Years ago, I read that Weatherby had put their 9-lug Mark V action through a pressure test - the action wihstood an incredible 240K psi before signs of failure appeared! The $$ you put out for one is for all the CNC machining that goes into making the bolt body and action, or so it’s been said. Anybody with similar tests on other rifles?
Not familiar with Weatherby but I know the Crane Armory used the 1903 Springfield action as the test dummy for a whole host of rounds submitted to the US Military. An old friend of mine that worked in that shop who has long since gone on to his just rewards told stories of the “Amazingly Stupid $h!t” they used to put those actions through. He mentioned that if you got over 300,000 CUP you needed a 6’ cheater pipe to get the bolt back open (that’s the only specific number I can recall from those conversations). The test barrels were made of 2" dia chrome molly and were only about 12 - 18" long and screwed into the actions then the barrel was clamped into a 12 X 12 X 12 split steel block that used 1" bolts to hold it all together and torqued to 100ft/lbs, all that was attached to a 1" welded steel table that was set into concrete. There was a string involved to operate the trigger. I think he said that anything that would not fit in the Springfield action was put into a 105 Howitzer breach block with the a fore mentioned 2" dia barrels.
Cheers,
Craig6
If you read Elmer Kieth, he repeatedly talked of his time in the military doing testing, among other things. One action they used as a test action was a massive Farquharson-style action (Ruger #1 was modeled after the farquharson action) and when they would get a little wild and crazy with it they would have to beat the action open with a maul.