.257 weatheryby magnum problems

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Mar 3, 2013
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Hey everyone,

I have had 257 weatherby for a couple years now and I am still trying to figure the thing out. The model I have is the Weatherby Mark V ultra lightweight. I have put at least 400 - 500 bucks of ammo through this gun and I still cant find the correct load to use. I cant seem to get any better than a two-inch group at 100 yards and its very frustrating because I am super pumped about the gun. I dont have alot of knowledge with this stuff I usually just make sure my rifle is sighted in at 100 yards each year and then go hunting but i want to get into longer range shooting. I figured you guys have enough knowledge to give somewhere to start.

Bullets I tried:
-Nosler partitions 120 gr.
-hornady interbond 110 gr.
-barnes tsx 100 gr.
-nosler ballistic tip 115 gr.
-reloaded bergers 115 gr. --> I have tried alot of different stuff with this bullet but still couldnt get any better than a two inch group

I really wanted to try the accubonds because i have really good success with the bullet out of my 7mm wsm. oh and i am using a VXIII 6.5-20x LR scope, if that helps with anything. I called weatherby and the only suggestions were to just make sure my trigger assembly screws are set to 55 inch pounds. I dont have a torque wrench and they look pretty spendy. Any help would be awesome.

Thank you,
Nick
 

Jamill45

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Mar 5, 2012
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I have a 257 weatherby and I had trouble sighting my gun in with the higher end Barnes bullets. I just couldn't get a good grouping. I always had flyers. I then tried the 100 grain spitzer bullets (cheapest) and I found that my gun loves that bullet. Its a tack driver now. I only shoot factory ammo through my gun though because I don't have reloading equipment. I'm using a leupold VX-1 4-12.

I shot this caribou at a little over 300 yards with it last season.
37cba066-7279-4a8c-a103-d30f721478c9.jpg


Jake
 
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I have had a Mark V UL (300WBY) for the last 12 years. For the first few years I could never get the gun to shoot well. After doing some reading, I decided to file off the pressure point in the fore stock of the barrel channel and make it a true free floating barrel. After that, It"s been a sub MOA shooter out to 700M. Over the last 10 years I have met a few others with the same issue and all were fixed by removing the pressure point.
 
OP
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Todd,

so if i were to file off the pressure point is there a chance the gun would shoot worse? I mean what is the purpose of the pressure point and its seems weird that a manufacturer would put it there if it didnt help the accuracy. I tried doing a little research about it but i would like to find some more information before doing something like that. But it seems i am getting to the point where i might need to take a risk to see better shooting.

Jamill45,
Thats a nice caribou you got there. When I called weatherby they did suggest shooting other bullets, its a little tough to justify buying more bullets especially after spending 80 bucks for each box of ammo. I have put down a bunch of money on this gun and i have been pretty disappointed so far.

Thanks for the help so far guys, both seem like valid points. I guess it might be best to just keep buying different bullets till something works. I keep hearing that once i figure out this gun its an awesome shooter.
 
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I guess there is a chance that it could shoot worse, but I think its worth the chance, I haven't heard of it getting worse from removing it. I've done the same thing with the wife's Sako and my old man's Tikka and they both shot way better. If you remove it and it gets worse you could always rebuild it with a bit of bondo but i would bet it will shoot better with it gone. The wife's Sako shot a 2MOA at 200M with the pressure point and after i removed the pressure point it shot a .75MOA at 200M with the exact same ammo. It was that large of an improvement.

You could also glass bed the action. It is pretty easy and cheap to do as well. I took a bunch of pics of the process last time I did one. I could send them to you if you ever go that route.
 

Shrek

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Free float the barrel and bed the action. Bedding the action will help most any rifle shoot better and if you want the pressure point back you can bed one back in with minimal effort. Bedding is a bit scary the first time but once you have done it once you will do all your rifles and never pay to have it done. There are lots of videos and written instructions all over the net.
 

Shrek

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And another thing , unless you are rich I would suggest learning to hand load. For the price of 3 boxes of Weatherby ammo you can set yourself up to load and bring your shooting cost down under a dollar a shot. Save your brass and keep it in the box it came out of. Don't mix your brass and you will be good to go for brass and Weatherby brass is outrageously high like everything else with Weatherby on it.
 

Matt Cashell

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I am with the others. Bed the action, float the barrel. If you're at 2 MOA groups now, what's it going to hurt?

I like Devcon Steel Epoxy Putty for bedding.
 

wk93

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I've heard of a few instances of the mark v shooting funny. I still think it's weird they guarantee 1.5 groups at 100 yards but with the s2 vanguard they guarantee .99. Like everyone else though I would try bedding it and going from there. Good luck!
 
OP
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How much would it cost to have someone do that for me? I don't know if i feel confident in doing that myself. And would you just use sandpaper to do this with a synthetic stock?

And i have reloaded quite a bit with the 115gr bergers and they didnt improve the accuracy. I am thinking once i take the pressure point off and bed the rifle i will try reloading some barnes ttsx, accubonds, and try the bergers out once again.
 

Shrek

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There is nothing to taking the pressure point off. Pop it out of the stock and some coarse sandpaper or a half round file will cut it down. As for bedding I have no idea what it would cost as a friend did my first rifle and I have done them all since.
 

