Weatherby
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the gunmaker. For other uses, see Weatherby (disambiguation).
Weatherby, Inc. is an American gun manufacturer founded in 1945 by Roy Weatherby. The company is best known for its high-powered magnum cartridges, such as the .257 Weatherby Magnum and the .460 Weatherby Magnum.
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[edit] Rifles
The original rifles by Roy Weatherby were originally built on FN Mauser actions, or other actions deemed strong enough, though it was primarily the FN. The first Weatherby Mark V rifles were manufactured in West Germany. Material and labour costs eventually led production to Japan, where some say the machining was actually better. In 1995 Manufacturing was moved back to the United States, where they have been manufactured under contract by both Saco Defense and Smith and Wesson.
The design of the Weatherby Mark V. rifle is said by many experts to be the most widely mimicked in the world. Weatherby rifles are some of the only rifles in the world to guarantee sub-MOA accuracy from a cold barrel. While generally contended to be of higher quality than Remington or Winchester rifles, Weatherby rifles are consequently considerably more expensive in terms of both the rifle and ammunition.
[edit] Shotguns
Weatherby offers a wide line of exotic double-barrel shotguns for bird hunting, and trap/skeet shooting.
[edit] Calibers
It was with Weatherby that the modern trend of high velocity hunting calibers was developed. From there Weatherby has constantly moved in to build the most power cartridge of a common caliber range. Only in recent years has a competitor in the form of Remington's UltraMag series given Weatherby real competition for commerially available power. However Weatherby still holds the title of most powerful commercially available huntring cartridge in the world with its .460 Weatherby. While the company's .30-378 holds over a dozen velocity records.
According to Weatherby's website, the company's full line up of calibers consists of the:
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Weatherby also offers rifles chambered in:
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While other companies offer rifles chambered in Weatherby calibers, the instruction manuals of these rifles warn against using actual Weatherby ammunition in these rifles as opposed to ammunition developed by the maker of the rifle. The reason for this is that Weatherby's own ammunition is often loaded to a considerably more powerful level and could easily rupture a rifle not designed to handle it.
Weatherby shotguns cover the spectrum of available cartridges from the 12 Gauge, to the .410 Gauge.
