The long-range hunter or seeker of varmints in windy conditions often chooses a 25-caliber rifle, and the Weatherby 257 cartridge is about the hottest of those easily available. Weatherby is happy to sell you one off the rack, or they can whip one up to your own specifications, if you have long pockets. Weatherby makes quite a few versions of rifles in this caliber, and we chose to test the vaunted Mark V Deluxe ($2400) against the Vanguard Series 2 Deluxe ($1149) to see what you might get for the extra money needed to buy the Mark V.
No matter how you cut it, theres no denying the aura of the Weatherby name, and we must admit we enjoyed using two fabulous 30mm Leupold scopes on these very precise and good-looking Weatherby rifles. Maybe thats enough reason to buy one. Still, we should note that we had the devil of a time finding ammo, and finally bought some from a local user of the cartridge in two persuasions, 87-grain Spire Point and 120-grain Nosler Partition. Here are our findings.
Weatherby Mark V Deluxe 257 Weatherby, $2400
The Mark V is available in ten simple versions before you get into the custom-shop jobs. The Deluxe is the only one of these with a wood stock, and its a fancy one. The wood on our test rifle was drop-dead gorgeous, and the stock also had excellent fine checkering and Weatherbys trademark rosewood forend cap and grip cap with white-line “maplewood” spacers. The recoil pad did not have the white-line spacer. You can get the Mark V in a dozen different standard chamberings, and more from the custom shop. The stock finish was glassy, but as we immediately noticed, not entirely level. It showed lots of waviness if you sight along its supposedly flat sides. We could feel the waviness with our fingers.
Did we mention it shines? One of our test crew was hunting some years ago and noticed a brilliant flash about a mile away. He found out it was a hunter with a glossy Weatherby rifle, giving his presence away to all the game in the county. Our Senior Technical Editor owned a 300 Weatherby a few years back, one of the German-made ones with cast-off stock (which the current ones have to a slight extent, including the Vanguard) coated with shiny epoxy. He decided he didnt like that shine and so removed all the finish with a scraper and gave the stock an oil finish, which seemed to greatly improve the rifle from a practical standpoint. As he put it, it no longer glowed in the dark. You can order a custom Weatherby with matte blue and satin-finish stock, but these cost extra, as we understand it.
The long 26-inch barrel was beautifully blued as was the rest of the gun. However, the trigger guard and floorplate were aluminum, not steel. With the hinged floorplate open, the inner metal of the magazine box rattled loose inside the rifle, not a comforting thing to see. It was free to rattle up and down a good eighth of an inch. However, with the polymer follower closed, there was no rattling. We think something was amiss, but could not tell what it might have been. The latch for the floorplate was in the bottom of the trigger guard, which was out of the way for us and not likely to get bumped open in recoil.
The stock shape is Elmer Keiths old design, which has a high comb that slopes forward and does a fine job of keeping the kick off your face. The Pachmayr pad also does a good job of keeping the kick off your shoulder, but these 257s dont really kick much. We thought the Mark V was heavy for its power, and the big FireDot scope adds to its mass. However, if youre using this as a varmint rifle, the weight is probably not important. We noticed the bottom of the notch for the bolt handle was cut square. This seemed to be out of place. A rounded notch would have looked better and let in less dirt. The barrel was free floated, but had hard pressure points about 3 inches back from the forend tip and at the base of the barrel. The rifles performance told us this was all good and proper.
We mounted one of our two 30mm Leupold VX R FireDot 3-9X40 scopes ($600 MSRP) in Leupold rings and bases. This scope has an illuminated dot right in the center of the duplex reticle. Happily, its intensity can be thumb-punched down in steps by a switch on the left side of the scope. It was one of the more annoying things weve seen in a scope when used in broad daylight. However, the rest of the story is that this large-diameter scope gathered enough light that, in the evening when we could not discern our 100-yard target butt with naked eye, we could see it clearly through the scope, but we could not see the reticle, until we punched up the lowest level of the red dot. Then we would have been able to make a shot onto the target with perfect results. We could see this was one mighty useful setup for low-light conditions. Will this type scope encourage shooting at bad light levels? Hunting regulations generally control that, but if we had to, for any reason, make a shot in bad light or against a very dark background, this scope would be our first choice. We think the tiny centered red dot is a better idea than the fully lighted crosshairs as seen in the Nightforce scopes and a few others. The matte-black scope also looked great on the rifle. Kudos to Leupold.
