Might should have posted this on the reloading forum, but thought I would get a faster answer here.
What is the case volume of the new 375 Ruger?
Thanks

I shot 20 rounds of it in the pouring rain yesterday, yep warmed up enough to rain on the frozen ponds in Western Kentucky.

Anyway, I weighed 5 cases after firing, with spent primer in place. Weights in grains:
264.0
264.7
262.5
264.0
264.6

Case length in inches after firing:
2.580
2.580
2.582
2.581
2.581
Conclusion: once-fired factory brass = 2.581" long.
Unfired factory loaded neck OD = .402"
Once-fired neck OD = .406", from Hawkeye African. Fire-formed shoulder diameter is about 0.516".

Then I used a syringe to dribble-drop water into each one standing upright on a digital scale. As flat as I could get the water meniscus, water capacity in grains:
101.5
100.6
100.7
101.3
101.4
Average = 101.1 grains of water.

This is good info since there is only one source of brass currently. Call it "about 101 grains of water, gross case capacity."

More about the range results and the AccuLoad III predictions for the .375 Ruger and the .395 Ruger that prof242 is building, later.

thats great info rip...

my original guess was 105 gr.

thanks!

tharbe a new sheriff in town and it has 101 grains of capacity...

Rip thank you, exactly what I was looking for.

Cool! That's about 5% more capacity than the H&H

Dave

a lot of 7mm mags will bite the dust to this round!

A 5% increased case capacity should yield a 1.25% increased velocity at equal pressure. Maybe the increase isn't significant but this means that the 7mm mag can be easily be rebarreled to fully duplicate the .375 H&H!!!!! A loty of VZ-24 Mausers will go this route!

dont forget the h+h is a inefficient design compared to the ruger...case capacity is not everything but it is most everything

boomie, boomie, boomie...

For our purposes here, I believe efficiency is properly delineated as the ability of a case to properly utilize the entire case volume. Conversely, inefficiency is the situation wherein a cartridge case holds too much powder to burn it all in the barrel cleanly. It has very little to do with the shape of the case, IMHO. If the H&H case is "inefficient", the rugger/hornady case is moreso...increased volume for the caliber. I think compact is the word you are looking for here, although I have never understood the alleged advantage of a 3/8" shorter case in this regard. The other word is "cheaper". In terms of raw horsepower, it may be a slight advantage...but anything more than the 1.25% velocity gain comes at the expense of increased pressure or a new powder. If you like the 375 Ruger, given your proclivity for wildcat design; you will likely enjoy a 375 based on the RUM case shortened to the ruger case length even more. It offers the same %-age increase in case volume over the ruger as the ruger does over the H&H. I just do not see how the ruger case can match the velocity of the RUM, except at very high pressure.

Rich
DRSS

quote:

If you like the 375 Ruger, given your proclivity for wildcat design; you will likely enjoy a 375 based on the RUM case shortened to the ruger case length even more.

Idaho Sharpshooter is dead right here.....for the wildcat lover this is about as good as it gets in the standard length action. I was headed this direction until the Ruger round was introduced...

Long ago I gave up on wildcats......and I'm very happy I didn't go this route as the Ruger case is an excellent choice. The extra cost of wildacts are not worth the gains if only velocity is desired.

i think 300's @ 2500 and 350's @ 2450 is all you need...moderate preasure and a heavy hammer!

vapo...

the best is yet to come...

being the 338 rum is shorter...

use the 338 ruamer and chamber to 2.65" and follow up with a 375 neck/throat reamer.

use shortened 375 rum dies and you have a 375 max

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
a lot of 7mm mags will bite the dust to this round!

I've got a couple of the little bastards in my sights!!!

After we had ordered a reamer for a shortened 375 RUM that we had concocked while on a hunting trip I found out about the 375 Ruger, but we went on with the project. Shortened the case to 2.500 with a nice long neck to hold the bullets and not stick the bullet down in the powder room. The case has a very small amout of taper and is .540 at the shoulder. So far we have fire formed some brass and worked up to max loades for the 375 H&H but not to full potential for this case. It shoots well for what we have done, but did have some feeding problem from the left side of the mag. A different follower may fix this. We started with a Ruger 77 in 7 mag and used a Douglass #5 conture barrel that ended up just under 26 inches. Will load data after some more testing.

Jim,
Your load data should be very interesting. A full length .375 RUM holds about 120 grains of water. I guess yours is somewhere between 101 and 120 grains, eh?

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:
Jim,
Your load data should be very interesting. A full length .375 RUM holds about 120 grains of water. I guess yours is somewhere between 101 and 120 grains, eh?

Our case holds 100 grains of water so I guess we ended up with about the same case as the Ruger. When we started the project we wanted a case that would feed through a standard length action and hold about 90 gr of powder to the base of the neck. Which ment a fat 2.500 inch case. We did not have a 375 RUM case on hand but did have a 300 RUM so we used that to find out where to set the shoulder. It turns out that the 375 case is about .010 thicker at the front end of the case than the 300. I formed our brass from 375 cases and they are just a bit smaller inside and would take a couple of more grains of powder if we had used the 300 cases. 86 grains of 4831 gave the 270 gr bullets 2700 fps with no pressure signs so may be able to improve that with 4350 or N140. Had to turn the case necks as the shoulder of the RUM case ended up as the neck and was to thick to chamber. Will post more on load data after another trip tp the range.

