Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only Sierra Gamekings in the .375

300 Sierra is an accurate and beautiful bullet but it will never match the performance on game of a Barnes, A-frame or Partition.
A 210 gr TSX @3000 fps (375 H&H) will shoot an Elk from end to end with the same trajectory as a 180 30-06.

Well John maybe this year I can tell you how they perform. Accuracy wise so far I am happy.

Oldman,

Does barnes make a 210 TSX for the 375?

No they made a 210 X, I think the lightest TSX is 235.
I have 3 boxes of the 210s. They shoot right at 1" in my Sauer 90 375 H&H.

Muledeer,
I am sure you already know what the results will be with the 250 or 300 gr. Sierra Gamekings in a .375 H&H..You will kill yourself an elk...

I have said many times that failure with .375 cal. bullet weighing in at 300 grs. at over 2500 FPS is very unlikely indeed, except for one exception, It probably won't stop a Sherman tank!

That said, my preference is Nosler Partitions, and I like the .270 gr. GS Customs for a monolithic bullet..I like them because I will take any shot at any angle including going away with them in my 338 or 375 on elk..I don't think one should be shooting elk up the keyster with a Sierra, I may be wrong, but I ain't gonna try it to find out.

I also have had great penetration and killing power with the 300 gr. Woodleigh in the .338 and the 350 gr. RN and PP in the .375 on elk..

I wouldn't concerned with a Sierra, I would feel limited to the shot and I can handle that, just don't want to.:)

True John, except every other bullet company has seen the need and produced premiums. All Sierra does is what? thicken the jackets? I asked their tech experts one time why they do not make premiums and the tech said they already do...The Gameking. "Expert" advise there. Like I said they have the jacket core separation concept down to a science.!

Big shrug.

I have used Sierras off and on since 1975 or so. I quit using them for a while because I experienced one of the dreaded jacket-core separations. This wasn't surprising, since the load was a 130-grain Gameking from a .270 Winchester at around 3100 fps and the animal (a mule deer buck) was only 100 yards away.

To date that is the ONLY jacket-core separation I have encountered with Sierras, and I have shot a pile of game with them, particularly on a couple of African cull hunts. One big reason I haven't had any other separations is that these days I normally load Sierras to no more than 2800 fps--unless I am going to use them at ranges no closer than 200 yards.

The other reason I eventually discounted the first experience was that the buck died right there.

???????????? I guess to each his own.

It's not .375 caliber, but my favorite bullet in my .257 AI is the Sierra 117 gr GameKing. With it I've made one shot kills on at least 20 Pronghorn antelope, an equal number of Mule/Whitetail bucks, 4 Bighorn rams, 1 Dall ram, 1 Mountain Caribou, and 1 6-pt bull Elk.

In .375 caliber, my favorite bullet for my .375 RUM is the Barnes 270 gr TSX. At 3043 fps and 5553 fp at the muzzle, it groups 3 shots MOA, and on my last trip to South Africa, it made one shot kills on 12 animals from Steenbok to Cape Eland at ranges from 30 to 348 yds.

I always thank God we live in a free country. We are free to choose and use what we like. As I have said before, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Buffybr, I like the tsx's also. I load them in my buddy's 375 RUM with IMR 7828. What do you use?

Ray,

I have shot a few animals with the .375, though obviously not as many as you. I also like the 300 Partition, especially as an all-around bullet. It kills 'em quick whether they are an 150-pound impala or 1500-pound buffalo!

I am in the process of trying the G-S Customs. They might be the very best of the monolithics.

Will see if I even need to kill an elk at all. My wife has booked an elk hunt in Wyoming, so I am going along as chief observer (and also to hunt pronghorn). Since she has already taken a cow moose here in Montana, with an elk and an antelope we will have the freezer plenty full for the year.

But if she doesn't find a bull to her liking, then I just may pack the .375 around and looked for something to top off the meat supply!

Sounds like mine. 130 Sierra, stout charge of Reloader 22 in a .270 Ruger #1. 100 yards quartering away whitetail buck. The shot went behind the near shoulder, and I found the jacket in the hide in front of the off shoulder. Never did find any part of the core. The buck never knew what hit him.

This isn't a .375, but since other accounts are being takin in....

The following was from a 100 yard shot. 30-06, 165 grain Gameking, light load of 55gr H4350. Short range, but not very fast. I usually don't shoot for shoulders as heart/lung broad side shots touch much less meat. The only shot I had here was the onside shoulder at a hard angle with the deer facing away. The bullet broke the onside shoulder but didn't go through the shoulder and followed the skin about 10-12 inches up the neck. Deer dropped right there. Pulled the jacket and part of the core out. Much of the core was spead across the wound trail.

I've used the Gameking for many years and usually get pass through's on broadside shots. Dead deer, but I prefer not to have a trail of lead left behind in the wound channel. The Gameking is a good shooter and performs well on broadside shots, but isn't my choice if I have to shoot for bone. I'll load up the rest of the Gamekings that I have and will use them until they're gone, but I've moved to the slightly tougher (IMHO) Hornady Interlock for general use (deer).

