Statistics lie and this is a trick question. Will, you should know better.

But the answer is that bullet construction and length are always way more important than caliber. These things give a bullet the ability to expand (or not), stay in one piece and penetrate.

But assuming equally appropriate construction and sectional density for the particular game being hunted, bigger caliber bullets are nearly always better killers than smaller ones.

They make bigger holes and kill faster (except on shots, like brain or spine shots, that are instantly fatal or incapacitating no matter the caliber).

And all other things being equal with respect to the bullets being used, bullet placement is always way more important than caliber, or anything else for that matter.

One well-constructed 160 grain solid bullet from a .256 Mannlicher fired into his brain can and will kill the biggest bull elephant as dead and as fast as one well-constructed 500 grain solid bullet from a .470 Nitro Express fired into the same place.

But I'll generally take the bigger bore anyway, because the brain is a small target and I sure as hell ain't Karamoja Bell.

Eric
At those velocities there has been very little meat damage.
I try to shoot deer for the freezer behind the shoulder. I have only recovered one of the Hornady bullets, on a doe I shot facing me at 175 yards. The heart was totally destroyed and the bullet was found perfectly mushroomed in the rear ham. There was no blood shot meat in the ham.

What am I getting blamed for now?

Same bullet, same placement, and the .375 wins every time. I do not think anyone will argue about that.

Will, not that I've made any statistics, but I know that of the close to 40 moose I've shot, the one's shot with a 30-06 went noticably further than the ones shot with 375H&H. I also found that the moose I've shot with a 300 Wby went basically as far as with the 30-06.

Of the african game I've shot, the 375H&H put them down quicker than the 300 Wby, just like with the moose.

Most of the above was done with the same bullet construction and thus at least a little compairable; Trophy Bonded Bear Claws.

So speed didn't help, a bigger bullet did.

Erik D.

Saeed,

That is what is great (?) about the forums. There are no absolute truths, no matter what!

"...Same bullet, same placement, and the .375 wins every time. I do not think anyone will argue about that..."

I will!

I know that the 25-06 Remington is better warthog caliber than the 375 H&H!

I shot a warhog with a 25-06 Remington, using 120 grain Remington factory ammo, hitting him on the shoulder. He ran about 10 yards and dropped stone dead!

I shot another warthog, about the same distance - 80-100 yards - with a 375 H&H, using Winchester Silvertips 300 grains. Smack on the shoulder. The pig dropped at teh shot, then got up and took off. He ran about 100 yards before de dropped again to die.

This is proof positive that teh 25-06 Remington is 10 times better at killing warthogs than the 375 H&H!

Of course when one is using a wildcat of his own design, all bets are off, as this baby kills anything it touches!

I have on one occasion actually killed a zebra without hitting him! He was facing us, and dropped in his tracks at the shot. There was absolutely no entry hole in his body!?

Any guesses as to where he was hit?

We thought the bullet passed so close to him, it stunned him to death

Ray,
It was absolutely tongue-in-cheek. As a matter of fact, I use the 235gr Speer for deer and it works fine. My point was that any study can be contradicted by the real world at any time. We just use what works best for each of us and modify our opinions as our own experience dictates.

I have shot several deer and quite a few wild pigs with BIG rifles. Usually a "buffalo" bullet will not kill a deer as fast as a more proper deer calibre. I use bullets in my big bores specially selected for deer and pigs. They knock them down like the Hammer Of Thor. No matter the calibre you must choose the proper bullet, after all it is the bullet that does all the work.

In the 375 I have used reduced loads on with the Hornandy 220 gr and the Speer 235 gr. Both at velocities around 2300 to 2500 fps.
In the 450/400 I use 300 grain Hawks with the .025jkt. at around 2330fps.
In the 450 no2 I use the 350grain Hornandy RN at @ 2330fps.
All the above loads kill deer and pigs very well.

Blacktailer,
The problem with all this is bullet selection..Had you used a lightly constructed 235 gr. bullet such as the Speer the results would have been more spectacular I suspect...the heavy bullets penitrate without much expansion as they are designed for big mean heavy stuff.....

