[quote=JJHACK]
To me,the 300 gr kicks a good deal harder....the 250's are pussycats, even at over 2900.This is of course subjective and can vary rifle to rifle.
In a bygone era(not really THAT long ago, although it may seem it to the younger folks here
there were few 375 bullets of high quality available.
Nosler had gone from the screw machine design to the impact extrusion method of manufacture, but the 375 bullets were not among the newer offerings.I recall coming upon a stash of about 700 of the older bullets, and with a friend, bought them all at $1 each. These were 270 and 300 gr bullets.
You bought what you could get,and the only other premies around were Bill Steigers BBC's;but they were made by hand, had to be ordered,and production runs were small; a guy had to wait for them,sometimes a year or two in any given caliber.
Along with the BBC bullets came recommendations for minimum velocity and twist rate.A bullet that retained in excess of 95% of it's weight after impact may seem common today, but back then it was a rare bird, the concept strange to many of us.(Not that retained weight is a meausurment of killing power;but it does tell us something of the bullets integrity, and what to expect of it).
The BBC was the first bullet to change "The Rules";they could be driven very fast, would not lose weight nor disintegrate,expanded widely and penetrated as far as as required,and killed "well".
250 gr 375's were offered up first with no dates certain for the 275's and 300gr,so that is what I wound up with.In the meantime my first Brown Bear hunt was undertaken with 270 Partitions.These worked well,penetrated fully on one shot,and the remains of the second are here somewhere in my bullet collection,looking like a typical Partition pulled from game,ie nose blown,about 60% of the bullet remaining.
Second hunt in Alaska for the brown bear I had the 250 BBC's started at 2900+ and killed a 9'2";3 shots taken and anchored him on the narrow beach..two shoulder are shots and one back through the lungs.Yw oexited and I recovee the 3rd.It is expanded to app.70 caliber,weighs 249 gr after smashing through heavy shoulder bone and muscle. Exits were larger than what I observed from the 270 Partitions a few years earlier.
There are those who believe that with Barnes bullets we can go lighter than standard and get excellent results,and many today use 165 gr/168 Barnes X in the 30/06 where we might have used 180 gr bullets of more conventional design years back,and with sometimes much better results. It is frequently said that the faster you drive a Barnes, the better,and the same is true of the old BBC's because these bullets do no behave the same as bullets of more conventional design.I think a guy can very safely take step down from 270's to 250's in the 375,much the same as we have taken a step down from 180's to 165's in the 30/06,and get excellent results either way,at least for plains game.
I've not used Barnes bullets,mostly because I have had BBC's these many years which are in some respects similar ;nor have I been to Africa, but suspect if something will handle brown bears nicely, and elk, I suspect it is in the ballpark for a wide range of African stuff as well.
For these reasons,I may be wrong,but I see no reason why a 250 gr Barnes would not be an excellent choice for about anything over there in the way of plains game...This is anectdotal, but a friend last year killed both eland and kudu and bunches of other stuff with the 235 TSX from his 375 over in SA with excellent results.Nothing got away.
Based on what I have seen and heard from experienced guys on here who use Barnes bullets a lot, I would have complete confidence in the 250 Barnes.
To each his own and it's nice to have all these choices today in contrast to what we had to go through to get good 375 bullets a couple of decades ago.
