of the 257 and was not satisfied with performance on whitetail. The TTSX shot as good as the Berger does though.

I have not shot any critters with the Berger out of the 257 yet. Why do you guy's say not to shoot the shoulder ? I have killed plenty of Whitetail with Bergers out of a 6mm Rem, 308 and 7mm STW and shot both, shoulders and double lung and had bout the same results on all. Boom Flops for the most part, only a couple run and it was for a very short distance.

 

[AZShooter]

Four of us have killed a 16 coues wt with our 257s and the 115s. Most are DRTs.

I remember vividly the shot at a buck at 525 yds. He was quartering away. I put the bullet behind the right front leg and the bullet exited low going through the off side shoulder and managing to go through the elbow! Exit hole was just over an inch. The other shots were the usual double lung shot and many of my deer folded and disappeared from view so fast I thought I had missed! My spotter would tell me otherwise.

I remember the shot Walt made using my rifle. It was a perfect broadside shot at 400 yds. He placed the bullet through both lungs a tad high. I was spotting with 15X binos on a tripod. At the shot I saw a huge red splash of blood push TOWARDS us! The deer dropped to the shot and never even twitched.

I suppose you could ruin some shoulder meat but the deer wouldn't go far and I'd bet that there would be many if not all bullets exiting.

 

[600BP]

Never had an issue with the accubonds or the barnes ttsx in my MKV. Both shoot great. As said earlier, if its a factory chamber from weatherby, don't bother trying to seat those bullets right off the lands. You'll never reach.

Magpro, and H1000 seemed to work the best when it came to temp variances.


Erik

 

[barefooter56]

Have a friend that swears it's all but impossible to get anything above a 100 Gn to stabilize in his 257 Wby Mag. He's usually correct and I don't own this caliber. But he went and bought Bergers 115GN hunting bullets( only choice for hunting in this cal).
Anyone have advice or experience in 275 wby Mag and stabilization issues??
His is a Rem 700 with a 26inch barrel 1/10 twist.
I've been there and used my Hornady OAL gauge and touching the lands is all but impossible.
Also any advice on the Bergers for this rifle would be great.
I do have him convinced of the Berger method of finding a load. He's very skeptical of the 115's.
Told him I would ask here as most advice is pretty sound.

bob4,
Your buddies 1-10 twist barrel is just fine for the 115 VLD. Its the MINIMUM twist rate required but will work. Go to our website and under the BALLISTICS tab on the main page click on TWIST RATE CALCULATOR in the drop down and fill in the blanks after you enter the bullet off the list. be sure to get the correct or as close to correct altitude you will be using the rifle at. If its a couple different altitudes use the lower of the two. The NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE website can help you with this. You just need a zip code. If the results come up as "marginally stable " he can still use the bullet as in this range the bullet is still flying point forward and there is little or no affect on the bullet due to the compromised BC. Its at 600 yards and further that the compromised BC will affect the bullet. Se Bryan article on bullet stability on our website also under EXTERNAL BALLISTICS in the BLOG CATEGORIES.