7/300 weatherby back to a 7mm weatherby

I have had this Hart barrel since 1976 it was 30 inches long and a 1.250 diameter. this has always been a excellent barrel. I had it in a steel bedding block and shot this gun in 1,000 yard competition and used it for all types of long range hunting from ground hogs to deer it was probably my most forgiving barrel  I have own.  Surprising the throat didn't look to bad but I always had trouble with the 300 Weatherby brass . The barrel was capable of turning up 3250 fps with a Berger 180VLD with a stiff load of RL25 or H870 so I was interested in seeing what the straight 7mm Weatherby would do since the barrel is know 27.5 inches long and I turned it down to a heavy varmint taper.

Since the 270 Weatherby is far more popular than the 7mm brass is easy to come by. I bought 100  once fired all Weatherby brass of a guy on GB this brass checked out to be excellent got lucky for change. The reamer I have is a match reamer for the 7mm Weatherby with a .315 NK an a .270 FB  that seats the long range bullets out pretty far in the neck it's way to long to be feed in a mag, But this also doesn't crowd out the powder capacity I had planned on using RL 25 but I didn't have much on hand so I went with RL 23 and a 180 Berger VLD. I Started off with 68grs and worked up to 69.5grs which is probably max in 88 deg weather. 68.5 up to 69.5 shot really well at 100 yards but the velocity I want to run is about 3050fps and 68.5grs gave me that 69.5grs went 3140fps probably a good hunting load but I want to use this for 1,000 yard comp on windy days if 68.5grs shots vertically at 1,000 yards I know I can go up in powder to see if the group tightens up.

Match bullets seem to likes velocities up to about 3,050 fps after that the more speed you apply any imperfections in the bullet so up fast if 3050 doesn't shoot well I can drop it back to 2950fps an see what happens.

The way it looks if I would go back to RL 25 I could probably get as much velocity using the smaller case an shorter barrel it only goes to show how over bore a 7/300 Weatherby really is. One thing I have found is 6.5 and 7mm cartridges really shoot much better with at least .003 neck clearance an .005 will not hurt you at all. 6mm and 30 cal's are more tolerant  to tight chambers. Hope to shoot this at 365 yards this evening then onto 1,000 yards