Jim,
You did say the .375 RUM Short had a long neck, and it is a little shorter overall than the 2.58" .375 Ruger, and the Remington brass is notoriously thicker walled and lower capacity than most other makes of brass in the same chamberings ...

Yes the 375 WI that we came up with has a long neck of about .400. Ken Wiggs drew up the specs for this after we talked about it on a Africa hunt and I sent the specs in to Pacific tool and gauge to have the reamer made. I have the spec sheet here that they sent with the reamer and it shows. .552 at the base of cartridge, .540 at base of shoulder. 1.950 from rim to base of shoulder and 2.065 from rim to base of neck and 2.550 from rim to end of neck.
I trimed the final cases to 2.500 to give a little extra rooom at the end. We did not know about the Ruger cartridge when we started this project or we would have waited to see what it looked like before we started this. After we had ordered the reamer we found out about the Ruger 375 but figured that normal for Ruger it would be up to 2 years before you could get your hands on a rifle or reamer specks so decided to go on and make the rifle. Wish that I had them make just the body reamer so I could have used any neck reamer, maybe a 8MM or 416? I think a .300 would be a little much for this case.

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
a lot of 7mm mags will bite the dust to this round!

A 5% increased case capacity should yield a 1.25% increased velocity at equal pressure. Maybe the increase isn't significant but this means that the 7mm mag can be easily be rebarreled to fully duplicate the .375 H&H!!!!! A loty of VZ-24 Mausers will go this route!

I've been building 375/338's on the std length mag Ruger action (and a couple others) for years. I don't know why Ruger didn't just "legitimize" that excellent, proven caliber??? Marketing I guess
Greg

A .375 Ruger reamer would clean up a .375/.338 WinMag oh so nicely.

I have an FN Mauser in .375/.338 WinMag that is begging to be converted to .375 Ruger. It has only a 21.5" barrel. I would rather have no shorter than 23", but it would be interesting enough to consider at 21.5". The short barrel stuff is an over-blown affectation, IMHO, important only to midgets.

Jim,
If your reamer has a floating pilot, it can be used to do any cats bigger than .375.

If it does not have a floating pilot, I think one of the Dave's can convert it and supply you with a .416 pilot and a .416 neck-and-throat reamer. Or .395, .423, .458, etc.

Of course a .375 Ruger reamer with floating pilot could also be so used, but I would not go as large as .458 on the smaller .375 Ruger shoulder diameter, that is already blown out enough! Your cat could easily handle a .458, as El Jeffe has already proven with his AR cats similar to yours.

prof242,
Take note of the ".395 Ruger/ ... AccuLoad III Predictions" on the thread so titled.

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:
A .375 Ruger reamer would clean up a .375/.338 WinMag oh so nicely.

.

Can't imagine why anyone would want to do such a thing
Greg

The 375/338 Win Mag is a excellent cartridge, but the idea of the Ruger 375 and our 375 WI is to improve on the 375 H&H. Both have about 5% more powder room than the H&H and 12 to 15% more than the 375/338 WM. This should push the 235 gr Barns and the 250 gr Sierra around 28 to 2900 fps and cut the drop at 300 yards for the occasional long shot at plains game. Also should get the 300 grainers up to 2700 fps to max penatration on the big stuff.

Jim
Jim

I think a lot of the proponents of the 375/338 are already pushing those bullets above 2800 with great accuracy, mild recoil & muzzle blast, smooth feeding, cheap & available components, etc, etc. It just never ceases to amaze me how gun people lust after new & "improved" cartridges to do jobs that are being well taken care of already . I had a client come back from a hunt and order a replacement Ruger 77 in that caliber.
I asked him what happened to the one I had just built him a couple months earlier.
He said he shot a hippo on the bank of the Zambezi with it, diagonally from end to end; shattering the hip on the far end. The PH was so impressed, he talked him out of it. Using a 300gr Barnes solid, IIRC. I'd say that was adequate penetration. But I guess this kind of stuff keeps the gun rags publishing & the gun companies selling "new" stuff: not to mention us gunsmiths in groceries & gas. So I should be hyping this stuff too

Greg

Yes even us old kids like new toys. Just think what if every new gun or cartridge that came out in the last 100 years all of us said that we liked what we had and did not want to change or improve. We could still get it done with the 30-06, 30-30 405 win and 577 and a lot of big black powder cartridges, but think of all the fun we would not have playing with the new toys.
Remember if we don't buy them they won't make them. Again I think that the 375/ 338 is a very good cartridge and if I had one built I would see no reason to ream it out to the 375 Ruger. On the other hand if I wanted a 375 for large or DG would not think twice about a new barrel on a 7 mag.
Jim

I can sure identify with that Jim. I love my toys too. I just build new (to me) guns in the classic calibers I love. Last year I barreled a #1 in 30 WCF, using a tapered med octagon barrel and got some strange comments from my fellow club members. Whatever floats yer stick.
I do get some strange requests from customers for guns that I sure wouldn't build for me.
As Angel on the Rockford Files once said, "Ain't nobody ever made a thin dime givin' folks what they need..... You gotta give em what they want"

Greg

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
a lot of 7mm mags will bite the dust to this round!

... A loty of VZ-24 Mausers will go this route!

they already are!!
http://www.weaponsmith.com/AR-rounds1.html