Mckinnon

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I agree with the gang on this one, float it and see what happens. I would also try loading up some Sierra gameking or prohunters in there. They are cheap and have shot great for me, worth a try at least IMO. Also, I don't know how hot your loads are, but have you tried loading them down a couple hundred feet per second, I had some trouble with a rifle/ bulllet combos and finall found one after backing off the speed a bit..... I guess you can only do all this if you reload, so, do you?
 
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I'll just add on that you should be able to take a piece of paper or a dollar and slide it between the barrel and stock and be able to run it from the action clear out the forend to ensure you have no other contact points.

Bedding is easy just go slow n think it through. Lot of good resources on the web for it.

Mike
 
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I have only reloaded like three times now so i dont have alot of experience with it. I basically used the hornady reloading manual max and min loads for my caliber. I did try the min load for four different powders and did not see any improvements. Are you talking about backing off the loads more than the min loads suggested in the reloading manuals?

And i only reloaded bergers so far. I contacted the berger company to get information on reloading with their bullets. I plan to reload some other types of bullets within the next week or so. Is there any suggestions on some powder to try?
 
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I have only reloaded like three times now so i dont have alot of experience with it. I basically used the hornady reloading manual max and min loads for my caliber. I did try the min load for four different powders and did not see any improvements. Are you talking about backing off the loads more than the min loads suggested in the reloading manuals?

And i only reloaded bergers so far. I contacted the berger company to get information on reloading with their bullets. I plan to reload some other types of bullets within the next week or so. Is there any suggestions on some powder to try?

Adjusting powder amounts can have an affect on accuracy, but bullet seating depth has far more to do with accuracy than powder charges. You're better off doing a ladder test with different powder charges until you hit an accuracy node or a consistent speed. Then adjust seating depth to find out what your gun likes. Berger VLD bullets enjoy being seated just touching the lands, however most people don't realize they have an "accuracy" seating range that can be anywhere from .020"-.120" off the lands. I can load my 280AI Bergers anywhere from 2.760-2.745" and they all group the exact same.

In order to do a ladder test, start at 2 grains less than listed max load and load up rounds in 1/2 grain increments until you get 1.5-2 grains OVER max listed load. Have your rifle zero'd at 100 yards and hold on the bullseye for every shot. Starting with the LOWEST powder charge (all same seating depth) fire each round. You'll see your point of impact start to rise with every shot as the bullets are going faster and faster. You should reach a point where you'll have 2-3 shots in a row hit the same point of impact. This is a plateau of consistent velocity. Go as high as you can with your powder charges before you start seeing sign of pressure (hard to lift bolt, flattened primers, ejector marks on case head...). Once you find your max safe powder charge weight or your velocity plateau, play with seating depths in increments of .005" until you find what your chamber likes.

Mike
 

matty_ren

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In regard to bullet seat depths on weatherby mark v's, they have a freebore throat so your best bet is to seat the the bullet to maximum magazine length and see if that helps your groups at all. Also agree with the others free float the barrel. I had similar issues with my .378 mark V, now it shoots 1" groups.
 
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I did seat the bullet to the maximum magazine length but i have not tried to seat it any deeper.

Thanks for all the help. It sounds like i will start with filing off the pressure point, bed the action, and reloading some bullets so I can try out what HellsCanyon suggested.
 

Shrek

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First piece of advice for your first bed job is put away the dremel tool ! Get some hand chisels and take your time. With power tools it only takes a blink of an eye to ruin a stock. I know because I'm a slow learner , three times slow !
 

Mckinnon

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I did seat the bullet to the maximum magazine length but i have not tried to seat it any deeper.

Thanks for all the help. It sounds like i will start with filing off the pressure point, bed the action, and reloading some bullets so I can try out what HellsCanyon suggested.

No I don't mean going below the min load. Do the ladder like HC said. I just meant that sometimes I have found that a certain load out of a certain gun might like to be a bit slower... As far as seating goes HC is right again, try seating them shallower, deeper, etc, just make sure that you make note of all your loads so you know when you find THE ONE
 

robby denning

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I've been meaning to post on this thread, but swamped with Rokslide stuff. I didn't read all the posts, so this may have been covered.

I own the exact same rifle but in 7mm Rem Mag. I experienced everything you did with not much more than about 2.5" groups. I sent it to WBY and they sent me a new gun!

I did the standard Premo ammo sight in with that gun and got better than 2" but still not the 1.5" they guarantee. I can't afford to shoot that stuff and really started working on handloads

I gave no regard to bullet choice and tried a bunch. I finally found the recipe and it was what HellsCanyon said, seating depth. I had to go to max then back off a few thousanths at a time. I ended up shooting a Speer bullet, which is fine for a deer hunter, and a gun that will hold great groups around an inch with low Standard Deviation. That formula is located on our home page at
http://www.rokslide.com/2012-01-09-...rifles-performance-through-standard-deviation

My ananlysis on WBY is that they are a solid gun, well built, great function, but are not the accuracy kings they once were, especially in the lighter weight guns. I grew up around them in the 80's when a 1.5" group was awesome, but they've lost that edge now. Still love the gun, though.
 
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