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To: Dusty Road
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?

134 posted on 06/30/2021 11:20:03 AM PDT by Vlad0
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To: Vlad0

“Which of your Weatherby’s do you enjoy the most?”

That’s easy. The 257 Weatherby is by far my favorite, it’s just about perfect for anything smaller than elk size. I’d have no problem taking an elk with it but I’d have to move up in bullet weight and doing that costs velocity. Funny you mention the 264 Win Mag. I always liked that round but when it was first offered you could only get 140 grain ammo for it. That was a time when velocity was king and they hobbled it right off the bat, by the time they figured it out the 7-mag had already passed them in popularity. Hand loaders were shooting 120 and 100 grain bullets through it and were getting plenty of speed from it.3600 fps with the 100’s and 3300 with the 130’s.
If I was to buy another Weatherby I’d probably get a 6.5-300 and just like the 254 Win Mag I’d keep bullet weight 130 or below.


135 posted on 07/01/2021 4:23:50 AM PDT by Dusty Road (")
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