Does anyone here shoot 38-55 in this gun. Some say you can. Chuck hawks review says they were built to shoot 38-55 or 375win . I picked up a like new top eject.i have 38-55 ammo and it chamber nicely.

Fire away

Shoot it and come back and tell us how it worked out. I've been told that you can safely shoot the 38-55 in the big bore 94 375 Win, but have never tried it. Thought about it when I ran across a damn good deal on starline 38-55 brass last year though.

I think Buffalo Bore or Grizzly loads heavy 38/55 ammo that is compatible with the 375. Don't hold me to that though.


That's a beaut of a 375 BSA.

Buffalo Bore website has an interesting writeup on shooting .38-55 in .375 rifles, especially the pressure difference using the .38-55 case.


"Using Our 38-55 Ammo in 375 Winchester Chambered Rifles

Our 38-55 ammo is designed to work in all 38-55 chambered firearms made with modern metallurgy for smokeless powder. It operates at 38,000 CUP—the 30-30 Winchester operates at an average max. pressure of 38,500 CUP. For those who are not aware, the 30-30 case is simply a necked down 38-55 casing.

OUR 38-55 AMMO WORKS IN ALL WINCHESTER 375 RIFLES

Our 38-55 ammo is also designed to work in ALL 375 Winchester chambered rifles. ALL means ALL. Winchester, Savage, and Marlin all chambered rifles in 375 Winchester. All 375 Winchester rifles utilize chambers long enough to accept the 2.085 inch 38-55 brass, even though 375 Winchester brass is only 2.020 inches long. By using the longer 38-55 brass, we accomplish two things:

1. We get the bullet closer to the rifling’s and this creates a generally more accurate load.

2. The longer 38-55 brass, with thinner case walls than 375 Winchester brass, gives much more case capacity and this allows chamber pressures to drop immensely. i.e. our 38-55 loads give the same performance (a 250gr. bullet @ 2000 fps) as the original 375 Winchester loading, but at only 38,000 CUP instead of the industry max. pressure of 52,000 CUP that the original 375 Winchester was rated at.

TIME-TESTED & WELL-PROVEN

The concept of using 38-55 brass to produce ammo for the 375 Winchester may be new to you, but it is not to us, so please simply read carefully and believe me. We’ve sold hundreds of thousands of rounds of this ammo and about half of it has been shot in 375 Winchester rifles. A couple years before I started making 38-55 ammo as Buffalo Bore Ammunition Company, I was shooting Marlin, Savage and Winchester 375 Winchester chambered rifles and was using good old every-day 38-55 brass in all of them. To be fair and give credit where it is due, it was both Brian Pearce and Mic McPherson that pointed out I could use common, readily available and affordable 38-55 brass to make full power 375 Winchester loads.

I’ve been doing it for almost 20 years now and have not over-looked anything. If I sound jaded on this subject, it is because I am. Trying to convince folks of anything new, can be a futile attempt, so I am publishing this short text on our site and those who choose to believe me are invited to and we would love to sell you our excellent 38-55 ammo for use in your 375 Winchester or your 38-55. You will love how it performs and you’ll be glad you found a source of high quality high performance ammo for your 375 Winchester. As a customer, we owe you this type of high quality ammo and this type of time conserving straight talk. In our 17 years of doing business as Buffalo Bore Ammunition, many thousands of 375 Winchester chambered rifles have gobbled this ammo up and I’ve not had even one complaint, which I cannot say for all of our ammo.

BARREL BORE

.375 BORE RIFLES

We use a bullet that is sized .377 inch. I am aware that 375 Winchester chambered rifles utilize a .375 inch bore. When fired, the .377 inch bullet will slug/size right down to .375 without raising pressures (we’ve tested the heck out of this) this is in part due to the construction of the bullet, but also due to our powder choice.

.381 BORE RIFLES

We are also aware that many old 38-55 rifles utilize a bore diameter of up to .381 inch, but most are between .377 and .380 inch. At 38,000 cup, there is enough pressure generated by this cartridge to cause that .377 diameter bullet to hit the rifling lands and slug up to the bore diameter (all the way up to .381 inch) and give wonderful accuracy.

