BEST Weatherby Cartridges?

fasten your seat belts hang on tight we're going fast we're going Weatherby [Music] hi everyone Ron spomer Outdoors I'm Ron spulmer and I am bringing you the Weatherby cartridges over the years Weatherby has produced 16 branded cartridges and people have been asking for some details on all of them so we're going to start and run by caliber the years chronologically don't quite match up so we'll get a bounce around a little bit there but we're going to start with the smallest caliber that weather we ever produced and work our way up to the biggest now we got to say something about the man Roy wetherby who started all this way back in the early 1940s he was playing around with this Kansas kid I think he was a farm kid pretty handy he light guns obviously and he had this idea that he wanted to go faster than everyone else and that pretty much sums up Weatherby cartridges he essentially took every caliber every popular caliber and made the fastest cartridge available in that and he still holds a record for most of them so it's pretty interesting stuff let's get started with his first concoction which isn't even on the table it's a 22 and he called it the 220 Weatherby rocket great little name for a cartridge back in the early 40s unfortunately he never produced it he didn't build the ammo or the rifles to produce it and I think a big part of the reason was because it was essentially Winchester's 220 Swift cartridge that had come out in 35 1935 and he sort of acquised it if we can use that word you know the PO acley acley improved cartridges when they'll take a cartridge and straighten out the sidewalls and make a sharper shoulder on it maybe push it forward a little bit to increase powder capacity I think that's what Roy was doing with his rocket but there were several other ones like that already out there so instead of producing that he jumped right into the what would probably be more popular hunting cartridges for deer and sheep and elk and moose and that sort of thing so by 1944 he had pretty much come up with his 257 270 and 300 Weatherby Magnum cases now let's go down to the calibers here not worry so much about the age in which they were produced and here is his successful 22 version instead of the rocket he went with this little thing and look at that cute little belted cartridge where the heck did that come from I don't know he made it out of whole cloth I think and it came fairly late in his career let's look at the dates here on my chart 224 Weatherby Magnum 1963. now that thing will throw a 55 grain bullet 3650 feet per second and if any of you know anything about the 22-250 Remington you will know two things it didn't come out until two years later in 1965 but it does almost exactly the same speed and that's why the 224 Weatherby Magnum never really made a mark Not only was it proprietary and only available from Weatherby but it didn't do anything at the a more popular and easily accessible 22-250 Remington didn't do so it just essentially an obsolete cartridge I think I'm not positive you might want to check it out but I think Weatherby still loads it and builds rifles for it but it's certainly not the most popular 22 out there however if you are a whether be nut if you just like the whole idea of weatherby's and having the fastest ones they make and all you might want to pick one of these up and add it to your collection even if it's just a cartridge collection like mine all right next up is the 24s and here again Roy was a little bit behind a curve and I think it was because he was concentrating on the big game cartridges but the 24s got famous in 1955 when the 243 Winchester and 244 Remington came out so Roy didn't come out until 68 and I think he saw what was happening with these 24s they were really taking over a really popular combination deer environment hunting cartridge so once again he went with his famous Double Radius shoulders where you've got it rounded at the start of the shoulder and then rounded again into the neck and the belt he just went for those belted Magnums it looks pretty much like about the same diameter as a 30-06 with a belt stuck on it so that was his 24. what comes next obviously it's the 25s and he jumped on this one right quick I think this was a 1944 number let's look 257 Weatherby Magnum 1944 through 120 grain bullet 3 300 feet per second to generate 2911 foot-pounds of energy this was Roy's favorite he actually used one in Africa to take an elephant I think he took Buffalo with it uh he pretty much took everything with it and this is one that he used to advertise his his idea of hydrostatic shock all of his cartridges were hyper fast and he sold that that that marketing message was hyper velocity hydrostatic shock one shot hit him anywhere and they die a lot of that was smoke and mirrors but a lot of it happened people really liked that whole idea about hyper velocity cartridge hitting in the Target so yeah it certainly shot flat and most of his cartridges definitely shoot flat many of them are the flattest in their caliber pretty much all of them are the fastest in their caliber he certainly tried to achieve that and usually did it but we're going to get to an interesting one a little bit later on that is the flattest shooting cartridge in the world but first it's the new one the 6.5 RPM from 2019 and that's this guy right here and you'll notice something radically different about this does