[Dusty Road]

I’ve never got into long distance shooting but I do have a few calibers that do it quite well. I like fast movers so none of mine will handle the longer heavier bullets available but they do OK for hunting here in West Texas’

I shoot 150’s in my 300 Weatherby, 140’s in my 7-mag, 130’s in my 270 WSM and 100’s in my 257 Weatherby. They’re solid 500 yard rifles, with the proper bullet and twist you can stretch them out to twice that range. 500 yards is about my limit, I’ve only taken two animals past that and both were with the 300 Weatherby. One was a bull Elk in Colorado and the other an Aoudad ram down by Big Bend. Buddy of mine builds long distance rifles and his personal rifle is a 300 Weatherby shooting a 230 grain Berger. He’s taken that rifle well past 1000 yards.

[Tailback]

I don’t hunt. I shoot for accuracy.

[Vlad0]

Wow, I'm pretty jealous of that list of Weatherby cartridges.

A good friend of mine, a fanatic hunter who goes on multiple deer and elk hunts every year in different states swears by his 7mm Weatherby Mag (but still has a bunch of other guns, including a 300 Weatherby Mag).

I drooled over both the cartridges and the guns when I was a young engineer. At the time they were just out of reach cost wise. I got a .25-06 as the cheaper runner up on the .25 Weatherby Mag, which stood out as a laser-beam of flatness in the Ballistic Tables in the back of Gun Digest back in that era.

Of course, now there are lots of new high-velocity rounds from various makers, even a couple from Weatherby!

I think there is a point of diminishing return on shooting giant cartridges to get a little more velocity, but I'm not sure where it is!

I like the looks of the new 6.5mm Weatherby RPM

This beast is slightly faster than the good ol' .264 Winchester Mag - another cartridge I've always loved but never owned. The .264 Win Mag came chambered in a Winchester rifle that was dubbed "The Westerner" when it was released. Now I like old cartridges because they are old, which I guess has to do with my increasing age. There is just something fun about cartridges that date from the 1950s and the guns that chambered them.

Reading (just now) the page on the .264 Win Mag (which was part of Winchester's triple shot of .375 H&H based cartridges: the .338 Win Mag ("the Alaskan") and the .458 Win Mag for African hunting.

All three were super successful cartridges, and 70 years later the "innovations" used to surpass them are sort of minor. The new Weatherby has done away with the belt, and done away with the double-radius case, but is still pretty much a .264 Win Mag in performance (yeah, a touch faster).

An original circa 1958 Winchester "Westerner" chambered in .264 Winchester Magnum.

Which of your Weatherby's do you enjoy the most?