Weatherby North Mark in 257 Weatherby

Crashman

Crashman

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I have a new Weatherby North Mark on it's way to me soon, in 257 Weatherby. I have never owned or loaded for any Weatherby cartridge, any tips, pointers, or other need to know info out there? I have laid in a stock of Reloader 25, got some Federal 215 magnum rifle primers, and have some 115 grain Partitions and Ballistic Tips, and have also ordered five boxes of factory ammo with 100 grain spitzers to start with then reload the brass. Wondering if anyone has any experience with this rifle and cartridge, I am really excited about this new rifle! Hopefully have it sometime in the spring.

Here is some info...
 
The 257 is a great cartridge. I've had a few different guns chambered in it and most seem to actually prefer RL22 over RL25.

So that looks like basically an Ultra Lightweight with the Accumark stock color and floorplate emblems, built for the CDN market. Looks good! I never have liked the puke tan ULW stock color.
 
Ive had a couple, currently I use a mk v accumark, The load Im using is a 110 grain accubond over Imr 7828 and a federal 215 primer. Chronographs 3480 FPS from my rifle.
 
I have had several 257s but never in a Weatherby rifle, my current one is a Rem 700 CDL stainless fluted. I used to use 7828 in my 257s but then found RL 25 and have never looked back.......Both my son and I load RL 25 and 110 gn Accubonds for unbelievable blistering speeds and 1/2 moa accuracy. FWIW, I have never used Weatherby brass, but made all my 257 brass from W-W 264 WM..........once through the full length die and load and shoot, it really is that simple. I have a couple or three hundred now and another 2 or 3 hundred new W-W 264 waiting in the wings. You will have fun........it is a truly amazing cartridge..........
I went to a shoot at the local gun club in Whitehorse which was listed as a long range shoot. I took it to mean hunting rifle but I was mistaken, which I realized when I showed up on the line with my 257 Bee while every other rifle there was a long, heavy barreled bench type rifle chambered in long range cartridges with huge scopes with adjustment knobs all over them etc....etc....etc, all designed to shoot anywhere from 1-10 thousand meters...........OK a slight exaggeration, but you get the picture...........Me and my little light fluted barreled 257 Bee with a non adjustable scope (no easily adjusted target knobs) managed to outshoot all them heavy barreled benchrest target rigs but one for a second overall placing.............Using the 257 Bee I didn't need to adjust my scope for distance and the slight breeze which played hell with some of the boys wasn't even noticed by my 110 AB, I just gave her about a minutes worth of windage and kept right on hitting targets, right out to the farthest gong at I think it was 635 Mtrs.

This guy was taken with my first 257 Bee and 120 gn Speer HC.......one shot at 450 mtrs destroyed both front shoulders. Rifle is a full custom on an unfired VZ24 action with a 26" tube, I think it was a Sheilen but don't really remember.

 
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c-fbmi said:
I have had several 257s but never in a Weatherby rifle, my current one is a Rem 700 CDL stainless fluted. I used to use 7828 in my 257s but then found RL 25 and have never looked back.......Both my son and I load RL 25 and 110 gn Accubonds for unbelievable blistering speeds and 1/2 moa accuracy. FWIW, I have never used Weatherby brass, but made all my 257 brass from W-W 264 WM..........once through the full length die and load and shoot, it really is that simple. I have a couple or three hundred now and another 2 or 3 hundred new W-W 264 waiting in the wings. You will have fun........it is a truly amazing cartridge..........
I went to a shoot at the local gun club in Whitehorse which was listed as a long range shoot. I took it to mean hunting rifle but I was mistaken, which I realized when I showed up on the line with my 257 Bee while every other rifle there was a long, heavy barreled bench type rifle chambered in long range cartridges with huge scopes with adjustment knobs all over them etc....etc....etc, all designed to shoot anywhere from 1-10 thousand meters...........OK a slight exaggeration, but you get the picture...........Me and my little light fluted barreled 257 Bee with a non adjustable scope (no easily adjusted target knobs) managed to outshoot all them heavy barreled benchrest target rigs but one for a second overall placing.............Using the 257 Bee I didn't need to adjust my scope for distance and the slight breeze which played hell with some of the boys wasn't even noticed by my 110 AB, I just gave her about a minutes worth of windage and kept right on hitting targets, right out to the farthest gong at I think it was 635 Mtrs.