On the range we noticed a reluctance for the Mark V to feed the first of three shots in the magazine. We could force four in there, but didnt like it, nor does Weatherby, calling it a 3+1 in this caliber. The short bolt lift requires getting used to, but that doesnt take long. The nine-lug bolt is massive and stout, and comes out of the rifle easily by pressing the trigger with the bolt fully back. The trigger is adjustable, but was great as we found it. A target came with the gun, fired with 80-grain ammo. It was well under an inch. Could we do that? Our first group fired with three of the 87-grain loads went 0.7 inch at 100 yards. And they only got better. With the 120-grain Partition load, the groups expanded to a little over an inch. Clearly, the rifle delivered the goods. By the way, Weatherby claims 3825 fps with the 87-grain bullet. Our test ammo averaged only 3690 with the first screen just 8 feet from the muzzle. Does this cartridge lose 135 fps in 10 feet?
Our Team Said: At any rate, if you have need for a fancy-looking, shiny rifle with a vast history, U.S. made, in one of the hottest 25-caliber chamberings, one that will lay em in there – at least with lighter bullets – and dont mind spending over two grand, this is it. However, we think a rifle costing this much ought to have exactly no problems. While we applaud this kind of accuracy, we dont like not having the rounds fail to chamber, as happened a few times. That might go away as the rifle wears in, so well cut some slack there. But the wavy stock? Thats just not right. We think its a B+ rifle at this price, and in light of what you get with the Vanguard.
Weatherby Vanguard Series 2 Deluxe 257 Weatherby, $1149
The Weatherby Vanguard Series 2 Deluxe is available only in 270, 30-06, 257 Weatherby, 300 Winchester Mag, and 300 Weatherby Mag. Again, there are a variety of stock options with the Vanguard. This rifle was made in Japan, and the makers did a very fine job. The fine wood stock has the same glassy, glossy finish as the Mark V, but the finished surface is notably flatter with less waviness than the finish on the Mark V. The wood is excellent, nearly as gorgeous as that on the Mark V, and well formed into the Keith stock shape. The recoil pad is another Pachmayr Presentation Decelerator, marked Weatherby. The metal finish is glossy, but the barrel is only 24 inches. The metalwork was nearly as good as on the other rifle, but the barrel on the Mark V looked like polished glass. This one was just glossy. The stock again had the Weatherby trademark rosewood forend tip and grip cap, again with the white lines, and again there was no white line on the recoil pad. The checkering was very well done, and a bit coarser – and thus more useful, we thought – than that on the Mark V.
The trigger guard was aluminum, but the floorplate was steel. Its release was outside the trigger guard, an excellent position. The bolt turns 90 degrees. It had a recessed face, plunger ejector and small leaf-type extractor. Basically, this was a Mauser action with the same bolt face as on the Mark V. It even had lines cut into the outside of the bolt body to simulate the look of the Mark V bolt. This bolt fed rounds more reliably and smoother, we thought, than the other one. The barrel was again free-floated, with a hard contact point about 3 inches back from the tip.
The safety was a rocking device with three positions, labeled SUF. Back was Safe, with the bolt locked. The central position let you work the bolt to Unload the chamber, and Forward to fire. We mounted another of the excellent FireDot 3-9X Leupolds and took the Vanguard to the range. We found the trigger was actually a two-stage, with a light take-up and then a very decent, sharp break. Weatherby guarantees sub-MOA accuracy with both these rifles. The Mark V did it with light bullets. The Vanguard also did it with light bullets, but neither rifle did it with Weatherbys 120-grain Partition ammo. However, they were both close with the heavier bullets. The Vanguards velocity suffered somewhat from 2 inches less barrel, to the tune of 60 fps with the 120-grain ammo and 90 fps with the light bullets.
Our Team Said: We found feeding and overall manipulation of the Vanguard far smoother and more user friendly than the Mark V. There were no bobbles, no missteps, no problems and no complaints. Comparing just these two Weatherby rifles, wed buy the Vanguard way before the Mark V, and come out at least a thousand dollars ahead and far happier, with what we consider to be a better rifle.
Written and photographed by Ray Ordorica, using evaluations from Gun Tests team testers. GT
