ROY WEATHERBY — The Man Behind The Name

Guns Magazine, Sept, 2001 by Dave Anderson

In the fall of 1942 a 32-year-old hunter on his first deer hunt in Utah wounded and lost a fine buck. Remorseful at having caused an animal unnecessary pain, he wondered if cartridges providing higher velocities than his .30-'06 might prove more effective. The hunter was Roy Weatherby, and his influence would profoundly affect the evolution of modern hunting cartridges and rifles.

Following World War II there were many experimenters improving various cases such as the popular .30-'06 and the .300 H&H Magnum. Weatherby at the time was just one of many. In addition to Powell, Miller and Ackley, well-known cartridge designers included Gibbs, Juenke, Pfiefer, Mashburn and Sharpe. Ballistically their designs were as good as those of Weatherby. Yet today they are remembered mostly by a few old-timers, while the Weatherby name ranks in the firearms industry with such greats as Colt, Remington, Winchester, Browning and Ruger.

Mention is often made of Weatherby's genius for promotion, and certainly he had an exceptional ability to keep his products in the public eye. There is no doubt he was a man of considerable intelligence. He was a capable writer, articulate and persuasive, but he also had a rare gift, one that is often overlooked or unappreciated. He had tremendous energy. After he quit his day job in 1945 to establish his own business, the sheer energy and tenacity with which Weatherby worked and overcame obstacles was amazing.

The premise on which Weatherby based his cartridges and his business is that bullet velocity is the most important factor in producing fast, humane kills on game. Some of his claims seem rather extravagant. In the beginning at least he seemed to have been convinced that if velocity was high enough, where the animal was hit didn't matter.

The diary of his first African trip includes comments such as this one about a hyena: "I shot him with my .257 Magnum, hitting in the front leg only, high toward the shoulder ... nothing can withstand the shock of high velocity bullets, even when not hit in a vital spot."

When a Cape buffalo escaped after being hit once with a .375 Weatherby, twice with a .300, and once more with a .470, Weatherby wrote, "You must hit them right unless the bullet has sufficient velocity to disintegrate. Now, I am going to try the 87 gr. .25 caliber on them -- this may have the shock we are after."

The diary of his 1948 hunt printed in his biography makes fascinating reading. After seeing poorly hit animals run off, Weatherby noted, "This shooting business is really something. I'm disproving all my own theories and everyone's else's ... the bullet must be travelling at a certain velocity when it hits the animal in order to kill by shock, no matter where it hits."

In an article in the 1951 Gun Digest Weatherby wrote, "It doesn't matter whether you shoot (a game animal) in the ham, the ribs, the paunch, or the shoulder; you do not have to hit the heart, the lungs, or the spine in order to kill when using a bullet that disintegrates inside his body. I recommend you try a .25-caliber bullet travelling at 4,000 fps to shoot your next game animal, whether it be deer, moose, or African buffalo."

The ultimate, though, was when Weatherby claimed that if velocity was high enough, you did not have to hit the animal at all in order to kill it. A near miss was enough. "Government experiments with projectiles travelling 10,000 fps show the devastating results that can someday be expected ... they shot over the backs of animals with these guns, missing by only a fraction of an inch. The animals jumped several times their normal ability to jump and fell dead. Autopsy revealed every blood vessel was ruptured in the area over which the bullet passed. It worked with shock waves in the air..."

Weatherby may not have convinced hunters that high velocity could make up for poor bullet placement, but he was instrumental in demonstrating that a faster bullet with its flatter trajectory makes range estimation less critical and makes it easier to place the bullet in a vital area.

Weatherby was an industry leader right up until his death in 1988. He wasn't the first to design high-velocity cartridges, but he was the first to promote them effectively with the hunting public. He was one of the first to realize that the scope would be the dominant sight of the future, and to stock his rifles for scope use.

His cartridges and stock design were widely imitated. His goals of high velocity led to the development of better bullets, tougher and higher-powered scopes, and continue to be pursued with the development of cartridges such as the .30-378 and .300 Remington Ultramag.

He achieved world-wide fame along with plenty of controversy. To this day you can go into a bar in Gillette, Wyo., or Anchorage, Alaska, or Johannesburg, South Africa and get into a spirited argument by promoting -- or attacking -- Weatherby rifles and cartridges.