Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa ENOUGH CALIBER

Agree, a reloader can do an amazing lot of stuff with a .375 H&H, from full house loads with 350's to cast or mod speed light jacketed bullets. Something for everything and everyone.

A great round.

DF

Even the .458 Win. Lead round ball and 3 grains of Bullseye will kill a squirrel!

Oh, you need to tell about this one!

At one time I think I posited something on the order that the natural laws of the universe concluded at a meeting that the 375 H&H would be acceptable by all as the most reasonable, all-around melding of brass, powder, and lead presently that could be had.

A further, and later addendum proffered that the monolithics made it even more so.

😉

I look at this differently. I am more concerned about the rifle than the cartridge. I have killed a number of eland with a 270 Win using 130 Barnes monolithic bullets, TSX TTSX, without incident. That combo will penetrate 34-36 inches of bone and meat.
That said there should be an opportunity for the buffalo found there so something bigger is warranted. I would want a rifle with a 20-22" barrel and no more than 8 pounds. I would pick the 9.3-62 and use a Barnes mono.

Some people might call it a stunt.

I think it is just trying to define the limits of usefulness.

It started in the winter of '74/75. We had a very cold spell and I didn't want to go outside to shoot (in was in the -20F range). I had just turned 17.

My dad had a steel plate that he had liberated from the scrap pile at work. I rigged up a frame that held that plate at roughly a 45 degree angle over my mother's wash tub, in the basement.

Oh yeah...I did.

Lee cast bullet in the 7Mag with 2 grains of Bullseye with a cotton wad over the top. Great part was, I could retrieve the bullets out of the tub and recycle them in the lead pot!

Fast forward...if I can shoot a 7Mag in the basement, surely I can kill a squirrel (and a duck, too) with round balls in the .458.

Oh yeah.

Don't try this at home...

Rick, didn't you take a few eland with the Bitterroot 130 from a 270 Win as well? I thought Bob had sent me a few of those pictures. Can't remember the animal taken though.

Somehow, learning of an 0351 using a .458 Win Mag on squirrel just doesn't surprise me...

Semper Fi!

Easy now... I started out my life as a 0351

Well that may explain a few things... Like you still wanting to hit 'em so hard!

Guy

To specifically address Jorge's question about LDE. I hunted CAR in 2012 with CAWA (Central African Wildlife Adventures) I faced the same dilemma. I was to hunt the full monte, Bongo, LDE, 2 Central Savanna Buffalo, Roan, Lewel's Hartebeest, YBD, Red Flanked Duiker, Western Bush Duiker, Harnessed BB and Civet. Being CAR was in an envelope of relative "peace" I felt it was as safe as it would ever get, which it was. That said, I didn't want to bring a DR due to the destination and the climates in the Bako's. (I didn't know better)

I only brought one gun, my Sako .375HH. I don't load small calibers so opted for .260 gr Accubonds. The results were amazing. I killed both Buffalo at 20-30 yards. They were two of the very few Buffalo I've killed that never made it out of the immediate area. I've killed them with everythint from my Charles Osborne 450 .400 3-1/4 to my LARM 500NE. The mid sized animals were all one shot, no drama. The LDE was one shot at 225-250 yards, as was the Bongo.

The only deviation to these results was the Western Bush Duiker and the Civet. For those I used the PH's (Mike Fell) Sterling Davenport .22 hornet.

Point being, until then, I never realized the absolute versatility to the .375HH. Unless there is Buffalo or Elephant being hunted, a one rifle safari for me, from now on.

Steve

Steve - thanks for that info, particularly about the 260 gr Accubond. That's become my favorite bullet for the 375 H&H. Accurate as all get out, and I've shot several bears with it, with great success!

I'm impressed that it did so well on buffalo! Always figured a 300 grain bullet would be the choice for them.

Regards, Guy

I was impressed as well. I thought about bringing two different bullets but the mental gymnastics over what might be in the gun, what's in my pocket, how different do they shoot...blah, blah, blah was just too much. I just said screw it and went with the .260's. I shot my YBD in dense cover in a Bako and poleaxed it. All I could see was the two eyes, nothing else. It was so thick, I couldn't tell which way the animal was even facing. The only sure shot was to pull down to just below where the nose would be and try for the throat.

Shame CAR has become what it is. I literally called it the "Garden of Eden" an amazing place that every hunter should experience.

It worked.