This guy was taken with my first 257 Bee and 120 gn Speer HC.......one shot at 450 mtrs destroyed both front shoulders. Rifle is a full custom on an unfired VZ24 action with a 26" tube, I think it was a Sheilen but don't really remember.

Click to expand...

Very nice c-fbmi! I am hoping to one day hunt caribou, either in the north west of Canada or out east, in Newfoundland. I was thinking the 257 would be just about ideal for that hunt, it will also get used for some open country deer, maybe elk and moose too, and of course I plan to work up a load with a lighter varmint bullet to laser some coyotes at distances that will hopefully make the rest of my hunting rifles cringe.

Thanks for the info on the brass, I will start stock piling some of that too if it is truly that easy, and it will be much less expensive than Weatherby brass. Also glad to hear about the Reloader 25, I just picked up five pounds yesterday, they also had Reloader 22 but I went with 25 because all my reloading manuals said it was the better choice.

What dies are everyone using for the 257 bee? I typically favour either Lee or Hornady, and I do like the Lee factory crimp die for my hunting loads.
 
I bought a mark V 7mm weatherby deluxe a few months ago and have been learning as I go. Mine has a long throat and the limiting factor of OAL is the length of the magazine. Other than that I cant think of anything else that is different. That north edition looks pretty sweet.
 
Well got my reloading dies yesterday...thanks Hitzy! And I have 5 lbs of Reloader 25, got some large rifle magnum primers, got some 115 Ballistic tips and Partitions to try, got the scope...Vortex Razor HD LH 3-15X42 HSR-4, now all I need is the rifle! Supposed to be here sometime in May, starting to vibrate getting so excited! Luckily I have some other new target rifles to occupy my time too, got a new Tikka Sporter in 260 rem, and I have a custom 260 at the smith right now too. Getting to be an expensive year so far!
 
I've played around with resized 7mm REM mag, and 264 win mag, and it works fine, but leaves the necks quite a bit shorter then 257wby brass.
If you can find it, Hornady 257wby brass is around $75/50 which isn't too bad compared to the Norma stuff.
 
I've had three .257s now, a Mark V Synthetic that my son absconded with when he was 11 and shows no inclination to return, M700 LSS and a Lazerguard.All of them shot.

I've formed many brass out of 7mm Fem Mag brass without incident. Somewhere along the line I got a great deal on several bags of Norma brass, and price of Weatherby brand 100 grain Spiird points dipped below the price of empty Weatherby brass so I've largely made the switch. The Norma manufactured stuff gives every indication of wanting to last forever.

A load that worked well in all three of them was 68-69 grains of IMR 4831 and the 100 grain Ballistic tip or 100 grain TSX used interchangeably. The load was found with the completely unscientific method of useing Noslers powder pick from an old #3 manual. As it remains unbroken, I'll refrain from fixing it. A more recent addition for the Lazerguard is the 80 grain TTSX sestted on top of a pile of old style 7826 for 3950 fps. That one is fun; it seems like the bullet hits the target in a surrealistically short time.
 
I use the same load as Dogleg and it works good on everything.The 257 wby is my favorite cartridge,you can use it on coyotes up to moose and elk,and I have shot my first wolf with it at 700 yards and killed many elk with it.I have never recovered a 100 grain tsx bullet from an elk yet and some of then were large bull elk also most of my trophy deer was taken with the 257 I have had good results with the Nosler 100 grain ballistic tips.This cartridge shoots so flat with very little recoil I am sure you will love your new rifle.
 
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