It makes little difference on deer, even elk with a properly placed bullet and a broadside shot which is where all the elk in these tests were shot... but when you get to Cape buffalo,Bison or Alaskan Bear there certainly is a difference, even though a 06 will kill'em with a properly placed bullet, just takes them longer to succomb as a rule...

The real difference is when you take that typical Idaho shot in some nasty hole in the dark timber of Idaho and that big bull, the size of a small stud horse, is going away..Then trust me the 375 with a 300 gr. Nosler or 350 gr. Woodleigh shines and normally will dump an elk on the spot..An 06 with Nosler will sometimes let him go all the way to the bottom of the divide and that can mean serious trouble in terms of packing him out.....

At best its always a crapshoot. Nothing written in stone.

Jim,

I am not old enough to know about the old Silvertips , and have never used them for anything.

I am sure that the use of Nosler Partitions would have changed the results for both the 30-06 and 375. I have used them in my .375 on a bunch of African stuff and they are devastating, except one time when....

Hence, there is always doubt and always room for new bullet designs.

Will,

The Winchester Silver Tip is definitely a bullet from another time: I would shoot a deer with one (and have), but I would not use them in a .375.

I recall Capstick liked the .375 Silver Tip for a fast opening leopard bullet, and he pried the cap off to make them faster opening.

The point above about the same bullet in different sizes is defintely germane.

jim

Will-----On page 78--there is a chart that shows distance of each shot & the an outline of the elk with the placement of shot. Then a brief recap on the behavior of the animal after it was hit. CB

O'Connor quoted that experiment quite a number of years ago...All shots were within 100 yards and all shots were broadside heart lung shots..Took place on the Jackson herd winter feed grounds as I recall...

It proved very little that anyone who has ever hunted didn't allready know...both work but one is better to one degree or another...A proper bullet in the right spot will always result in the death of any animal..

CB,

I stand corrected, the figures do show shot placement. I have difficulty with the obvious.

I don't know about O'Connor, but Finn Aagaard wrote about that same study or shooting event.

His point was that while there was a difference, and the 375 was better, it wasn't proportionate to the difference in energy, bullet weight or frontal area.

In the end, bullet placement was THE most important thing. No surprises there.

As a matter of fact, that shooting has been referenced so many times, by so many writers that we need to round up another dozen elk and try it again. This time with a 243 and a 458!

Probably get the same results!

Will: this a subject dear to my heart. I didn�t hunt elk but our red deer (cervus elaphus) are close relatives albeit a little smaller and I�ve shot many big hogs. My late partner used a 30-06 and I used a 375. With identically placed shots in the shoulders his animals always run, mine stayed where the bullet reached them.
All other things being equal bigger is better, no doubt.
Of course placement is of paramount importance but my own experiences clearly show that the big bullet kills a lot faster.
Regards

My own exhaustive research is counter to this conclusion. The last four deer I have shot were with the 375 H&H and 3 out of four required finishing shots. The previous dozen or so deer that I have taken were one shot kills with my -06. The obvious conclusion is that the 375 is inadequate for deer and should never be used on anything larger than ground squirrel. Either that or I can't shoot the 375 as well as the -06? I think more research is required
Russ

Will,

Interesting post. The results are intuitive, and commonly held beliefs are in alignment with them.

However, since we don't know range, shot placement, performance characteristics of the Silvertip bullets compared (witness variability of Ballistic Tips across caliber sizes), the finality of the conclusion begs answers still not defined.

With proper bullet placement and construction and performance characteristics, one may in fact realize no gain from the 375. The elusive answer for me is that small target zone called marginal, wherein the larger wound channel of the 375 might make the difference. Has that marginal lethal zone been defined? Is the size of it meaningful? How much of the difference could be overcome by slight improvements in marksmanship?

I'd suggest as the size of the animal decreases, the size of the marginal zone decreases also while comparing disparate calibers like these. Ditto the opposite.

Marv

Saeed,

Of course your comments are prejudiced by your love of the .375!

Like you commented, many shots turn out to be exceptions to the norm. This helps keep these caliber/muzzle energy arguments alive and well.

It is these exceptions to the norm that aggravate me to no end. I shot an ele cow seemingly through the lungs, which ran for about 40 yards and I could hear it fall. When ele fall after running from a lung shot they are not "suppose to" get up again. Never.

