Shooters Forum banner

270 wby mag powder brand

7K views 9 replies 4 participants last post by  jim love 
#1 ·
Howdy, does anyone know what brand of powder wby uses in 270 wby mag cartridges? I'm trying to use the 270 wby mag cartridge components for handloading  270 win.  I know I can use the bullets and powder and need to find suitable primers and 270 win cases. but to utilise the powder i need to come up with the right ratio.
Any help as far as how to make use of my 500 wby mag cartridges to handload for 270 win's is appreciated. I sold my wby gun recently and am left with approx.500 cartridges.
 
See less See more
1
#2 ·
There is no telling what powder was used in factory cases.  Doubtful that it is the same cannister powders available to the reloader.  Almost certainly it has changed over the years, as the .270 WBY had been around for quite a long time.  So you could have a mix of different powders depending on when the ammo was purchased, what bullet weight, etc.  Only way to be reasonably sure that all the powder is the same is to see if all the ammo is from the same production lot.  Even then it's no guarantee.

If I read your question correctly, you have some (500?) .270 WBY cartridges which you intend to break down and salvage the components, right?

That seems like an awful lot of trouble... have you tried to sell the ammo?  Weatherby ammo is generally pretty expensive and if you could find a buyer, it seems to me that you should be able to sell it for what it would take to buy the components for that many .270 Win cartridges.

Anyway, if you do salvage the bullets, and IF they have exposed lead at the bases, they are probably Nosler Partitions.  Those would be worth reusing.  

Seems like it would be asking for trouble to reuse the powder.  I would just dispose of it rather than risk blowing up a gun should you break down the ammo.

For what it's worth.
 
#3 ·
Mike, thanx 4 d contribution. We hunters in Iran don't have much of a choice in choosing guns and ammo. Almost nothing(hunting guns &ammo.) has been imported and everything we have is the remains of the stuff from before the revolution(1978). Once one buys a gun here it is wise to stock up on ammo. if one can find any .
That's what I did with the wby(almost 600 cartridges). Now that I have gotten rid of the gun I'm left with the cartridges. In Iran surprisingly wby cartridges cost half the price of the 270 win(270 win is the most popular hunting gun). It might interest you to know that one 270 cartridge cost the equivalent of &#3610!! here. This is predominantly the reason why I want to ,as you put it, salvage the NOSLER (130 or 140 gr) and HORNADY(130 gr) SOFTPOINTS and the powder in the wby cartridge  to handload for 270 win. Sorry I dragged it a bit.
 
#4 ·
WOW... that is a tough situation!

Unfortunately, there is probably no good way to identify the powder.  If you can contact Weatherby with the lot numbers that would be your best bet.  Norma may have been the actual manufacturer for some of the Weatherby ammo, you could try them also.

Good luck to you.  How hard will it be to find .270 Win brass & primers?
 
#5 ·
Win.brass shouldn't be hard to come by(used ones of course).primers and powder are illegal to buy and scarce. I have to do some tough research as to see maybe the wby mag primes work....
Today i'm going to test fire a reasonably clean zkk 600 in 270 to see the groups it makes. If satisfied I'll pay the price which is &#363750(20 cartridges included). It sure is hard to find a clean gun after say 20-30 yrs of use.
Mike what do you think I just take the lowest # of all manufacturers (IMR, HODGDON,etc.) for the win 270.
For example if IMR says 50gr of powder &HODGDON says 44gr etc.... I will measure say 43 grs of my wby powder just to be on the safe side and work my way up gradually from there.
 
#6 ·
Well.... considering your extreme circumstances, if you go very slowly and carefully it should be possible.  The powders suitable for the .270 WBY are generally the same powders suitable for the .270 Win.

Keep in mind that there may be more than one powder from each company which could have been used.  So for example from IMR there might be 4350 and 4831, same for Hodgdon.  So you would have to start below the lowest starting point.  I'm sure you don't have a chronograph either?

If you remove the powder from one .270 shell and weigh it, that might give some idea of the burn rate.  Measuring the dimesions of the powder grains would be another clue.