not have the Double Radius shoulders and it doesn't even have a belt this is the first Remy or first Weatherby cartridge that didn't have a belt and it's obviously a modern invention of his grandsons John his uh coming out with what is really more popular these days no belts people just don't like belts anymore because they have come to realize that it's mostly a marketing gimmick it doesn't make the case any stronger it doesn't help with Ballistics in any way it's just a head spacing device left over from way back in the early 20th century so you really don't need it and I think Weatherby is enough of a name now and they're making good enough products that they really don't need that that little Badge of the famous Double Radius shoulder belted Magnum case so so that's what's going on nowadays with their latest and that one is obviously throwing a 140 grain bullet 2975 feet per second that is not the fastest 6.5 in the world but we're gonna get there and the very next one does it notice that it's longer it still does have the belt and the Double Radius shoulder it's called a six five three hundred whether it be Magnum that one came out in 2016 and as you'll notice it's taller that is based on the full length Magnum actions which are based off the 375 H and H as the original case that Roy worked with he never actually produced that when he was living they say that he had made one and he played around with it but he didn't think he wanted to crank it loose and why not I think big part of the reason was because of the non-success of the other 6.5s in those days the American shooter just didn't know the 26 caliber we were 30s we were 24s and 25s we were a little bit the 33s and 38s what gee nobody really much paid any attention to the 26s now whether Winchester made a big splash with that 264 Magnum when it first came out but they couldn't hold that market there were some issues with Barrel burnout which certainly should have been a problem with some of the early and fast weather bees as well but it just got itself a reputation for burning out barrels but I think the biggest problem with it was the seven Remington Magnum that came out a couple of years later and uh that really overdid it and you just who would want to get a 26 caliber when you could get a 28 and throw heavier bullets Roy watched those developments and said I think the American Market is not ready for six five yet but his grandson figured it out now that's probably one of the most popular cartridges in the country and Weatherby is keeping right up and this is the fastest flattest shooting cartridge well I take it back it's not the fastest but it is the flattest shooting if you use its lightest bullets and drive it to top velocities it will shoot flatter than any other cartridge you can come across there may be one or two that give it a pretty close Run for the money but boy all the research I've done says 6'5 300 Weatherby Magnum flattest all right now we're going to go back to the 1940s again and pick up with the 270 Winchester 270 Weatherby the WM problem you got a Weatherby Magnum and you got a Winchester magnum so if you just make it with the initials WM gets a little confusing this is the Weatherby 270. obviously it was inspired by the 270 Winchester that came out in 1925 it was known as a fast flat shooting cartridge Roy could do better than that he comes out with his belted Magnum version drives it 300 feet per second faster than the 270 Winchester Bingo you've got the fastest 27 in the world and it stayed that way until just recently when the 27 Nosler came out and that can shoot a little bit faster so that was one of the popular rounds when did it come out in 1944 45 and it throws 150 grain bullet 3245 feet per second easily faster than the Winchester now here's one that is not all that popular and all that well known most people have probably never seen one and yet it's a seven millimeter it's the seven millimeter Weatherby Magnum and it does pretty much the same thing the seven Rim mag does and that's the problem it came out well before the Remington version but Weatherby always made it proprietary if you wanted a Weatherby rifle and Weatherby cartridges you had to get them from Weatherby and the prices were a little higher than everyone else's because Roy kind of appealed to that Upper Crust shooter he moved from Kansas out to California fairly early on and he catered to the Hollywood crowd all the big sports stars he got them rifles I think he often gifted them to him he was a great showman and he knew how to pull in interest everybody knew about Weatherby everybody knew those racy looking rifles I mean his rifles were as fast as his cartridges he had a lot of flare in them the big Monte Carlo stocks and flared pistol grips and the raked floor end tips on them and they just really stood out that was his shtick but the seven millimeter good as it was was upstaged by the Remington version even though it came out quite a bit later wasn't until 1962 and they're both based on that same 375 H belted case it's just that you've got Double Radius shoulders on the Weatherby version and much as it was hyped at this somehow improved the gas flows and burning of the powder better and all that it really doesn't it's never been proven to mount to much so I think most people figure that out but mostly it was you could get a lot less expensive rifle in the 700 Remington than the Weatherby and the ammunition