I waited with excitement for my Weatherby Vanguard II Sporter in 243 Winchester to arrive at my local gun store for its transfer. It was a birthday gift to myself, and I had decided this rifle would complement my 20-inch barreled Browning BLR in 243 Winchester brush gun nicely. Every once in a while, I get to hunt where the woods open up or across wide grassy meadows. Having an accurate rifle with a 24-inch barrel and a good trigger would surely help me confidently extend my reach. The aforementioned Browning BLR is responsible for this choice. The BLR, like most current Browning rifles, is made in Japan, and its fit and finish are superb. Since the Weatherby Vanguard’s actions are made by Howa in Japan and finished in the US, I figured I was not much at risk of being disappointed. Sadly, and as the title indicates, this little rifle did not start by meeting my reasonable expectations. Turns out, Japan does sometimes produce lemons, and the beautiful rifle I was avidly taking out of its shipping box was about to give me a run for my money.
All in all, this rifle passed the visual inspection and pre-shooting check with flying colors, especially for its price point. Critically, these rifles come with a three-shot group (cold barrel) sub-MOA accuracy guarantee with high grade or Weatherby ammunition. This was an attractive selling point, as I was looking for a rifle capable of expanding my hunting reach with confidence. This is where the issue happened.
The many maladies of this rifle, and their remedies
Proving the old adage that one should not judge a book from its cover, several trips to the range proved anything in-between frustrating, infuriating, and a sense of hopeless despair. The rifle was afflicted by several curses conspiring together to send me into fits. Below is detailed a litany of ailments I discovered in my rifle, and what it took to cure or mitigate them.
The first range trip yielded three shots groups varying randomly from 2.5’’ to 5’’ across with several different ammunition. Surprisingly, the worst groups were from using the high quality Hornady Outfitter CX. Worse, two of the cartridges would not allow the bolt to lock into battery, and the primers of spent cases were flattened well beyond what I am comfortable with.
The first rub (pun intended) came from the barrel having two points of contact with the stock rather than being free-floated. This anachronistic feature harkens back from Roy Weatherby’s rationale that thin barrel like this sporter profile shot better when upward pressure is applied to them. This goes against decades of dogma in precision shooting, where free floated barrels reign supreme. As expected, the barrel rapidly heated up and started pushing successive shots vertically. Sadly, while the shots were moving up on paper, they were also printing wider side to side. This indicated that not only the barrel was indeed sensitive to heating and warping up, it was also not maintaining its lateral accuracy either.
Furthermore, the first cold bore shots would not print anywhere close to an inch, and would seem like hitting in random places. By taking the action off and carefully sanding the two areas where the stock pressed against the barrel and tightening the action to the factory recommended 35 lbs-inch, I was hoping that the groups would tighten up.
For the next range trips and not wanting to wait 10 minutes between shots for the barrel to cool down, I used a handheld, battery operated high volume air pump to suck air through the muzzle and successfully speed up the process. Some of the groups got below 2’’, but some were still 4’’ across. There was a tiny bit of progress though: they looked like evenly scattered groups, with no evidence of vertical stringing during the firing sequence.
Following some head scratching, I realized that the wooden stock had enough flex to touch the barrel when rested on the sand bags. I had not sanded a deep enough channel into the stock. After sanding a good amount more (and torqueing the action to the right specs again), I went back to the range. A modicum of hope shone on me that day, as no groups were larger than 3’’ and some got below 1.5’’.
At that point, the bottom plate started to get my attention. It was warped, like it has always been, coming from the factory, which made me think it was normal. The inside steel lining of the magazine is sandwiched between the floor plate and the action, and impinges upon the latter when the screws are tightened. If the floor plate was bending, there was a good chance that the action, as solid as it is, was under some warping tension as well, which cannot be good for accuracy, especially if the shots are taken while resting on the bottom plate. To solve this, I placed a couple of washers between the wood stock and the bottom plate, carefully held the magazine lining and reinstalled the action into the stock. Back at the range, the groups went down to around 1.5’’ in average with one finally slightly below 1’’. This started to feel better.
