Weatherby vanguard freebore?

R

Roadkill2228

New member
Hello, I'm new to this forum and was hoping to have a question resolved. I have a weatherby vanguard (series 1) chambered in .300 winchester magnum, NOT the weatherby 300, the winchester. I specify this because I know that all weatherby magnums are chambered with a generous amount of freebore. What I'm not so sure of is if the amount of freebore my rifle exhibits is normal. Do all factory .300 win mag rifles feature freebore. To make bullets "kiss" the lands on the rifling I have to seat then waaaaay out there so they won't fit in my magazine. And it does not like light for caliber bullets for accuracy at all. Best results have been with 208 grain bthp from hornady. Any feedback about 300 win mag freebore would be appreciated.
 
So I've been told. When I get home I'll have to post a picture of a round loaded to just touch the lands to show what I'm talking about. Also seemingly indicative of greater-than-usual freebore is that I end up loading most of my ammunition up to 4 grains over max according to hornady 8th reloading manual, with no pressure signs and appropriate, maximum but not over the top velocities.
 
I can load rounds touching the lands to mag length in my vanguard vgx. It is in .270 win. I have read that Weatherby uses long leades in their rifles but that is not the case with mine. She is a solid shooter with pretty much any quality ammo that I have put through it.

I hope you can get yours to shoot.
 
Thanks. Don't get me wrong i love the rifle, it is pleasant to shoot and sufficiently accurate for all the hunting I will do with it. It does shoot very well with those 208s I mentioned. The most accurate load I've ever run through any of my three hunting rifles had been with those bullets in this gun compressing 81 grains of h50bmg (yeah I know, it's much too slow burning to get optimal velocity in this cartridge), win brass, fed 215 primers and seated just into the lands of the rifling. This set up only runs around 2600 fps or so if I recall correctly but it produced "one ragged hole" kind of accuracy. The problem is that this projectile is not a hunting bullet.
 
I had a Vanguard 7mm rem mag that had a long leade, and as I worked up my loads I found that .010 off lands swemed to be optimum with the heavier bullets.
I think that the powder your using is slower than optimum for caliber bullet combo. Try a 180 Accubond with H1000, IMR 7828, even some of the RL powders and start ten pecent low and work up.
 
I had a Vanguard 7mm rem mag that had a long leade, and as I worked up my loads I found that .010 off lands seemed to be optimum with the heavier bullets.
I think that the powder your using is slower than optimum for caliber bullet combo. Try a 180 Accubond with H1000, IMR 7828, even some of the RL powders and start ten pecent low and work up.
 
Hey thanks for the input. I have tried 7828 and it was pretty good but I did notice a fair amount of shot to shot deviation as far as velocity goes. It is very hard to come by suitable powders where I live (and from the sounds of things I'm not alone in this matter) I live in small town Saskatchewan so I kind of have to work with whatever I can find. I reload for .243 win, .270 win, and .300 win mag. The nice thing is all of these cartridges like the same kind if powders (roughly). The bad thing is that my two very favourites so far are apparently everyone else's favorites too: H4831 and RL22. As for the slow burning powder; I bought the pound of h50bmg mistakenly believing it would work with the heavier bullets; but now I have it so I use it, just not for full power loads (cuz you can't fit enough of it in the case to make such a load anyways!)
 
I have a HOWA (same manufacture as Wby Vanguard but might be different specs) and haven't noticed extra freebore. Wby didn't use freebore on anything other than their proprietary cartridges even in the Mk5 AFAIK.
 
Yup, me too. Howa 1500 in 300 WinMag. When the bullet touches the rifling, OAL is 0.2 (Sierra 2160 180gr BT) to 0.25 (Nostler 180gr BST) more than max (being 3.34 if I have it right)

The rifle likes the Sierra at 50 thou off the rifling, but that's still quite a bit longer than max. And because of the long boat tail, only about half the neck has bullet in it.

The Nostler at least fills the neck because of the shorter boat tail, but with much worse accuracy at 50 thou.

Strange.
 
Thanks for the reply! Finally someone with same experience! Do you find that your rifle takes more powder than listed in a manual to get the same velocity? Most of my loads are a few grains over max according to hornady 8 and are not showing pressure signs at all and velocity is the same as the max listed with the same powder just usually with 2-5 grains more of it
 
More powder? One would expect that. But they list <local powder> at 73 1/2 grains max for 2950 fps with <local 180gr bullet>, while I'm using 73 grains with the Sierra 2160 for pretty much 2950 fps.

However, <local 180gr bullet> has more bearing surface.

However 2, the Sierra 2150 with plenty bearing surface also clocks around there with the same amount of powder.

So in my case, no. But it would depend on the powder, maybe?

What I'm concerned with is accuracy. I've put three shots into one hole, four into 3/4", with the Sierras at 20 thou and 50 thou respectively. I've also had many 3" 3 shot patterns with other bullets at other freebores.

Still trying to find an accurate load that fits the magazine.