Whatever you do, don't mix powder from different lots of cartridges.  They could use totally different powders.  

On the plus side, since the ammo is that old you won't have to worry about many new powders such as IMR 7828.  That cuts down on the number of possibilities.

Probably not possible to salvage the primers.  The priming pellet would surely be cracked or crushed, plus there is some danger of setting the primer off when decapping.

I don't suppose that it would be possible for you to find another .270 WBY?  

I'm curious where you have loading data from.  Do you have old manuals or are you getting it on-line from the powder company web sites?
 
#7 ·
Thanx 4 d reply Mike, I don't know what you call this but the zkk 600 i wanted to buy, after the old man saw it making 1 moa groups as i test fired it , he is now not willing to sell it for that price anymore!! I guess you shouldn't let the sellers know how good their gun performs. Here some people(old hunters) sell their guns which has been sitting in their closets for years and it would be cheaper to buy a gun from hand than in a shop. Anyway I told him that a bird in the hand is better than 2 in the bush and that he would be better off selling it to me than wait for another buyer, but now he wants&#36 4178 .
Now back to reloading: My cartridges don't vary much basically 3 kinds(each kind comprises of identical cartridges in all aspects).    Those topped with nosler, those topped with hornady & those topped with 90 or 100 grain bullets the brand of which i don't know.
Yes you are right I have never seen a chronograph other than in pictures on the web.  
I don't have a reloading manual and folks i know who reload(which is by the way illegal) have manuals dating back to 70's. The info on the web is of course limited , understandable of course because there are manuals to be sold to people and if we had access to #'s on the web no one would buy manuals.
I sold my wby mag because the trigger mechanism was faulty ,i took a loss of &#36625 when i returned it to the shop where i had bought it(you call it a lemon right?).
There are other  270 wby mag rifles but the moment i lay eyes on one  ,you know, since they all look the same,they remind me of all the hardship i endured during the 3 months i had that lemon.This zkk 600 made in checkoslovakia seems like a nice gun. Of course there are also rem 700's in both 7mm and 270 avalilable too.
thanx again for your advice only problem is i still haven't bought the 270 win.      
 
#8 ·
ansarisimin,

"when you lose don't lose the lesson"  

I am intrigued by your byline and interested by this thread.  I wouldn't be too quick to give up on the .270 Weatherby mag, they aren't all bad.  Weatherby rifles enjoy an excellent reputation worldwide.  And if you are hunting very large game, it is far superior to the .270 Win.  

So, is Weatherby that much more difficult to find than the risky business of re-reloading your powders to .270 Win?<!--emo&???--><img src="http://beartoothbullets.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='???'><!--endemo-->?  

.270 Weatherby is a little unusual here, I only know of one man who has one.  It has superb accuracy and shoots flat at great distance.  The ammo is very expensive here.  

What are you hunting with your rifle?  That answer should drive your decisions about what cartridge to stay with.  

My prayer for you is that someday you will purchase your chronograph, reload freely, buying all components to your hearts content.  <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://beartoothbullets.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
 
#9 ·
Thanx 4 your post 53. May we all do whatever we do smartly. I predominantly hunt boars(hogs) and you are right maybe I shouldn't be turned off by the unhappy associations that the look of the wby mag arouses in me. Maybe another wby mag in .270 is the better choice. But my studies recently in to the matter of barrel life suggest that all overbore cartridges very much reduce the barrel life drastically(.243 , .264,6.5x68, 30-378 etc.).
7mm mag was not mentioned in reports but by extrapolation I sense that .270 wby and the 7mm mag. also enjoy that bad rap(as i said earlier here one doesn't get his hands on good rifles every day so i would want a rifle that can withstand more than 500 firings in case of 30-378 or a couple thousand in case of .243).
You know there are so many criterias in choosing a rifle and the cartridge and frankly sometimes i'm baffled by what are the most important; firepower or shot-placement , is kinetic energy more important or the speed of the bullet or none of these but the construction of the bullet. Interaction of all these would even baffle a rocket scientist.  So as you suggested for the time being i continue to think about the matter &settle with my wife's 30-30 until i find out whats best for me. sincerely
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top