257 Wby

[Ackman]

The 257 Wby can be impressive. Some years ago a friend - AckleymanII - was telling me about this cartridge. He'd chambered up a few of them. With a 26" barrel he was shooting 100's at 3850 and convinced me to have one built. So I did, with his 0 freebore reamer.....29" Hart 12 twist heavy barrel, braked, long Savage action from the gunshow, and an UN-bedded fiberglass stock which I believe is made for Savage. Excellent trigger but I don't remember if it's a target trigger or not, it was too long ago. Scope is a Burris 8-32 Black Diamond 30mm. The idea was a rockchuck destroyer. Note that brass is very expensive. We use PMC brass which is (was, it's no longer available) stronger than anything else on the market. Ackleyman had PMC and the others Rockwell tested for hardness, the PMC came out hardest by a significant amount. It's worth extra velocity. In the past we've both been chastised heavily by some "ex-purts" about these loads and velocity. Oh well.

This thing is heavy and unwieldy in/out of the truck. But those 100's going that fast do a real number on chucks, do they ever. It's fun. The load was stupid easy to find because I just followed AckleymanII's advice. It was either 4831 powder, which shot OK, or RL22 which was the one. That 72gr load is impressive.....I like the idea of a 100gr bullet doing 4,000. At 72.5 accuracy fell apart completely. Cleaning the rifle afterward I found the brake had started to unscrew itself. They don't shoot very well when the brake is loose. This burns a good bunch of powder and I don't know what barrel life will be. But this isn't a gun to be shot a whole lot of times in an outing, just enough to get your jollies.

 

[Downeast]

I have an off-the-shelf Accumark and it shoots 100 grain BT's with a boring consistency of 1/2 MOA all day long. I'm using R25 and running 3,400 fps. It's an amazing deer killer. These Wby calibers are what, close to 70 years old? And it is only in the last decade or two that we have caught up with them with all of the various short magnums and such. Wby has a rather amazing history when you think about it.

 

[CdnHotshot]

My 257 WBY pet load is WBY brass, 110 AccuBond, 66.8 RL22 Fed 215 primer, ES 7.04 SD 3.60 Avg. 3500FPS
Rifle is a sporter deluxe walnut Tikka 695 with Ron Smith stainless gain twist 25 in. bbl.
Groups an easy 1/2" @ 100 yards
This is my hunting rifle, 2 cow elk at 300 yards, one shot each.
This is a "keeper" rifle at a budget price build.

 

[CdnHotshot]

SPEED > KILLS = 257WBY

 

[Gary in MD]

Speed Sells.... and I’m buying! LOL
My 257 Wby, 10” twisted Hart barrel at 26”. Point and shoot - stuff dies...

 

[Ccrider]

The 257 Wby can be impressive. Some years ago a friend - AckleymanII - was telling me about this cartridge. He'd chambered up a few of them. With a 26" barrel he was shooting 100's at 3850 and convinced me to have one built. So I did, with his 0 freebore reamer.....29" Hart 12 twist heavy barrel, braked, long Savage action from the gunshow, and an UN-bedded fiberglass stock which I believe is made for Savage. Excellent trigger but I don't remember if it's a target trigger or not, it was too long ago. Scope is a Burris 8-32 Black Diamond 30mm. The idea was a rockchuck destroyer. Note that brass is very expensive. We use PMC brass which is (was, it's no longer available) stronger than anything else on the market. Ackleyman had PMC and the others Rockwell tested for hardness, the PMC came out hardest by a significant amount. It's worth extra velocity. In the past we've both been chastised heavily by some "ex-purts" about these loads and velocity. Oh well.