Have so far shot two gemsbok and one springbok, with a headshot on the springbok at 100m and a headshot on the 2nd gemsbok at closer to 200, so it seems to work, but... :-)
 
Ha, you caught me off guard talking about springbok and gemsbok there...then I took note of your location. Is headshooting the preferred kind of shot down there or do you just like to show off:D? Seriously though nice shooting. You mention one hole accuracy. I got the same results with hornady 208 grain bthp jammed just into the lands...waaaay longer than the magazine. I don't have a bench or sandbags or anything so it's hard to say sometimes how accurate a load might be...I just had some promising results with a 165 grain speer btsp load...and it fits in the mag. Results with 150 grain has been poor. More tests will be done first though. The bullet itself is much cheaper than most and it sports a very high bc so if it works good I'll be quite happy. As for hunting experience, all I've shot so far is a beaver, headshot at about 25m(i live in saskatchewan, canada)Overkill to put it lightly.
 
I've only tried 180 and 200 grainers. Sierra mostly, also the Nostler BST. The rifle seems to like the 180 grainers most.

I've also run the bullet specs, 1:10 twist etc through the Greenhill formula which also seems to show that 180 grain is the "best" bullet.

Springbok are tiny. The last one was 27 kg, stomach out head and skin on, which is how we weigh them to pay for them (game farming and hunting is a commercial thing here, you pay for what you shoot). A buddy of mine says that if you shoot a springbok in the body with a 300 win mag you pick up the skin and shake the buck out... headshots give less meat damage. Some guys shoot monolithics because of that -- they zip straight through on the skinnier buck, giving less meat damage.

I'm going to try the BST at 25, 50 and 75 thou, but if this rifle ends up preferring the longer cartridges I might have to bubba the magazine.
 
Suppose I'd better give some feedback to wrap this up.

The rifle doesn't like the BST at any COL. Can't say why.

I found that the 180 grain Game King at 3.4" COL gives pretty good results.

There's a local lathe-turned bullet "Peregrine" which when seated to 3.5" COL just just fits the magazine and gives pretty good results.

I have a theory which is only a theory, that when the bullet is seated close to the lands it functions similar to a heavy crimp, in that the powder ignites well before the bullet goes down the barrel. Seated further away I got inconsistencies, I then annealed the necks (because there's no crimp groove on the Game Kings) and sized with the expander ball removed. This seems to give much more consistent velocities with the 3.4" COL.
 
to the person who said weatherby only uses the free bore on weatherby calibers.
isnt what you mean "extended free bore" i always thought all guns have a free bore,otherwise the bullet would be seated in the rifling which would mean it cannot be extracted once chambered.or at least without spilling a lot of powder
 
When you say "freebore" in relation to Wby, you are talking about the extra amount that they allow for the "bullet jump" to allow them to load hotter and get more velocity without increasing pressure. In essence, they are making the case larger.
 
When you say "free bore" in relation to Wby, you are talking about the extra amount that they allow for the "bullet jump" to allow them to load hotter and get more velocity without increasing pressure. In essence, they are making the case larger.
Click to expand...

to the person who said weatherby only uses the free bore on weatherby calibers.
isn't what you mean "extended free bore" I always thought all guns have a free bore, otherwise the bullet would be seated in the rifling which would mean it cannot be extracted once chambered. Or at least without spilling a lot of powder
Click to expand...

Who measures? Weatherby uses .375" free bore, for two reasons, one is long heavy bullets and to give the bullet 'the running start' or jump. I am the fan of the running start, they did not like getting the 'spike' and the bullet hitting the lands at the same time.

I have a non-Weatherby 300 Win Mag that shoots one hole groups, I have a Model 70 Winchester 300 Winchester Mag that shoots patters like a shotgun, same ammo.

The Winchester went back to Winchester, I wanted a chamber that fit my dies or Winchester dies that fit their chamber. Long story.

F. Guffey
 
Last edited:
Weatherby vanguard freebore?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello, I'm new to this forum and was hoping to have a question resolved. I have a weatherby vanguard (series 1) chambered in .300 winchester magnum, NOT the weatherby 300, the winchester. I specify this because I know that all weatherby magnums are chambered with a generous amount of freebore. What I'm not so sure of is if the amount of freebore my rifle exhibits is normal. Do all factory .300 win mag rifles feature freebore. To make bullets "kiss" the lands on the rifling I have to seat then waaaaay out there so they won't fit in my magazine. And it does not like light for caliber bullets for accuracy at all. Best results have been with 208 grain bthp from hornady. Any feedback about 300 win mag freebore would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

My buddy has a Remington 700 in 300 Win Mag and he has to jump his bullet way out there as well. To the point of it looking odd.
 
I spoke to a well respected gunsmith in Colorado Springs about re barreling my 700 Remington (.300 win mag) and lamented the long freebore in the rifle. He pulled out his cartridge book to show me that the chambering reamer is standard with a fairly long freebore in that caliber. If one wanted less, a custom reamer or a two stage cutting operation would have to be performed. He also didn't recommend it because you would in all likelihood have a pressure situation with factory ammo. Fortunately the magazine space is large enough for a .300 RUM to fit so I can seat bullets out quite far.

I did not inquire about other calibers but it is entirely possible that the .270 as related above is one of those chamberings that has a shorter leade.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top