Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only Is 375 where big bore starts?

Not at all. The vast majority of shooters see Big Bores starting at the 375. They do not see the 45 ACP, 44 Magnum etc. as Big Bores. This reflected by guns/ammo/hunting sites as Karl's post has shown. Manufactures like Winchester, Weatherby, Kimber to name three see the 375 lumped together with the 458 Winchester and 458 Lott and Wby put the 378 together with the 416 and 460 Wby.

A Rigby I used to own.

Was it a big bore?

Lumped together because they are the common
legal DG chamberings, not necessarily because
they are all big bores.
Have those three Co. explicitly categorized .375
as a big bore in literature ?

John Pondoro Taylor, Jack O and Craig Boddington
all refer to .375 as medium.

SCI article on 375 Ruger refers to .375 H&H
as "Queen of the medium bores"

"I found that many of the 17 white hunters regularly
employed by White Hunters Limited of Niarobi used
a .375 for their medium rifle, and most all of them
considered it ideal."
- Elmer Keith, Safari, Safari Pulications (1968), p. 136.


I think the cover says .375 Super Mediums

In black powder days was thee 450 a big bore?

What Karl's post shows on the forums is the overwhelming and vast majority of shooters see the 375 as the start if the big bores. At the end of the day it is all about opinion.

It is not like saying 375 bullets won't fit a 9.3

iI will ask the same question I asked before. If you started a guns/ammo/hunting site would you have Big Bores start at 416 or as others have said 45.

.416 Rigby big enough?

Forum owners can structure things however
they like for their own reasons.

Post a question like:
"Do you consider the .375 cal a big bore?"
on a forum that often deals with the topic
of DG, Africa and associated rifles, and see
what kind of responses you actually receive.

You may just come out a little disappointed .

And why do you think they always have the 375 in Big Bores.

AccurateReloading while near dead now used to be by far and away the biggest on Big Bores of internet forums. In fact it was more active than their small and medium bore forums and it has always had the 375 in Big Bores forum.

I don't care which category the forum owner
puts .375

What matters more is what the forum members
keen on Africa or just the .375 calibre alone ,
sensibly deem .375 to be.

How about asking WeatherbyNation.com folks
if they consider 375 Wby and 378 Wby to be
medium or big bore..?...or shoot H&H London,
Purdey, Westley Richards and Rigby an email
and ask if .375 is medium or big bore?

You are talking like just because a small number
of forum owners seem to agree with you , that
you must be correct ..

Long before forums came about .375 was
understood to be medium and plenty still
hold that view despite what a new age net
moderator wants you to think.

I think that meets the criteria for all, except maybe those that think it's 0.45 and over.


From the other more recent posts it sounds like there is a cross over of meaning between "big bore" and "dangerous game cartridge" where the former is commonly being applied to the latter, which comes back to being a combined calibre/energy definition.

If we talk about a dangerous game cartridge I think it is widely accepted that it is 375H&H and above, although the trusty old 7x57 can take out an elephant if you are careful with your shot, but I personally wouldn't try it outside of an armoured vehicle.

Yes, but prior to .375 being made legal minimum
it wasn't all that popular in Africa...so we are talking
like 45 yrs after the introduction of 375H&H that it
it really kicked off.

Quality mass produced German 9,3x62 could
be had for far less than a low production English
.375 bolt rifle...the rifle that made .375 more
affordable was pre-64 M70..but why buy one in
1936 when the established 9,3x62 already does
the job, is still legal and ammo common ?

Sales really took off for the pre-64 when .375 as
legal minimum came in, commercial ivory hunting
was on the decline and client safaris on the rise.
Harry Manners and Wally Johnson both used
pre-64 .375 for harvesting ivory and used the
same when they switched over to being PHs
looking after safari clients.

The Win. rifles were good but not great as far as
African professional hunters were concerned.

****

When Harry Selby had his .470 double damaged
he had a back up .375 to finish the safari , but
considered it unthinkable to finish the season
without a heavy..I take that to mean that .375
was not considered a big-bore.

This will never be resolved as we have proven by our posts.

You can post the question on all those forums
you cite from Karl, and ask all those traditional
UK based rifle makers I mentioned..and ask
a few respected US rifle makers as well for their
view.

I came across the question the forum Weatherby Nation and all responses were 375. Of course they could be influence by the 378, like Winchester with the 375, not being in the cheaper Mark Vs like the 338/378.

But again, in black powder days what was the 450 Black Powder Express seen as?

As to gun makers, D'Arcy Echols is on AR. I would bet if he posted something about a 375 he would put it on their Big Bores forum. One thing I have noticed on AR over many years is with their Reloading forum you will rarely see a question on 375 and up as the question will be on Big Bores forum and same with the Gunsmithing forum.

One thing for sure and that is if you shoot one of the German or Japanese 378s with the super light barrel off the bench then you will take a lot of convincing that the 416 Rem/Ruger is a big bore and the 378 a medium bore.:)

Since AR considers .375 big bore
then naturally one might well post it
in that section if you wanted forum
members to see or read something
on .375 cal .. but does that mean
D'Arcy himself considers it a big bore?

I think D'Arcy sees it as the 458 Lott and beyond.

As a side note. I just noticed in the 458 thread where we spoke about the 1970 or so vintage 458 Super Grade where Ron posted a picture of one and you said your one did not have the long rear sight base. My two were also a short base and without elevation adjustment. Had a very shallow V.

They had mods, but not very active. Accurate reloading, the largest, never cared what calibres were posted. You note on the search I posted even 9.3x62 turns up and occasionally like with this forum stuff like 350 rigby or 35 whelen would erroneously appear. Ive never seen the mods remove a calibre when it does show on the wrong forum.. Similar for nitroexpress, africa hunting and Aus net.

Karl,

If I saw someone new to AR post in the reloading or gunsmith forums on 375 and up I would suggest they make the same thread in Big Bores forum. In fact if if wanted to know about load for a 264 etc there is (now was:) ) more knowledge of the AR Big Bore forums. Amazing Saeed and Don could trade in the Big Bore forum for posting a banner congratulating Biden.

Starman,

I wouldnt try and talk them or you out of seeing the 375 as a medium.

My question as the OP, ' is 375 where bigbore starts', at least in the context of bigbore forums, we can say the answer is yes.

I will say many of these forums formed subforums from member input. Members include industry professionals gunmakers, safari hunters,PH's, gun writers, and of course regular joes.

There is enough firepower at member level to have changed, influenced, or started at least 'one bigbore forum' with .400 or .458 minimum you would think, but I cant find one that did.

I would agree if you start a debate on these forums about 'whether 375 really belongs' it will be similar to this one.

Some saying yes, some saying no, but no one suggesting 375 be taken off that forum.

Just because members go along with
how a forum is structured , doesn't mean
they agree.

If Craig Boddington wanted to post about .375
he would comply with the forum I suspect and
put it in the AR big bore section , but I doubt he
would reprint his book and change his view that
.375 is a medium.



Your orig question was much broader
than what a few forum owners think.