In this quest for accuracy, the next logical step was to see if handloads could drag this rifle below the minute of angle mark. To get initial measurements, I used the old sharpie painted bullet trick to gauge the distance from the lands. Pulling out the setup, I realized that one side of the ogive clearly showed where the lands made contact with the bullet while the other had the paint fully stripped off. Hold on… This indicates the possibility of the chamber being reamed off axis, and this should not happen.
I had ordered and received a borescope for another project in the meantime. Naturally, this finicky rifle was the first to receive the endoscopic treatment. Lo and behold, the immediate portion of the barrel after the leade showed a side of the barrel with clearly defined lands and grooves, and the other, opposite side, smooth like a baby’s cheeks. The chamber had been inded drilled off kilter.
Adding to this, the rifling was inconsistent throughout the length of the barrel, as if some flub happened and the mandrel moved during the hammering process. Copper streaks turning blue festooned this unfortunate tube that did nothing to deserve this. Short of re-barreling this rifle, nothing could be done to fix that one.
A trip to the factory
What has been seen cannot be unseen. Upon finding out about the odious character of this barrel, I contacted Weatherby to explain my findings. They sent me a shipping label, and the rifle took a short business trip to the mothership in Sheridan, Wyoming. A couple of weeks later, the representative called me to discuss what they found. To my utter surprise, they considered the rifle within manufacturing tolerances. This came as a complete disappointment to me. The poorly cut chamber is obvious, and some quality ammunition would not even fit in it.
The representative proposed running the rifle through their $200 shooting test to see if it met their accuracy criteria. If it did not, they would refund the amount and send a replacement. Disgruntled and in an uncertain professional situation at that time, I was not comfortable gambling some hard earned money, especially since I had doubt in their assessment criteria. I turned down the offer, and they promptly sent the rifle back.
The Hail Mary
My incorrigible optimism reaching sponge-bobesque levels, I still wanted to give handloading for this rifle a try. I thought this would not be the only time a trash barrel would be made to shoot adequately with tailored load. I have heard horror stories with happy ending from long range competitors, like a barrel with chatter marks from throat to muzzle that shoots half-MOA at 1,000 yards as long as it is fouled with 20 shots… After all, I was not at much risk: at worse, the accuracy would never improve, at best, I could work up accurate loads.
I grabbed one box of Hornady 87gr V-Max and one of Hornady 100gr Interlock BTSP, and looked into my manuals for loads. IMR 4831 covered both bullets with good performance, so I settled for this powder. I loaded these in once-fired fully re-sized Hornady brass to the specs of the Hornady Manual, 11th edition. I shot three shot groups with each powder charge (table below).
Always use reputable sources for handloading or reloading. Follow the manufacturers guidance and never exceed maximum charges.
Five powder charges yielded sub-MOA three shot center-to-center groups for both bullets. At best, the 87gr V-Max was able to achieve 0.812”, and the 100gr Interlock a surprising 0.540’’. Three-shot groups are indicative at best. They do not give a good assessment of a rifle’s accuracy potential in my opinion, which requires more shots per group to avoid statistical and aiming aberrations. With a fresh batch of thirty cartridges topped with 100gr Interlock BTSP and loaded with 41gr of IMR 4831, I shot six, five-shot groups in rapid succession, to see if the barrel heating issue would rear its ugly head. The average group was 0.822’’ center-to-center. I was relieved: my stubbornness had finally paid out. That little rifle, after having its action properly torqued, its barrel free floated in a reshaped stock channel and fed with a tailored handload, finally met the sub-MOA accuracy expectation.
In the end…
Despite finally achieving sub-MOA accuracy, the charm had been broken. While I took it hunting successfully after all that trouble, the jury is still out with regards to its future. This highly anticipated rifle gave me enough trouble that the love is lost. Sometimes, when the juju is bad, it is better to let go of a gun, for it to find a new, happy owner. This little rifle will do great for a recoil sensitive shooter, at reasonable distance. Instead of the sendero rifle I hoped for, it is a blind-over-feeder rifle which is ok. It is just not for me.
