Rifles

For nearly 50 years the Weatherby Mark V magnum bolt-action rifle has been the flagship of the Weatherby line. So it is easy to forget that many of the finest examples of Roy Weatherby's rifles were created years before the Mark V saw the light of day.

As early as 1945 Weatherby was rechambering and altering customers' rifles for his fledgling family of cartridges, the .257, .270 and .300 Weatherby Magnums. He had also developed the .220 Rocket--a blown-out .220 Swift with an altered case taper and shoulder. These cartridges and Weatherby's theory concerning the killing power of high velocity were already becoming well known in the world's gamefields although the cartridges themselves were considered wildcats.

Weatherby was also building new rifles on any suitable bolt action such as the Winchester Model 70, commercial Mauser and even Springfield actions. Weatherby's distinctive "California-style" deluxe model was rapidly evolving, but even the very earliest Weatherbys sported streamlined "pencil"-taper barrels and the brilliant, high-polished Weatherby blue.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'
Weatherby's style sense didn't mesh with conventional sporting rifle stocks of the period. He regarded them as clubby and cumbersome and envisioned a sleek, streamlined stock that was well balanced, pointed naturally and would be comfortable to shoot when touching off a Weatherby Magnum.

Starting with a blank sheet of paper, Weatherby experimented with various stock shapes and profiles. The earliest Weatherby rifles had the rounded fore-end that was common at the time, but the gunmaker soon developed the familiar flat-bottomed fore-end with the "reverse V" rosewood tip that is distinctively Weatherby.

This was combined with a gracefully flaring pistol grip and a rosewood grip cap bearing the diamond inlay that has become a Weatherby signature. Perhaps the most significant feature to emerge as a component of the Weatherby look is the forward-slanting Monte Carlo comb and cheekpiece. This design contributed heavily to the Weatherby rifle's modernistic (read radical) appearance when compared to contemporary rifles.

Much more important was how the forward-slanting comb--combined with minimal drop at the heel--made the rifles more comfortable to shoot under heavy recoil. As the rifle is acted on by the recoil impulse, the relatively high butt causes the rifle's motion to be mainly rearward rather than rotating upward as it would if the stock had a pronounced drop at the heel. At the same time, the forward-slanting comb tended to pull away from--rather than slam into?the shooter's cheek. Many earlier stock designs did just the opposite, delivering a sharp uppercut to the cheek that could actually magnify the effect of recoil.

It wasn't long before other rifle-makers and stock designers began to imitate Roy Weatherby's stylish stock design. Thus was born the "California School" of custom rifles. A few carried the motif to extremes, creating flamboyant designs that earned the disdain of those who continued to favor a conservative, "classic" style of rifle stock. However, the California School began to exert a subtle influence on even the most conservative stock-makers, and combs began to rise until a "straight" comb with minimal heel drop became the norm.

Most factory rifles produced today use some of the design features that Weatherby pioneered, making a modern magnum rifle a much more user-friendly device than its earlier counterpart. Today a Weatherby rifle is merely distinctive, not radical, although a Crown Grade with its flashy inlays, engraving and exhibition-grade wood is nobody's idea of a "conservative" rifle.

Early Weatherbys influenced modern bolt-actions in yet another way. Scopes had been available for hunting rifles since the days of buffalo hunter Billy Dixon, but they were fragile and dim enough that iron sights were still useful equipment, even if only as a backup. But the appeal of a Weatherby Magnum cartridge depended on flat trajectory and long-range killing power. For this reason a quality scope was essential on a Weatherby rifle, and iron sights were a nonfunctional appendage. Also, iron sights on a light or sporter-weight barrel could adversely affect accuracy, so Weatherby almost always left them off his rifles.

Fortunately, good riflescopes were becoming widely available in the post-WWII period, just in time for the debut of Weatherby rifles without iron sights. Today, hunting rifles without iron sights are commonplace, but in the late 1940s iron sights were considered an essential component . Once again Roy Weatherby had broken new ground.