Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only 375 H&H w/ 350 grain Woodleighs

For that small a difference I wouldn't bother with the Ruger. A half inch difference in receiver length is just another one of those commercially perceived non-problems to sell a product. It is still nice to have more choices tho' and better than loosing calibers.

You can get a 3 to 5% difference by seating changes, plus or minus, by going from a spire point to a round nose or FMJ or the other way around. Many neat things can be done by understanding the parameters.

Enjoy

Well boys, the BIG woodleigh order has arrived at Midway, which means a much smaller Woodleigh order will get to my house next week. Can't wait to try these 350s.

Also ordered some 416/450s. Any thoughts on a RL19 charge for 2300 or so in the Rigby?

SOS

Norma says that their African PH loads will not be available until at least August.
Until then I plan on loading some 350 Woodleigh at 2300fps in both of my 375 Ruger rifles ( African and Alaskan models) for the upcoming Brown bear season. I'll let you know how they work if I return.

Phil,

How do the two models compare for weight, muzzle blast and perceived recoil? The Alaska model appears to have a much thicker recoil pad. How do either of them feel compared to the average 375 H&H's you've fired?

I conspired with Geoff some few years back to come out with a 350 gr. 375 bullet and a 450 gr. bullet in RN persuasion. He agreed and told me he was also going to do a PP in 350 and 450 gr. for them. He sent me a number of boxes of both and told me to have at on Cape Buffalo. I did and it made a believer out of me. They are both great bullets, the PP has more penetration and will mostly pass through on broadside shots and even with a bit of an angle and they always went to the off side. The RN expanded more and only left an exit wound sometimes, its great for herd shooting. I shot a lot of buffalo with the .416 450 gr. and the 375 in 350 gr. and got the impression that the heavy woodleighs gave you the next caliber up the line, or something along those lines. I felt the 375 killed like a .416 and the .416 like a whatever, near a .458 Lott. Thats just the way it struck me and I have no way of knowing for sure if I am correct on that, but feel comfortable with it.

BTW I used WW brass, 215 Fed. primers, and 66 grs. of RL-15 for about 2350 FPS in my .375 H&H with a 26" barrel (estamated) never got around to chronographing it, and by the time I had used it so much on Buffalo I didn't care, it worked to well to worry about it.

The other great big bore bullet is the Northfork cup point and it has made the solid obsolete on all but elephant IMO.

Now, THAT'S funny...

Jaywalker

In checking with ammoguide 375 Ruger is 91gr. water & 375 H&H
is 89 gr. of water hope that helps cheers NC

I spoke with riflemaker D'Arcy Echols about 350 gr. Woodleigh loads in the 375 H&H. In his rifles thus far, he's used 70 grs. of H4350 with 350 gr. Woodleigh solids and softs for 2350 fps. MV or thereabouts.

Trajectory goes like this:

50 yds. +3/4"

100 yds. +1.5"

150 yds. 0.0

200 yds. -3.0 to -3.5"

This load should work well for anything you'd hunt with the 375 H&H in Africa, especially if you brought along a flatter shooting light rifle. I plan to use these 350 gr. Woodleigh loads myself in the near-future, and I'll team my 375 H&H with either a 270 Win. or a 300 Win. Mag.

AD

My 69 grs. H4350 load is working well from my 24" barrel and the results are just a touch off those numbers. I've sent enough downrange that they're now easy to group at or under 1.25". Not bad for a factory barrel, imo.

Next I'm going take this load and my 270 gr. AFrame @2750 mv load, which I zero at 200 yards, and see how well they get along from POI. Who knows, perhaps with these 2 loads I wouldn't need the 300 grain bullet or another rifle....

Anyone have a recommended charge to push the 450 Woodleigh to 2300 in the 416 Rigby?
Have lots of H4350,4831 and RL19.
Thanks
SOS

For those interested,Richard Lee's Second Edition, "Modern Reloading" has data with a variety of powders for the 375H&H with 350 grain bullets. If you knew this, please ignore the message...............grins.

I used 75 grs. of RL-15 with the 450 gr. RN and PP. It killed Buffalo about as well as anything I have ever used, the PP would make two holes broadside and the RN tended expand to huge size, with ragged arms spreading out and did awesome internal damage and mostly stopped on the off side skin. I shot a bison and a bull elk with the RN and it just hammered them to the ground and exited in both cases...

I really like the 350 gr. in the .375 and the .450 in the .416. both bullets are very accurate in my guns.

Robertson also mentioned the 380-gr Rhino bullet (out of the RSA) as having a SD of .386 I believe and gaining the rep of "giving one-shot kills on big buff" and in a Sports Afield article with having the momentum equal to the 375 RUM with a 300-grainer and just shy of the 378 Wby with a 300-gr bullet without the recoil, muzzle blast, and erratic bullet performance of these bigger cartridges.

