I have quite a few Weatherby's. 257, 300, 30-378. I also have several Vanguards in common calibers. I always considered them the working man's custom rifle.
One step above the Remington's, Winchester's, Rugers, and the rest. I own them as well. A nice Mark V with a walnut stock is a thing of beauty, especially today when most of the rifles are so ugly that they should be sold in the garden section instead of in the sporting goods section. Right next to the shovels, rakes, post hole diggers, and toilet bowl plungers.
Recently I've been purchasing Weatherby ammo for around $40 a box. This is WEATHERBY ammo. I doubt many can find premium ammo for standard calibers at that price. I handload for all of them.
It took the big companies over 60 years to come out with calibers to compete with the old "Bees". Mostly with the "short magnums" and RUMS and so forth. Everybody got all excited when someone re-invented the wheel. Weatherby owners just smiled.
Most don't remember that Weatherby had the 1.5 inch accuracy gaurantee years before the other companies even dreamed about such accuracy in their products. I may be wrong, but I think Wby came out with the < 1 MOA gaurantee first as well. And in standard calibers to boot. I would not hesitate to put any comparable brand of rifle in a standard caliber against a Vanguard. Be it a Model 700, 70, or a 77 with similar features. I have them all and straight out of the box the only one that may outshoot the Vanguard is a darn Savage.
When I purchased my first Weatherby (.300) many years ago it came with a paper target. I swooned over the small group and ran out and bought a box of ammo, came home, ran in the backyard and began shooting. The group was around 2.5 inches at a hundred yards. I was mad as Hades! I called Weatherby and left a rather nasty message. It was a weekend too. The next afternoon, a Sunday, the phone rang and when I picked it up there was a gentleman on the other end calling from California asking about my Weatherby rifle. I was shocked! He told me that he had come in to check on some things and found my message. I proceeded to rant and rave about the rifle and he responded by asking me if I had the original target. I said absolutely. He then asked what grain bullet was recorded at the bottom of the target. I hollered 180 grains! He asked me what I was using. I said 150 grai............duh... He chuckled, told me to pick up a box of 180's, shoot them and if the rifle didn't perform to call him back and he would make things right. I humbly and embarrasingly told him I would. Sure enough, after picking up a box of 180's, the rifle shot perfectly. I was hooked. I really doubt that if I had purchased a Remington that someone would have called me back on a Sunday afternoon to talk about my rifle. Since then I have never had any trouble calling them and talking to a human being who spoke fluent English about any questions I may have. So yea, I guess you can say that I like the "old Bees".