6.5-300 Weatherby Reloading Data

I don’t but curious as to what bullet and powder you’re using?

H1000, Retumbo?

US869 shows the most accurate powder according to Barnes.

Someone used Barnes 120gr ttsx and used 3.600 COAL, 82.3gr of Retumbo and had good results.

They got 3550. That 120gr bullet would put alot of animals down moving that fast. You'd get 3350ftlb of energy. You could take down an elk with it no problem.

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Load data is sparse for the 6.5-300 Weatherby. Using Barnes and Weatherby data I have some loads worked up to shoot this weekend. Does anyone here reload and have a pet load for this? At 85-92 grains of powder per trigger pull I sure would love to have a “this is an accurate and fast enough load” starting point. Thanks.

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What powder do you have? Here is a table from QuickLoad. I just grabbed a 140 grain Berger bullet to make the table. I can run a model based on the powder & bullet you choose if you'd like.

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I settled on 90 grains of US 869 with the LRX 127. That gives me close to 3400 fps and 1 moa. I am going to tinker with COL to see if I can squeeze a little more speed out of it while still keeping it MOA. The 91 grain load wasn’t as accurate as 90, so I just loaded up 8 more with 90 grains and called it good enough. Both animals I have shot with it went about 24” straight down and didn’t twitch. Exit holes on both, shoulder shots, were about the size of a golf ball. And for those worried about safety, 90 grains is well under max and I showed zero pressure signs with 91 grains. I have a bunch of 120 sierra pro hunter bullets for my 6.5 grendels. I am sure I could launch them at 3500+ fps. That might be fun.

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Better not be tinkering with loads to much

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Why? That is the fun with handloading. Seeing what you can do with a cartridge. You should see what I have done to some shotgun shells working up TSS/steel duck loads and TSS/#4 buck 4 legged loads.

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It'll be time for a new barrel by the time you get it figured out.

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I will buy another one if that happens.

I have it figured out enough after 10 break in/sight in rounds, 20 something test rounds, and two shots that I feel fine with it out to 500 yards. I would want to tweak it for longer shots, but I don’t need to because I have a .300 win mag sendero sighted in with 172 grain LRX’s for that.

I am not sure but it is a killing machine. I have enjoyed mine, when I can pry it out of my son’s hands. Lol

I would expect similar to a .257 weatherby. And I haven’t burned out the throats in either of those, and one of mine has at least 300 rounds through it. I have a .22-250, another overbore type cartridge burning lots of powder to push the bullet very fast. It is putting out similar velocities as the weatherbys and I have shot a LOT of rounds through it. It is still one of my most accurate rifle.

I have read that barrel life on weatherby mags can range from 400 to 2000 shots, depending on barrel and how it is treated. I doubt I will shoot any of my magnum bolt action rifles 500 times in my lifetime. I would guess very few hunters do.

Lots of people talk about burning up barrels. Yet I can’t say I have every met someone who isn’t a long range competitive shooter who has done it. And those guys consider a barrel shot out if group size increases from .5 moa to .8 moa. I have seen some of the torture tests they do on ARs shooting 10,000 rounds of 5.56 through them at over 3,000 feet per second, and it usually isn’t the barrel that dies, it is a gas tube, gas key; or bolt that dies.

I personally think the notion of burning up barrels is wildly exaggerated in big game rifles.

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This has to be the dumbest cartridge ever.

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always love these folks who think anything that wasn’t around when PowPow was doing it is dumb.

Roy Weatherby had a vision and it’s been proven to be effective. Speed kills. He created the round way back in the day for himself. It’s fast, flat, and deadly.

Also the barrel life argument is weak for a hunting rifle. Let’s say it’s 2000 rounds. That would last most hunters multiple life times even with lots of practice.