HARD CAST SOMEDAY? - MAYBE

We’ve considered making hard cast loads for 38-55 also, (I personally shoot hard cast 270gr. bullets in all of my several 38-55 rifles) but they are too hard to slug up when fired, so the user would have to know his bore diameter and because of this and the numerous questions it would generate, I am still holding off on making any hard cast loads. Further, when firing hard cast loads, they are also too hard to size down to a smaller bore diameter without raising pressures and the thought of a customer trying to shoot a .380 inch hard bullet down the .375 inch bore of a 375 Winchester, has me a bit nervous. So to date, hard cast loads for the 38-55 are not in production and may never be.

If you email me and ask if what I wrote here is true, I will simply refer you back to everything I wrote here…..I will not tell you something more or different than what I have put in writing here on the site. What is written here is based on decades of my experience with my own rifles and with selling hundreds of thousands of rounds of this ammo to the shooting public…… Thank you for carefully reading this information."

Where can I find .377 bullets. I presume these are jacket bullets?

Barnes make em.

Thanks buddy. It was my grandfathers. Its a special rifle to me. I plan on keeping it a while..

Yes,but you cannot shoot .375 in a 38-55. 38-55 comes in two lengths 3.080 and 3.125 ,both will work

Yes you can shoot 38-55s out of your 375 Big Bore. The 38-55 have way less pressure than the 375s to be safe in the older rifles chambered for it. As for getting bullets for either in.377" good luck! I bought a mold and cast my own at .379" and they shoot moderately well out of my Big Bore 94. I'm still in the process of testing them. Powder coated or pan lubed to see which shoot better.

What I find interesting is that the 38-55 cases are slightly longer than the 375s. One would think it should be the other way around. But because both are rimmed cartridges it is a moot point anyway.

post a picture

Best load so far:

375 Win Winchester 94 XTR, 255 grain Barnes, 34 grains RE 7, 1.250" 5 shot group at 54 yards

Good enough for sure. Especially for SD hunting. From what I saw when I was back there a few months ago, you could whack those sob in the back of the head with a baseball bat. They (deer) are thick as fleas over there..

hawk bullets makes them AND fANTASTIC

Over the years Hawk has done many prototype projects for the industry and the US Government. Please contact us about commercial project rates and capabilities.Hawk Inc.

849 Hawks Bridge Road
Salem, NJ 08079

Tel: (856) 299-2800
Fax: (856) 299-2700

Flat Point
180 grains x .025 FP $40.50
200 grains x .025 FP $41.50
220 grains x .025 FP $42.50
250 grains x .025 FP $43.50
250 grains x .035 FP $45.00
270 grains x .050 FP $63.50 c4
300 grains x .050 FP $64.50 c4

I’ve only had two boxes of Hawk bullets. They were .358 caliber. They shot pie plate sized groups in my 35 caliber rifles. You say you’ve had good luck with these bullets?

👍

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oops wrong thread

I use 38-55 Win Brass in my 375 Win. I trim the 38-55 down to 375 Win length (2.020) so I can crimp them in the same die. I shoot Lyman cast bullets in both of them but jacket bullets in the 375 Win only. I load them just a grain or two above starting loads. Nice mild loads that are fun to shoot.

I have run out of RE 7 (boo hoo). I like the Barnes bullets best for accuracy. I have a box or two of the Sierra 200 grain and a box or two of the Hornady 220 grain.

Anyone have a different recipe using 3031 with the Barnes bullets or??

Here's my cast load data:

375 Win, Winchester 94 XTR, 235 grain Cast, 19.9 grain IMR4227, 1.670 " group at 54 (iron sights) or 2.95 MOA

So far, I've been unsatisfied with the Hornady or the Sierra bullets. Granted I have not done intensive testing.

I load 38-55 brass and shoot it out of my 375. And like Micken says I also trim for 375 length. Just be careful because the 38-55 brass is a lot thinner than 375 Win brass. Don't load too hot.
Also you can shoot factory 38-55 ammo in a 375 but not vice versa.

Midway has 375 brass. I’m going to try the Sierra 200 grain and H 4198 in a Savage 99. We will see how they do.

Starline?

It's a bit thicker than the old Win brand brass, but it has worked fine for me so far. Buffalo Arms had it really reasonably last fall, 60¢ a pop iirc. I haven't put many loads through a case yet, so not sure how the longevity is. In general I get really good case life out of Starline's straight wall brass though.

I saw 2 boxes of this ammo the other day. $45/box. Don't know if that is a great deal, but it was there, nonetheless..

Boxes of Winchester factory from the last run they did fetch $100/box pretty regularly on GunBroker, so.............

Spendy for sure. The ones I saw were Buffalo Bore 38-55 ammo. Since I handload, I did not buy it.