I think it's easy to get caught up in marketing and internet bullet hype and snobbery. I would imagine that Sierra may bring a very accurate monometal hunting bullet to the scene when they are required to go there by political forces in this country. (You have to ask if political forces would have been able to get some of their stuff passed if "non-toxic" [cough, cough] bullets didn't exist or if hunting would have been totally banned in some areas?) But Sierra has always, or for longer than many of today's so-called premiums have been around, tailored different bullets to different speeds and uses. Their big ones have been heavy and hard for quite a number of years. And the concept of jacket thickness, hardness, toughness, and engineered weaknesses, together with core alloys is not something that Sierra alone uses. But it is a design which does work quite well - and the variables can be controlled better within a two part bullet to maintain accuracy which has been and still seems to be a big seller. And I would suggest that the flaw that many find in the Sierra bullets is not simply a jacket separation problem. The problem, if it is one, is that, like the A-Frame and Grand Slam bullets, the Sierra core alloys often expand without breaking off which leads to limited penetration is some cases. Minimal frontal area, either through fully expanding to that size and shape (X types) or sacrificial frontal portions (Partitions), allows better penetration. The Sierras, unlike the A-Frames and Grand Slams which often open as a ball-shaped, also tend to open more flatly which sometimes results in a frontal shape which can become tilted. This can result in a less straight penetration path or tumbling, the latter which isn't especially kind to the remains of the recovered bullet.

And while I have killed a big pile of animals with a Pro-Hunter bullet which is no longer made, Sierra bullets are not usually my first pick in bullets, so I am hardly a front-line apologist for them. But I have used the bigger Game-Kings enough to understand that they aren't junk either. True, the cores are not locked in, but neither are the "locked-core" bullets either when the chips are down. So finding an "intact" Game-King in an animal which comes apart as the tissues are cleaned off doesn't really matter, neither does finding the jacket but not the core beyond a single hole in the back side of a animal lying dead on the ground. But that assumes one even finds the bullets, and often they are simply in some unknown place where spent bullets go, presumably orbiting the planet along with the remains of Partitions, Interlocks, and Xs.

I've been shooting the 250 Sierra SBT from my 375H&H with 4064 and now RL 15,for.....well I really don't remember when, but it's been awhile...I always used them for practice and sighting,switching out to the 250 Bitterroot for hunting.

But I've heard from friends in Idaho that a lot of 375 users out there love them for elk hunting ,as Ray has stated.Maybe I just should have shot stuff with them?

This is the same thing that happened to me last year with the 130g SGK at same muzzle velocity at 100 yards only mine didn't get through the shoulder so I had to shoot again.

"So finding an "intact" Game-King in an animal which comes apart as the tissues are cleaned off doesn't really matter, neither does finding the jacket but not the core beyond a single hole in the back side of a animal lying dead on the ground. But that assumes one even finds the bullets, and often they are simply in some unknown place where spent bullets go, presumably orbiting the planet along with the remains of Partitions, Interlocks, and Xs."

I like that. I don't care too much either as long as the animal is dead on the ground. Folks that have shot a few animals have seen different sorts of stuff with bullets. I am too busy smiling and enjoying the moment to give a chitt even if I got to walk a ways to find the animal. If I find lung tissue and good blood on the ground, even if I dont hear it fall, I know I am going to find it. The hornadies do appear tough to me, so on John's advice I am going to shoot some Sierra 180 bullets this year out of my 300WSM. I am 100% confident that I will find any deer, hog or coyote I hit with it and again I will be smiling and enjoying the moment instead of worrying about the bullet, I shoot them pretty slow with a minimal load of RL19. If I find it in pieces, then shucks I will just go back to the hornadies! I am certainly looking forward to getting a new 375 Ruger and have already ordered some back ordered brass I will probably shoot it as slow as it will go and use 225 grain Hornady bullets!!! The hard part will be deciding which gun to hunt with, Roberts, 300WSM or maybe a new Ruger?

I have also recovered Hornady Interlocks, Speer Hot-Cores, Nosler Ballistic Tips and Remington Core-Lokts that have separated core and jacket. Almost always this happens in one of two ways:

1)The bullet and core are found together but "loose" under the hide on the far side of an animal.

2)They're found more or less together after having crushed significant parts of the spine.

The animal, however, has always been quite dead.

When I read discussions like this, I think of an experience described by Jack O'Connor- He was hunting in the Northern Rockies, and encountered a grizzly, which he had a tag for. He sat down and put the crosshairs on the bear, and watched him. He decided he had shot enough bears, and let the bear walk away, but said something to the effect that the "Wicked little 130 grain Speer bullet would have smashed the bear's shoulder".
Can you imagine the uproar here if someone suggested shooting a grizzly bear with a 130 grain Speer?
Having been in on the kill of only a few dozen animals, my experience is very much limited compared to many here, but using a reasonably appropriate caliber with a reasonably appropriate bullet with reasonably appropriate placement always yields results within some pretty predictable parameters. I suspect those old cup and core bullets are a lot more effective than they are generally given credit for.

Iraklion, My 270 gr TSX load for my .375 RUM uses IMR 4350 and CCI 250's.

LOL if that guy had been shooting a TSX he probably would have made a name for himself.