That's a trick I picked up 20 years ago or so. The idea is to have a long, heavy-for-caliber soft lead bullet and a long barrel. I used a military-grade Carl Gustav 6.5X55 rifle, with a cast 160 gr bullet, and 2.5 gr of Bullseye. The load is subsonic and with that long barrel, quieter than a .22 short. Rumor says such a rig could be used for shooting squirrels and feral cats out of your basement window, so as not to alarm the neighbors, but that's just rumor...

Chip... good info on the 260 Accubond. What powder/charge did you use, and what kind of velocity did you get? I'm a great fan of the AB in small to medium calibers, but I've never thought of using them on DG. Maybe Mule Deer can weigh in on that, as he has a lot of Gun Gack background info on bullet manufacture that could be very enlightening.

(Of course, keep in mind that there are several folks here on the 24HCF who will swear on a stack of Bibles that the Accubond is a 100% failure-to-penetrate bullet, every time, alla time.)

Hi DR.

In all honesty, I haven't a clue. They are the Federal Premium factory load. They shot really well on paper and I have yet to see a bullet problem that wasn't of my own doing with them. I use them in my .300 win mag as well for N/A hunting.

I'm likely atypical here. I only load for DR's to make it affordable. The smaller stuff is cheap enough to purchase at retailers. I don't do much recreational shooting, I'm a bicycle racer and devote copious amounts of free time and energy to my training. I will usually start to shoot and practice with the DR's 3-4 months prior to a hunt. I live right on the edge of the desert out in Phoenix and can be shooting in a few minutes. I can go before work and get in a few shots about anytime.

As far as AB failures, I have yet to see one. I would think Central Savanna Buffalo would be a "worst case" test, and they simply exceeded my expectations. Mike Fell also commented as to the performance of the bullets on Buffalo.

Steve

I would not exclude the .375 from elephant and buffalo. My .458 had an aneurism right before my last safari so I only took my .375. 300 grain soft points and 300 grain flat point solids. I took elephant, buffalo, hippo, and lion with it, plus plains game down to impala. The elephant was a very large bull. The solid entered the shoulder and was found under the skin on the off side. The buffalo dropped in its tracks, though I had luckily hit the spine. The hippo was a head shot. The lion was shot in the top of the heart and the bullet broke the elbow on the way out. I don't think a 30-06 would have done any worse.

Based on this I would take a .375--and only a .375--on any future hunt for large dangerous game. My theory is that you kill an elephant with penetration, not tissue damage, and a 13-foot tall animal is not going to be too impressed if your bullet is 0.08 inches wider or narrower. On an earlier safari I killed the same three large species with a .458 and, while my experience is somewhat limited, the .458 seemed to do no better and no worse.

The .375 is extremely versatile. If you have a .375 and a .300 Wby, you are set for any game of deer or larger size anywhere in the world. The .300 Wby. is legal for lion in Zimbabwe. If I ever get a chance, I would like to shoot one with the .300. I've shot 15 or 16 animals with the .300 and 180 grain Partitions at 3200 fps and every one I hit died with one shot. Every bullet exited except for a raking shot on Wildebeeste and a headshot on a large croc.

Concerning the "hydrostatic shock" debate, it is a fact that the nervous system of cats is more sensitive to this than that of herbivores. Nearly all PHs agree with this, with some believing one needs an impact velocity of 2500 fps or higher. Do not confuse this with some of the wild claims of 50 or 60 years ago, such as the one where a buffalo was shot in the ham with a .257 Weatherby and instantly fell down dead, the theory being that shock was transmitted to the vitals. Roy Weatherby was the hunter in that case, and wrote that anyone going on an Alaska brown bear hunt should use an 87 grain bullet at 4000 fps.

The FBI has studied shock against humans. There is more hard data on what kills humans than there is about animals, which latter is mostly anecdotal. The FBI concluded that any bullet which meets their penetration test, whether 9mm, .40, or .45 ACP, kills by loss of blood only unless the CNS is hit. Therefore it does not matter whether you shoot a 9mm or a .45 ACP, provided you use the proper bullets. However they also concluded that shock is a factor against humans if the bullet impacts at more than 2000 fps.

I wouldn't argue with a single thing there. The "Elephant and Buffalo" exclusion are solely based on my desire to shoot these species, close, with on of my DR's. I have shot nearly 100 percent of my African species with that same Sako .375HH rifle.

I assume you are referring to your Krieghoff........