Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting .375 H&H as a deer rifle

Good to know that a full house 270-gr round worked well for you. I am not surprised, but I bet the expansion everyone so worships in deer bullets did not occur with this .375 H&H kill. I have no shortage of good, heavy big-game and dangerous game loads. It is the abnormal light loads which now interest me.

I killed my first deer with a rifle using .303 Brit using FMJ (which is actually a flatnose like the Accubond without the polymer tip), but today I use a 180-gr RN in the .303.

And CAS, it is you who are flaming. Get yourself a .375 and we can swap loads with you.

Not sure about the expansion....when I looked into the bullet hole, all I saw was daylight on the other side, and the deer was in no shape to comment.

Half-throttle isn't really my scene.

It's your thread, though, so I'll pipe down and let the speculation continue...

I've got that covered SFB, twice.

And as for swapping loads, thank you, but no thanks. I think I'll steer clear of advice on hunting, rifles, or loads from someone incapable of cleanly taking a deer with a 375 H&H.

But you already did give advice...just not based on experience with deer loads. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

How do you like that Monte Carlo stock vs the straight comb? I had pre-64 .375 that was similar. I think the older straight comb with more drop was best for iron sights.

I don't really like the Monte Carlo stock. I could be that the rifle is just so darn light that it makes the recoil worse. You can definitely get to the iron sights better with the older style than with the new style.

Overall I like the new stock much better. It's heavier (a big plus), and it's got a nicer forearm to hang onto and the grip fits me much better. I nearly always prefer a straight comb on a rifle like the 375. The fact that I have to scrunch down a little bit more to get to the irons on my newer rifle is of little consequence to me as they are merely a backup.

All that said, I do like the Pre-64 stock with it's Monte Carlo. I've got yet another 375 that wears that exact stock that I nearly forgot about. It handles recoil pretty well from the standing position, but from the bench it kills you.

Iron sights are the primary sight on most of my rifles, and I thought about restocking this newer Winchester with a push-feed Monte Carlo and then cut that down until I got it right, but this heavy, wide stock does tame the recoil better than the older ones. It looks good, too, all Winchester.

Best stock on a bolt .375 I had was a Griffin & Howe on a Krieghoff magnum Mauser. Best fitting new stock I have found is the Sako 75 Commerative, but it is only a 7.5-lb rifle, even in .416!! Too small.

Yeah, the Sako's are pretty good stocks. Even with lighter rifles, the grip allows me to keep pretty good control of them.

I've heard several people rave about the G&H pattern stocks. Having never shot one myself, I'd have to rely on the unanimous praise I've heard of them.

hey c as(s)

mighty high horse your talking down from there...

i didn't see anything here which questioned whether the .375 was sufficient or not... i saw a guy professing his inexperience with the cartridge on game considerably lighter than what it is normally carried for...

how hard would it be when a qualified opinion is asked for, to simply state your qualifications and opinions?

i'm sure that i put you on ignore the first time for your oversized pictures which make it a PITA to get through a post... i took you off ignore for this post because i was interested... bad move on my part...

FWIW daveak311s post with the picture was short sweet and to the point... (even if the picture was a little oversized)

see ya

I've worked with three .375 H&H's - a custom shop Model 70, an off the shelf M70 Safari Express and a Ruger 1H. All three had long throats. You could load bullets out close to the lands in the 1H but the magazine of the Model 70's limited my OAL such that bullets were a ways from the lands. Don't have notes in front of me but "a ways" = perhaps .2".

Speer 235 grainers never shot well in any of my rifles. The 220 grainers are made for the .375 Winchester. I never got good accuracy with them at any velocity from light loads at 2200 up to 2800 fps with those but never shot anything either. From what I understand they kill pretty well at .375 Winchester velocities but don't know how they'd do driven much faster. They'd sure expand but they might be too violent at the 2800-2900 fps possible.

Tried Sierra 250 SBT's, 260 Nosler Accubonds and 260 Partitions as well. The Sierras never shot very well but the Accubonds and Partitions both shot well, the Accubonds extremely well, in all three rifles.

Hornady 270 Spire Points also shot extremely well in my rifles.

Obviously YMMV but my .375's didn't like being loaded down too much with the lighter bullets, even in the 1H which was an otherwise very acurate rifle and could have bullets seated out to the lands.