The 350-gr Woodleighs of course wouldn't be far behind the Rhino numbers bullet weight-wise. I got the impression the Rhino's were a small custom shop proposition.

George

The problem I found with the .380 gr. Rhinos was in some rifles, you had to seat the bullets to deep to make them fit the magazine and they wouldn't hold a crimp as that put them into the ogive, and they set back from recoil..I had too many problems with them in most rifles, including my old standby Mauser 375, so I use the .350 gr. Woodleigh PP and its a great killer on buffalo. I also got into powder compaction with the Rhinos trying to get beyond 2000 FPS...

Ray, So I should be looking at the PP in the 350 Woodleighs. I misunderstood one of your earlier replies, thinking you preferred the RN due to the PP not expanding as well, ie, being a really tough bullet. I'll go back and re-read that.

I've already got the 350 solids on hand, but the softs are both out of stock everywhere I know to look. I'll be placing an order with Midway as soon as they become available again.

I was leaning toward the RN partly because of my misunderstanding your reply, but also because of the ballistic coefficient being basically the same as the solid. My thinking was that this would make it much easier to get the same POI. The BC of the PP is quite a bit higher than the RN.

Thanks guys,

David

x2mosq,
If you are going to use a solid in conjunction with the RN, your right on track..The RN is just a little softer than the PP, but the RN does more terminal damage and its the same bullet coefficient of the solid and may regulate to the same POI better.....Your in good shape...

The PP is a tougher bullet as expansion is less thus penetration is better, but either one is fine, you can't go wrong with either choice...They are both very good bullets.

Thanks Ray. So I was thinking correctly. It seems to me that most PH's, just from my reading, prefer a soft in the pipe and solids in the box. So that's pretty much the direction I'm headed. Of course I'll discuss it with the PH before I make the trip across the pond. Whichever way he prefers it, I'll have a load that will accomodate. It's his ass on the line just like mine and he's the pro, so what he says goes on this subject. But I think the RN/FMJ combo is a winner. If I was going softs only, I'd definitely be taking the PP's. I'll most likely have loads worked up for both anyway. I'm gonna shoot for around 2400 fps out of my M70 24" barrel.

Of course all this may be moot, as I'm looking hard at putting together a .404 Jeff. Of course the 375 will be along for backup.

Thanks,

David

Did some chrony testing with the 350's this morning. I loaded one round with each powder charge just to check for pressure signs, of which there were none. The results were roughly what I was expecting, maybe a little slowere than I had hoped for. But none were loaded to max. suggested charge. I only had solids on hand so I backed down 1 grain from the max load and loaded 4 rounds, dropping in 1 grain increments. The following was my results out of my M70 with 24" barrel, with Rem. cases and federal primers:

H414 68gr. - 2301fps
69gr. - 2314
70gr. - 2361
71gr. - 2379

H4350 68gr. - 2284
69gr. - 2281????
70gr. - 2338
71gr. - 2361

The 69gr. of H4350 seems to be a bad reading, and I'm guessing it would be around 2310. While I was there I tested some loads with 300gr. Barnes TSX. Same case, primer and rifle. Before I post the first set of numbers, I want to go ahead and say that the RL15 loads gave much higher velocities than I expected. These were all verified with the other guy I was shooting with. We also checked the chrony with other known rounds to make sure it was on. These were shot at roughly the same time as all the other loads, and there were no signs of excessive pressure whatsoever. I was shocked. Here goes:

RL15 70gr. - 2613fps
71gr. - 2676
72gr. - 2734
Again, much higher velocity than I expected with these. Loads from Barnes manual. I will be putting these loads together again to verify my findings. 2700+ with a 300gr. bullet in the 375H&H just seems a little much to me. We'll see, probably next weekend.

IMR4064 65gr. - 2467fps
66gr. - 2494
67gr. - 2518
These were more what I was expecting.

David

P.S. Also in Africa forum

Today I ordered from Midway a couple of boxes each of the Norma African PH 350 gr. Woodleigh ammo in the Weldcore and FMJ. I'll compare them against my 69 gr. H4350 load I have now and see what gives.

Puddle,

What kind of velocity are you getting with that 69gr. load? I'm running 72gr. and with a 10-shot string, I've got an average of around 2340 or so, with a low extreme spread of around 20fps. That's with CCI primers. I'm going to load some more with the Fed 215 again and shoot another 10-shot string and see what happens, but it seemed that the 215's got me another 20 or 30 fps, which I know is nothing to worry over.

With my 300 gr. TSX loads, which I believe was 72gr. of RL15, It's averaging about 2340 with the CCI primers. The really good news is that, at 100 yds, Barnes and Woodleighs, softs and solids, are very close to same POI. That's awfully handy.

Keep me updated.

David