1976 270 Weatherby Magnum Bicentennial Commemorative

[KonoctisWigwam]

I posted about the 80 year Commemorative model that Weatherby is now making, but this rifle is a kind of classic in it's own right. It was built for the Bicentennial 1976 year by Roy Weatherby in South Gate, California. I graduated high school in 1976, which was also dubbed the Bicentennial Class.

As you may have noticed, I like Weatherby rifles. Roy Weatherby was instrumental in creating some of the greatest rifles of our day. Not the very best, but the most practical, and certainly affordable for many of us. This model has engraving and a plague on the butt stock, and the stock is drop dead gorgeous. This is the nicest rifle I own, of all of my rifles. My family owned a liquor store on the border of Lynwood and South Gate, and next door was an amazing retired Sheriff, who turned gunsmith, his name is Mike Bennett. Mike used to come in and buy beer with his handgun holstered, and of course all the LEO knew him, so nobody thought too much about it, other than, "hey, that guy has a gun!" This is after the Watt's riots.

If all of this is not enough, that's the same area that the Rodney King riots started as well.

Roy Weatherby was friends with Mike, and had a shop on Firestone, but it was rumored that Roy had a range under his house in South Gate.

Maybe Roy tuned this one up in his basement!

 

[KonoctisWigwam]

Had problems with the seating die crushing the radius'd should of the Weatherby Mag...this is what I ended up with, on one case that I could get the bullet seated. You can see that the dreaded bullet ring is being left, but the 2nd one didn't seat the bullet, but rather the bullet got stock in the top of the die...I have never seen this before.

This is the first time to use RCBS dies, and one of my friends swears by them, but given they didn't handle these McGuire Ballistics bullets, I returned the dies to Midway and I ordered a set of Redding with the VLD long stem.

I'm not entirely pushed to get this complete, but having 6.5 PRC and 270 Weatherby Magnum is more attractive to me than 6.5 PRC and 300WM/WSM.

Anyone see this before? If so, did you figure out what caused it? I try to pay attention to details, and why I sent those RCBS dies back. Thing is, I have 2 more sets, for 300WM/WSM with Forester Ultra Micrometer Seating dies. Forester tells me they try to make the seating stem long/generic so that it will work with longer VLD style bullets. I have one for 300WM and one for 300 WSM, but the die sets are RCBS for the FL and seating die (no micrometer). The Forester seating dies feel pretty nice, but even though Redding sells the stems separately for $30 a pop, at least I am confident they will work.