Hi all,

I have a .223 Weatherby Red Mist which is a 22", 1 in 12" twist, heavy barrel option in Australia. I shot .69" with 45 grain winchester cheapies cartridges yesterday.

I have just encountered a bit of a problem regarding cartridge overall length which has been listed as 2.260 inches.

I have seated 55 grain Nosler psp projectiles way out to being 2.295" and they do not touch the rifling. this is way too long for my liking as the projectiles are only in the case by about .1"

I know that the weatherby magnums except the 240 have a big jump to the lands but not the regular calibres.

I generally start my load development with projectiles seated about 20 thou off the lands.

The winchester 45 grainers have an average OAL of 2.211"

Anyone have similar experiences?
Any recommendations?

Thanks

Steve

I've had a total of 4 diffrent Weatherby rifles and each of them, no matter the caliber had long throats. This was originally used on their line of Magnum cartridges but it appears that they do it to all chambers. To check this out you may need to get a longer bullet to check out the legnth of the throat or get a device to measure it.

I like the Stony Point OAL Gauge, they have modified cases for most all standard factory loaded cartridges and will modify any wildcat case that you send them.

Another way that I have used in the past is to load a flatbase bullet backwards and slowly increase the seating depth until the bolt closes. This will get you in the ballpark if used in conjunction with a Sinclair comparitator.

www.sinclairintl.com/c...type=store

You will probably need to go to a bit heavier/longer bullet to achieve your goal, but then again a consistant .69" is less than 3/4 MOA and should put most critters in a wee bit of danger!!

I think I would leave well enogh alone. .69" is real good shooting.

A lot of the old Savage .223 pre-Accutrigger had the long throats also. Seat them to the minimum seating depth of one bullet diameter (.224) into the case and develop loads from there. Could always get the Savages to shoot under 1/2" MOA so I would Imagine the Weatherbys
should be capable of that. At .69" you have a good start. Good luck in your loads--tr

Thanks guys, i agree wholeheartedly that .69 is nicely accurate, I am delighted and certainly not complaining. Always nice to know that your rifle is a shooter.

Just finding a starting point for the magic load combination is what it is all about I guess so with that in mind I might use the Winchester cartridge length as a starting point and see how it goes from there. Might get lucky first off eh?

Thanks again

Steve

Never no, Maybe you can, I never do. But experimenting is the fun part of reloading.

Sorry Crackshot you were unable to see my tongue firmly planted in my cheek when I wrote that.

I can alway rely on the Winchester factory cheapies if all else fails but then again that is not why we handload is it?

Cheers

Steve