If you like your 376 Steyr help me make it more popular in African hunting circles. On my safari to SA in Sept 05 I took my new 376 Steyr bult on a Montana Action and put together by Serengeti. This was a trial run on plains game as I hope to someday hunt Cape Buffalo with it. I am pretty happy with my rifle. It is very accurate. I am getting 2695 from factory 270 grains and I loaded 270 A-Frames to 2595 at one grain below max with Varget. In Africa I found an article in an African Hunter magazine by Mr. Don Heath titled" The "All Round Rifle" and other slippery shibboleths"(I don't know what shibboleths means} This very lengthly article about the all around GP rifle said Steyr missed the boat by not making it for a 30-06 action length. He said the 375 H&H and 9.3x64 are unnecessarily long and the 376 Steyr should have been 3 to 5mm longer in order to get 2400fps from a 300grain- 2500 from a 270grain and 2700 from a 235grain. I fired off a response and pointed out that 5mm would make the case longer than a 9.3x64 and that it is easy to exceed his desired velocity in a rifle with a 3.125" magazine. Mr Heath responded to my E-mail in less than 30 minutes. He said he might use my comments in a future article especially if he receives additional comments and information from other owners of 376 Steyr's. It seems he is the editor of the magazine. I have always been able to stick my foot in my mouth without really trying. You can E-mail Mr Heath at www.african-hunter.com I would also like to hear from some other owners about their 376Steyr. Have any of you used Ramshot Tac in a 376 Steyr? Someone at Barnes recommended it to me as a very god powder for the 376 Steyr.

jeffeosso...

The Steyr is perfect as is. You can get four down with a little work.

There is plenty of length in a Mauser magazine box to load it a little longer.

A 20" barrel is plenty to burn the powder.

You can use 300 grain lead cored bullets or 270 grain monometal or mainly monometal bullets.

Great excuse for building a rifle with a shorter barrel and a full length stock.

TAC should be good. Varget is great. RL-15 is too slow.

LD

Jeffe has a personal 376 Steyr he built on a Mexican Mauser action.

I wanted a 376 but waited to see if it was going to last.There is a chance if brass from Hornady disapears then its gone.I dont think you can make it from other cases.I would get at least 500 cases if you like it that much.I know its a good round.How much difference is it with the 375-06 .The 375 wsm might be neat there are alot of cheap wsm actions around .

Hornady just made another run of cases. That speaks pretty well for the 376 considering the derth of factory rifles sold here in the US for it. I am assuming that it must have a stronger following and stronger sales elsewhere in the world or Hornady wouldn't be running out more ammo and cases.

It has a lot more case capacity than the 375-06. To me it makes more sense than a 375 WSM but that's just my persnickety tastes.

A shibboleth is a truism or widely held belief. I have a Steyr prohunter in .376 Steyr. I really like the little rifle. It's good to hear Hornady is still cranking out brass. I took mine to alberta a couple of years ago and took a really nice black bear with a single shot to the shoulder. I think it's a top-notch bear rifle. I was giving some thought to making it my light rifle in Tanzania this fall but I think I'll take my .375 H&H instead simply because of load versatility and the ease of obtaining ammo in Africa, should I need to do so.

HunterJim and I have both published articles in African Hunter on the .376 Steyr, so Don Heath certainly knows of our interest! Both of us have also been working on Steyr Mannlicher in vain to bring out a 60cm-barreled "African" Pro-Hunter in that chambering, which will bring its performance up to .375 H&H levels, as Jeffeosso's experiments with a Mauser have shown. Perhaps more of you .376 Steyr afficionados need to join in the demands on Steyr to do so.

Considering that the steyr operates at higher pressure as a given, with a 24" barrel, the 376 steyr can be the ballistic equal of the 375hh. Yes, of course you can run a 375HH at higher pressure, and then one no longer has an 'HH' one has a 375 weatherby.

background
I built my first 376 steyr on a 1936 mexican mauser, limiting oal to 3.15, with a 25" pacnor barrel.
I have taken 300gr Hornady RN's over 2500fps, though the last 50fps is a dramtic increase in pressure as with any other cartidge.

225gr hornadys to ~2900 fps has a devastating effect on thin skinned game

I can not wait to try the new Barnes TSX .375 in 235gr, on game and impact testing. It is my opinion (and totally an opinion) that this bullet at ~2800fps would share simular penetration characteristics to the 300gr woodleigh softs... in depth and weight retention.

While this would be a suboptimal DGR load, it's effect on large game should be substainial.

jeffe

The Prohunter's magazine length seems to be my restriction. I've seem some velocity claims that I can't hardly believe with the short Prohunter barrel posted here awhile back.

I'm using Nosler 260 Accubonds for about everything now, with 59.3g of H4895, I'm at 2530 fps at 70F. Without a lot of work compressing with load, that's about all I'm going to fit in this case with this OAL. Varget hasn't really done any better or worse than H4895 at this point, but maybe I haven't given it a fair shake.

On the other hand(because of the comment about the 375/06 earlier)...a 375 Hawk on a Mark X action, is getting me 2464 fps with 55 grains of H4895 out of a 22" barrel. These are just the fireforming loads so far, with quite a bit of room left in the case.

I haven't checked water capacity to compare both cases...might be an interesting project.

I just checked my Hodgdon manual and see that 59.0g is the starting load for a 260g Nosler Part which is the closes thing they list and that is at 3.1"COL. I would think that the Accubonds would be a little longer. That was the same problem I had with Varget when I tried to load 270g Barnes X's. The Varget fills up the case and the X bullets need to be seated into the case. I had little time to spare so I just used 270g Swift A-Frames which were at least .3" shorter and the Varget. I was 1 grain below max published and I had a very accurate load at 2595fps average at 80 degrees but my barrel is 23" long. There was plenty of space in the case for BLC-2 and I may try it with the Barnes X. Most of my references list BLC-2 as slower than Varget so I don't think it would be a good powder for a short barrel. Barnes Bullets gave me me several loads for their bullets. One powder they recommended was Ramshot TAC. Some of my references indicate that it has about the same burn rate as H4895. From reading about TAC is sounds like it is very dense (small grained) so you should be able to get more of it in your cases. A load they gave me was 61.0g of TAC with a270g XLC I think this is at or near max. They said they were getting 5/8" groups. The gun was a Steyr Prohunter like yours. This testing was before TripleX's. Hope this helps and I will be trying some TAC this summer amd I may also try some Accubonds. Thy also used BLC-2 with 300g bullets