Forums.NitroExpress.com

$5 a shot, and a barrel life measured in "very few hundreds".
For shooters that like shooting that means a new barrel in about 1 month, or maybe a few weeks.

You cannot become a good long range shooter unless you practice a lot, and you need to do so continually to maintain that skill.

I, for one, could not want one of these new 6.5 Weatherbys any less.

As a gunsmith with over 40 years of experience I can't give an accurate count of the number of 264 Win Mags and 257 Weatherby mags I have re-barreled when their throats were eroded, but it is a pretty high count. Adding about 20-30 more grains to the 264 Win Mag would probably drop the barrel life about half. It may be even a larger drop depending on the alloy of the steel. I am going to venture a guess that the bore life of one of these new Weatherby 6.5s is going to be about 600 rounds.

Of course at $5 each (Now in 2015. ---- And higher in the future I am sure) the price may give quite a long barrel life to those that don't load their own. So they can own a very looooooong range rifle that they can't really use because they can't afford to practice with it. We'll have to wait and see on this.

But I know they will sell well. Marketing is "all important" and buying something that is faster is a big motivation to many. As the throat erodes the long range accuracy will disappear. So if you can't use it at 600 yards and farther, I wonder why you would care if your bullet misses while it is going faster.

In my shop I have to re-barrel the 300 Remington Ultra mags fairly often. My customers are usually shocked at how soon the throats erode. I install a new barrel and the harmonics are usually different from that of the old barrel, so ALL the load developments that gave good accuracy in the old barrel are of no value and the customer must start over from the very bottom to find the load that works in the new barrel. I have one customer that had had me put in 4 barrels in his M700 Ultra Mag in only 28 months. Last time he asked me to re-barrel it to a 300 Win Mag. Sorry.........no can do.
You see the Ultra Mag has a bigger shell so the bolt face is bigger. The receiver is milled out to accept the larger magazine so the smaller "standard magnum size" (ie 300 Win mag)can't be made to work.
When you have one of these ultra-mags that is the only thing it will ever be unless you want to re-barrel to a 338 Ultra or a 375 Ultra, or maybe the best one of the bunch, the original 404 Jeffery.
You can go bigger, but not smaller.

So I am going to guess those that get one of the new Weatherby 6.5s will learn the same lessons very soon.

But that's just my take. Others may want one anyway. If you can justify the cost of ammo and barrels they might be fun.