Fresh Mag

Weatherby’s 6.5/300 gives a classic bullet new long-range legs—and may be its best magnum ever.

- David E. Petzal

LONG AGO, Roy Weatherby hit on a formula for designing rifle cartridges that was so successful he was able to found a company based on it, and that company has not only survived but still flourishes 70 years later. Weatherby’s formula was a simple one: Use great gouts of gunpowder to drive bullets at unheard- of velocities, hundreds and hundreds of feet per second faster than anything else on the market. Hunters tried his cartridges and learned that with chalk-line-straight trajectory, they could accomplish amazing things. Shots that were once beyond their ability now were gimmes.

Weatherby did this with just about every common bullet diameter from .224 to .458, with one omission—the 6.5mm, or .264. The interest wasn’t there. Proof lay in the sad example of Winchester, which came out in 1959 with the .264 Winchester Magnum; despite very good performance for the time, it got only a lukewarm reception.

But things changed.

FAR-REACHING DEVELOPMENTS

For almost the entirety of the 20th century, the practical limit of a game rifle was 300 yards. This was the maximum range at which a skilled shooter with sporting (nontarget) equipment could reliably hit a critter the size of a deer. A really good shot could go beyond that, but not as a regular thing.

But as the hideous 20th century gave way to the even more disgusting 21st, there were great sea changes.

• A fresh generation of super- slow-burning powders enabled large-capacity cases to turn out far more feet per second.

• Rifle accuracy increased by 100 percent, or 150 percent, or 200 percent, depending on how you measure it.