Hello Saeed,

I was wondering how many rounds you fired through the barrels of your 375/404? My barrel calculator is showing something in the order of 1600 to 1900 rounds depending on the powder prior to losing target accuracy. I have a 375 RUM and guessing barrel life will be identical. I have been using your load data using Barnes TSX with exceptional accuracy.

This is the sweet spot in my barrel.

375 RUM
24" Pac-Nor barrel, 6 groove/ 1-10 twist

Rem case trimmed to 2.840"
95 gr H4350 / 270gr TSX
COAL: 3.570"

Velocity 15 ft from barrel: 2900 fps

5 shot group at 100 yards 5/8"

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Maurice

Enigma,
Good question.

Hopefully Saeed will reply, with an estimate of rounds fired per rifle (2 of them) or his thoughts on when a new barrel might be in order.
They both seem to be going strong.
Has either of the two been rebarreled?

Some rough guesstimation in the mean time:

Possible borned-on date of the rifles: 1997
15 years of service, just assume same duration for both.

15 years of safaris with 100 rounds per rifle ought to cover it, since one shot per animal is all Saeed usually requires,
and he burns up most of the ammo in camp staff shooting contests.
I saw his ammo cache in 2010, Tanzania.
I do not think it exceeded 200 rounds,
100 rounds per rifle.
Guesstimated.

15 years x 100 rounds = 1500 rounds per rifle

That does not allow for load development since 1997, nor the 3-shot zero check each year on each rifle.
But 3-shots per year for each rifle is negligible.
Never requiring re-zeroing, rifles always right on target. Loads long ago established.
But still, 3 shots per year adds up to 45 over 15 years, per rifle.

Getting close to rebarrel time?

Well, the .375/404 Jeffery Saeed is a grain or two smaller than the .375 RUM in case capacity.
Maybe that makes the barrel last longer.



BTW,
Very nice .375 RUM there.

I am going to give the reamer maker another week before I call and ask about the ".375/404 Jeffery Saeed of 2012" reamer status.
AKA ".375-2012"
Absolutely Mayan!

Thanks RIP for the kind words.

I do remember Saeed talk about the shooting competitions they had among camp staff at the end of each safari. I do recall him saying that the rate of fire was so intense, they were using wet rags to cool down the barrels! We all know how well heat and barrel steel mix together as far as throat erosion is concerned.

Some of you will tell me that 1/4" Accuracy at 100 yards is not required in a hunting rifle and perhaps they have a point, I'm just trying to find out the point at which accuracy goes south.

Maurice

When you can't hit what you are shooting at.

Trying to tell when a rifle well start losing accuracy is tough so much depends how you shoot it bullet, powder.

I shoot a barrel untill I am not happy with it.

For big game hunting a .750 rifle that goes to 1 inch or 1.25 most likley isn't going to make much of a differants at normally hunting ranges.

If one is shooting long ranges for me is 500 yards plus then a .5 inch differants could matter.

If you are really worried I would say change the barrel out at 1299.5 rounds more or less or when your not happy with it.

I'm not worried what so ever regarding the barrel life on my RUM. I'm only trying to correlate estimated (computed) barrel life with real world data.

Enigma,
The answer to your question is thus far as enigmatic as the rest of the story on the .375/404 Jeffery Saeed.

The .375/404 Jeffery Saeed of 2012 will not be so enigmatic.

Perhaps Saeed is vacationing and did not get the chance to answer this thread.

It had been some time since she been out of the gun case so I decided to take her out and give her a little love. A little G96 and some polishing... Here are the results. I decided to snap a few pictures for all to enjoy.

Maurice