was less expensive as well so that's why the whether it be version of the seven is not all that popular but the next one up really is I want to thank all of our patrons on patreon for helping support the channel if you folks would be interested in supporting Ron spomer Outdoors YouTube channel and our website all the blogs and videos we produce you could join us on patreon just go to patreon.com Ron spomeroutdoors and we'll sign you up you get early access to our videos there's a newsletter and uh you can get 15 off at the Ron spomer store RSO store so check us out also check out ronspomeroutdoors.com our website lots of blogs with good information there 300 Weatherby Magnum this is perhaps the most famous of all the Weatherby cartridges and as you can see we've now stepped up to a full length Magnum case and that is why the 300 Winchester is not quite as fast and Powerful it's more popular because once again Winchester everybody loads for it get it in all kinds of rifles it's not proprietary but it's a little bit slower than the Weatherby version and this this little pair here sometimes leads to some big problems and here's one of them as an exhibit you see the crack right there at the shoulder and going up into the neck on that I see this quite often what happens is people get confused between these two 300 Magnums they'll have a 300 Weatherby Magnum rifle and they'll buy some 300 Win Mag cases thinking they're the same and they will fit in there because it's just shorter when they fire it there's so much extra room in there that the brass flows forward to the shape of the 300 Weatherby Magnum and can't quite make it so it splits fortunately you can't fit the 300 Weatherby Magnum into the shorter chamber of the 300 Winchester that could cause some serious pressure issues but that 300 Weatherby Magnum is is just I don't know it's probably right in the middle of the road for good performance without excessive powder burning certainly big and fast and powerful enough to handle anything but that didn't stop Weatherby from making bigger ones and there's the next one up 33.78 Weatherby Magnum what a horse when did that one come out 1998 while Roy was not in the business anymore it was his son it was doing it running the show then why did they come out with this they want to be the fastest one in in the barn you've got to go a little faster than that because people were ramping things up there's all kinds of 300s coming out and this one was actually a wildcat used by quite a few people for long range shooting back in the day so it was floating around out there and whether we saw the writing on the wall and said why don't we just grab the headlines and make the biggest and the fastest 30. so they came up with that what were they getting pushing a 250 grain bullet which is a pretty big long heavy bullet for a 30 caliber they could push that Thing 2 954 feet per second for 4840 foot-pounds of energy that is a horse but notice something else about it the case is much fatter than the 300 original what's going on here we're going to get to that further down the line but it's a new case designed by Weatherby he did not use the 375 H case on his bigger ones after that but first we jump to the 33 the 340 Weatherby Magnum shoots a 338. he had to give it a fancier name he called it the 340 and that is a big and powerful belted Magnum that was probably inspired by the Winchester let's see who came out first 340 uh Weatherby Magnum 1962 yep that's about four years after the the Winchester 338 mag came out so I think they saw that that was being quite successful once again we're going to be the fastest 33 and out comes with 340. and it did just what was advertised to do so it was a 250 grain bullet 2980 feet per second for 4931 foot-pounds of energy to appreciate that level of energy know this elephant hunters or cape buffalo hunters in Africa guys that need to stop a charge of anything big they like to use 5 000 foot-pounds of energy as kind of a benchmark and this thing in a 338 is coming awfully close to what you get from something like a 470 Nitro Express so there's a lot of power in that 340. but not as much as in this the 338 378 Weatherby Magnum once again we've gone to that bigger case we're going to get to where that case came from but boy you can see right away you've got a lot more powder in there what are you going to do with that bullet now the 338 378 Weatherby Magnum came out in 1999 pretty new that same 250 grain bullet will now go 3009 feet per second for more than 4 000 foot pounds of energy and they say that this thing had so much powder that standard primers couldn't reliably ignite at all federal invented the 215 Federal Magnum primer to help ignite charges in that big 338 378. okay now we're going to step up to the 375s obviously Roy had to come out with something that was going to be better than the traditional 375 H H Magnum that was kind of the standard back in the day it really pretty much still is what was Roy going to do to better that well once again he straightened the sidewalls out a bit gave it that Double Radius shoulder came out with his 375 Weatherby Magnum in 1945 and it pushed a 300 grain 2 800 feet per second that was a good 100 to 200 feet per second faster than the original but really it wasn't all that fast and it just really didn't do enough that people was getting excited and saying I have to have a 375 Weatherby version it was once again proprietary so it was easier to get a 375 H and H so what did Roy do he came out with this guy once again we're looking at that fat case the 378 whether it be Magnum don't let the numbers fool you it's still a 375. shooting to 0.375 bullet way back in 1953 that thing came out so it didn't take him long to figure out how and when he needed to come out with a faster 375. 