Gunmaker,

From your posting:

2)Bolt handle would be broken off with the rock the hunter used to open his bolt leaving the hunter with a rock as his primary weapon.

That is something which would be interesting to see happen because the Weatherby has an integral bolt handle.

But let's assume for a moment that it was true.

Well from the rest of your post I gather that the extractor on a Wby won't pull out much since it will just pull straight through the rim of the case so we know from that fact there was no big resistance to opening the bolt being caused by the extractor's tenacious grip on the case. So therefore this was a huge overload. I mean a HUGE overload since the integral bolt handles are breaking off.

Since there was no mention of any damage to shooter or rifle (except for the broken bolt handle), then the Weatherby rifle must be extremely safe in the case of a huge overload.

Mike