This thing is heavy and unwieldy in/out of the truck. But those 100's going that fast do a real number on chucks, do they ever. It's fun. The load was stupid easy to find because I just followed AckleymanII's advice. It was either 4831 powder, which shot OK, or RL22 which was the one. That 72gr load is impressive.....I like the idea of a 100gr bullet doing 4,000. At 72.5 accuracy fell apart completely. Cleaning the rifle afterward I found the brake had started to unscrew itself. They don't shoot very well when the brake is loose. This burns a good bunch of powder and I don't know what barrel life will be. But this isn't a gun to be shot a whole lot of times in an outing, just enough to get your jollies.
View attachment 1169315 View attachment 1169316

I have had a .257 STW. 26 inch barrel for anoit 15 years. I considered a Wby and a Lazzeroni. At the time the Wby was 100-150 fps slower than the STW. If you are truly getting 3850, that is pretty close to what I am getting-3920.

 

[Ackman]

I have had a .257 STW. 26 inch barrel for anoit 15 years. I considered a Wby and a Lazzeroni. At the time the Wby was 100-150 fps slower than the STW. If you are truly getting 3850, that is pretty close to what I am getting-3920.

It was Ackleyman II's 26" barrel doing 3850. My longer 29" barrel has a little slower 12" twist, it's doing 3982 and 4010 as per targets with chrono tapes. All are potent for a 100gr. bullet.

 

[AckleymanII]

I shot deer with 100g Hornady flat base and BT at 3850 with amazing accuracy. Deer were dead before they hit the ground. Amazingly, 100g partitions shot 1/2" groups at 3850, most accurate partitions I ever shot.

My reamer had zero freebore, and R#22 with fed 215's were the powder, charges on par with Ackman's loads.

At distances of 200 yards, the 100g ballistic tip held together just fine on does I shot, and I think that these bullets are tougher than most would think.

115g Ballistic tips were doing 3600 at the accuracy node with R#22, never killed a thing with them.

When I designed the reamer, I had the neck cut .050 shorter with zero freebore so no factory round would ever chamber. The .050 shorter neck also corresponded to the length of the necks when you necked down Winchester 264 and 7 Mag brass which forms the double radius perfectly with Lee sizing wax with a heavy chamfer on the outside of the case mouth.

I shot one coyote with the round using the 100g Sierra btsp and hair floated down for what seemed for 5 minutes on the 45 yard shot. I will not post the picture as it blew him up like a rock chuck.

My gun was a push feed Win 70, Sendero contour, took 19 rounds to work up a load. I also had a load with the 100 tsx that shot very small groups.

I have wanted to build another sporter rifle with a 26" barrel. No doubt this is my all time favorite deer caliber as little recoil allows you to see the water vapor fly off the deer and watch it fold up like an accordion before it hits the ground. 300 yard shots are NOT a challenge at all.

This is one heck of an accurate caliber with zero to no freebore shooting 100's, and mine was a 10 Twist.

A friend here used a Mark 5 to harvest 6 very large bull elk with the factory 117g loads. His guide passed away and his next guide told him that the 257 Weatherby was not an elk rifle. So, he had a custom 6.5x284 built. He was really pissed at this guide as he never had an bull run off with the Weatherby, but they were running off with the 6.5.

It is no wonder that the 257 Weatherby was Roy Weatherby's favorite cartridge.

 

[CdnHotshot]

I'm enjoying all the positive experience's with the 257WBY caliber
As mentioned above by Ackleyman that he found a pet load in short order.

I had the same experience, found a pet load within 20 shots being fired.
It wasn't finicky.
Produced the accuracy and killing energy that we all strive to get.
RL22 is the winner here !

 

[Ccrider]

Check out the Hammer Bullets for a hunting load.

 

[nmkid]

My last .25 was a 25-284 because I wanted to shoot the Black Jack 131 gr. bullets. It's a shooter but I almost went with a .257 WBY. Just getting a 30-06 finished up because I never owned one. Well, there's still time for a 257 WBY.

 

[tirednlost]

Picked up a 257 vanguard about a year ago. It was used but shoots decent. Only a 24” noodle barrel on it. Starting to look at a rebarrel. Seeing the speeds some of you get from longer barrels and no free bore, pretty easy to see which way to lean.