1953 it was already pushing a 300 grain bullet 2925 feet per second for 5 700 foot-pounds of energy there was the new horse this guy was really powerful and that became his standard and that case was an original he didn't have any belted Magnum case that he could use to design that so they think what he did because the measurements are pretty close to a 416 Rigby which doesn't have a belt they think he probably took that idea used those Dimensions put a belt around it so he would have his signature belt did the Double Radius shoulder thing again and then he had his 378 and that was a Powerhouse but it wasn't the biggest still to come so the next one up is the 416 Weatherby Magnum didn't come out until 1989. once again Roy wasn't involved in developing that 400 grain bullet at 2 700 feet per second 6474 foot-pounds of energy wow that was inspired by Remington Remington came out with a 416 Magnum before Weatherby did Remington took the 375 H nectar up to 416. pretty sensible reasonable way to go but it didn't produce the kind of power you're going to get out of this one because look at the difference in the powder capacity so even though the Remington is once again more accessible more affordable the winner in the power category in the velocity category of course is the Weatherby Magnum 416. now here comes the champion and I mean Champion 460 Weatherby Magnum this thing hit the streets in 1958 throwing a 500 grain bullet 2 600 feet per second doesn't sound very fast does it ha 500 grain bullet that produces 7505 foot-pounds of energy that is more then the 470 Nitro Express it's more than the 500 Nitro Express this fairly short small looking little cartridge is more powerful than those old big British elephant rounds yes how can that be because higher chamber pressures almost all of rather Beast cartridges were pushed to the highest allowable chamber pressures and that's almost always 65 000 PSI of chamber pressure so this one is really other than say the 600 Nitro Express and the 700 Nitro Express of which there are darn few examples anywhere they're just not affordable and they're in double rifles so they're super expensive so most people are never going to have access to them but other than those two the only round really that's going to beat the 460 is the 50 BMG and there's not many people going to carry that around in a sporting rifle for honey gate Buffalo but you know the odd thing is the 460 Weatherby Magnum is not very popular with Dangerous Game Hunters despite its impressive numbers it just doesn't seem to do that well with terminal performance on big animals I don't quite understand what it is I always assume it must be the wrong bullet because I don't understand how more energy and a bigger bullet on target can't translate into more successful terminal performance and yet the 416 is not as popular as some of these older slower British cartridges so I'm not real sure what's going on there maybe some of you are and you can weigh in on it but until then these are the 16 Weatherby cartridges that have been produced most of them still are the little uh 224 might not be but check out Weatherby and find out exactly what they have if you're a collector you might want to get into the weatherbees even if it's just to collect the cartridges because they're so unique they're special but if you like to collect rifles you could of course have yourself a Weatherby rifle collection and I suspect many of our viewers have one it would be fun to find out who has one of everything surely somebody out there has a rifle chambered for every one of these cartridges from Weatherby if you do and you care to advertise the fact right into the comment section and let us know know what you've all got it would be fun to find out just who or how many people I won't give any names or personal information out but really would be fun to find out if anyone out there has one Weatherby rifle in every one of the cartridges that Weatherby has produced well that's my history of Weatherby cartridges I hope I got them all if anyone has information on a cartridge that I didn't mention I'd sure love to hear about it because I couldn't find any more than these and if anyone out there has a sample of each one of these in a Weatherby rifle that would be fun to know too send in your comments and let us know until next time this is Ron spomer wishing you all the best an honest and Shoot Straight [Music]

Channel: Ron Spomer Outdoors

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Keywords: outdoors, ron spomer outdoors, ron spomer, hunting, firearms, guns, shooting sports, rifles, big game hunting, hunting gear, hunting gear review, rifle review, gun review, hunting rifles 2022, hunting rifles for beginner, weatherby cartridges, #257weatherby, weatherby, weatherby cartridge comparison, best weatherby cartridges, ron spomer outdoors 270, ron spomer outdoors 7mm, ron spomer outdoors 45-70, hunting season, ron spomer outdoors 308

Id: Asy42EsinEY

Length: 24min 24sec (1464 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 30 2022