Well, it did get up and the tracker couldn't find it until several days later, after a poacher had found it. The poacher had stripped it of the meat and tusks and burned the remains to the ground. So I do not know where it was hit for certain but apparently fell again soon after, as the chared remains were eventually found not too far away from where it had originally fallen.

But what aggravates me more than anything else is that I have not taken a couple thousand elephants so that I could draw meaningful conclusions about calibers and muzzle energies!

This is the muzzle velocity

Remember that light is toxic to internal organs and if you let in more light the animal will die quicker.

Will,

I have never shot an elk, but from my own experience with African animals, using rifles that ranged from a 270 Ackley, 7mm Lazzeroni Firebird, 338 Lazzeroni, 375 H&H, 375/404 and a 375/416 Rigby improved, both using 300 grain Barnes X and 300 grain Walterhog bullets.

At speeds that varied from 2600- 3140 fps, I honestly cannot say I have noticed much difference in the killing ability of any of them.

Sometimes one starts to draw a conclusion, and the next animal shot throws all that to the wind.

Zebra and impala are two perfect examples of this, as I have shot so many of them with all the above calibers.

A number of impalas I have shot with a 270 Ackley, all facing, with the bullet entering the chest at the neck. Some would just drop in their tracks, and others would run up to 100 yards before dying.

Exactly the same happened when I used the 375/404 on the same animals.

Some exceptions have occured of course. One impala I remember shooting, standing broadside, low through both shoulders. The bullet broke both of his shoulders, but just nicked the chest. It did not penetrate into the chest cavity at all. He ran about 40 yards and died. This was with teh 270 Ackley and 130 grain Barnes X.

My PH, Roy Vincent, expressed his shock as to why that animal died. He kept repeating "he should not have died with that shot!"

This year, I shot an impala with the 375/404, in almost exactly the same place as the one mentioned above, but slightly higher bullet placement. With the bullet entering low into the chest cavity. He ran a few yrads and lay down. I had to shoot him again in the neck to kill him.

I have shot zebras with the 270 Ackley, through the shoulders, where they just ran around in circles and dropped dead within seconds.

I have shot one with the 375/416 Rigby, standing broadside at about 200 yards. The 300 grain Barnes X bullet taking the top of his heart completely off. He ran for about 200 yards before dying.

If you hit them in the right place, regardless of caliber, they will all dy. The time it takes one to dy copmpared with another animal probably depends on the particular animal in question.

When it comes to buffalo, all arguments are just that. Arguments. As some of those bulls don't seem to know they are supposed to die when you shoot them through the heart or lung.

I just returned from Moz. & hunted only w/ my .404. All animals shot, including my smallish buff., went down to one shot & all traveled less than 20yds. All shots were thru one or both shoulders. The only bullet that did not completely penetrate was the buff., that shot went in the front of his chest & ended up lost in the intestines somewhere.
My observation was not that the .404 was delivering more energy, after all all bullets exited, but the bullet was making bigger holes. Even w/ modest expansion, if you start out w/ a bigger bullet, you are going to get bigger holes, probably complete penetration & what appeares to be, quicker kills.
Something else I saw was a 45# Caracel shot thru the longs w/ a .22lr solid. It took the big kitty almost 20min. to die. Imagine how far he could run in 15-20 min. To me, bigger bullets mean bigger holes & quicker kills.

I found a copy of this article in 1978, and still remember it.

The author of this article said, "The 375 kills elk like the 30-06 kills deer."

These were large elk, not the spikes we have now days.

Andy

You learn something everyday. I did not know the two were comparable.

The NRA's American Hunter magazine has a table from 1956 (p. 78, October) comparing the results of 12 elk shot with 220 gr. Silvertips in 30-06 and 12 elk shot with 300 gr. Silvertips in a .375 H&H.

There are no data as to where these elk were hit, but the obvious conclusion is that energy (~2800 ft-lbs vs. ~4300 ft-lbs) and bullet weight count for something, as the .375 shot elk traveled shorter distances before croaking and took fewer number of shots.

Nothing startling here, just thought it was interesting. My only elk succumbed to a puny .280 with two 160 gr. Nosler Partitions. Of course, shot placement and bullet construction are also important.