Now as to experience - nope, never shot a deer with my .375 H&H's. But concerning bullets being too hard, 270 grain Swift A-Frames at 2700 fps work just fine on impala which are about the same size as whitetails or maybe a touch smaller. They definitely expand quite nicely. Since the A-Frames are a bit tougher in the front end than Partitions I'm thinking Nosler 260 Partitions or Accubonds driven at 2750-2800 fps should do just great on deer sized game.

The Hornady 270's actually have a reputation for being too soft. Folks have reported that they fail to exit on elk sometimes so I'm thinking they should work just great on deer.

I wouldn't worry about bullets being too hard in the .375, except of course for solids. The whole raison d'etre of the .375 is that it works well on everything fwith it's standard 270-300 grain loads. In fact lots of guys go to Africa and shoot everything from little coyote sized dik-dik to Cape Buffalo with Nosler 300 grain Partitions.

My only experience with the .375 on smaller game is on, well, Carp. In the spring, when they are spawning and their backs are just out of the water, the 270 gr. Winchester soft point factory ammo works to perfection. Some of these bruisers exceed 20 pounds where I hunt them.

No recovered bullets, as they are 100% pass-throughs. No tracking needed, however, as many are launched from their watery habitat, or are simply bang-flops.

I haven't experimented with the 300 gr. offerings, as the 270 gr. factory stuff seems to be quite adequate. I don't even think the premium bullets would offer much improvement.

I wouldn't hesitate to go after them with a .243, however. Either caliber should prove to be adequate.

ROTFLMAO!!!!

Considering some of the carp that JJHACK has been stickin' lately, you might want to consider offering your, and your .375H&H's, services to him as back-up should any of those carp get unruly about being arrowed... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Saturday I took my 9th white tail with my 375 H&H.

All but one of the others went down in their tracks. Literally NO tracking needed. They fell at impact. My loads have generally been 300 grain Noslers (3) and 300 grain Hornady round nose softpoints (3) and 272 Groove Bullets (3) over 66 grain of Reloader 15.

The one that did not fall in her tacks was taken with the solid copper groove bullet which did not expand with the lung hit. I attributed this "failure" to the bullet design which was built for deep penetration in larger game.

After that I went back to the soft faced round nose 300 grain bullets which have served me well. But the deer I took Saturday did NOT fall the way he was supposed to.

I double lunged him cleanly at 60 yards. 3/8 inch hole going in - hit rib on the near side leaving a thumb sized hole in the near side ribs. The bullet and chunks of rib flew through his lungs. The bullet smashed through a rib on the off side exiting with a hole you can put your thumb through. Pieces of bullet or rib broke other ribs in two places and one of those smaller pieces of shrapnel also exited.

Here is where it gets weird - instead of being knocked off his feet - this buck just lurched forward and trotted away uphill out of sight.

He went about 50 yards and stood bleeding heavily from both sides until he tipped forward stone dead and folded up on his nose.

How the heck did he keep his feet? Even if he did keep his feet - how did he keep going?

This was a big spike horn white tail - he went 150-160 lbs on the hoof (big for our local whitetail anyway- especially a spiker).

Has anyone else whacked a deer with a 300 grain bullet and had them walk away?

I have used the speer 235gr sp in a 375 ultra mag at 3150fps on 4 whitetails. A fist size exit every time and deer ran usually about 40yds. I think the 225gr hornady at around 2750fps would be great in the h&h.

Not sure if this has been mentioned,,but they can shoot through abour 4 deer so one has to be very careful what is behind them when they are shot...I have done it and it worked great with the nosler accubond..They have also shot through bear and moose as well so when shooting a big gun or any gun due diligence is always required...When the 375 hits the spine it literally severs it..Neck shot on deer you just need a knife to trim alittle meat to get the head off!!!!Helps to get a guy more familiar with his rifle too..Love the cartridge..Haven't had any more dramatic kills than with my /06 and 165 gr interlocks however..

thnx guys

I don't use light loads but I do use my .375 on deer. The bullets I have used - simply because my rifle shoots them well, have been the 300gr Hornady round nose and 300gr Nosler Partition. Either one puts deer down right now and without excessive meat damage. The powder I usually use is W760 in Winchester cases with Federal magnum primers. The .375 is certainly more than needed but nothing I ever used worked any better.

I had the same issue, I had a beautiful win 70 in 375, loaded it with 200 gr bullets made for the 375 win. never did shoot a deer with it but accuracy was good.