I'm curious, what kind of accuracy should you expect from a .375 bolt rifle.

Is any .375 bullet noted for accuracy while being suitable for game. How about powders, what are the favorites these days ?

Thanks for your input

Rancher,

I've always had excellent accuracy from .375's in most bolt actions. Groups under and inch are pretty common, many times better if you can handle the practice. Most of my friends who have them have also had excellent results. In my experience, .375's aren't usually picky about projectiles, but I usually use .270 Hornady's to debug and work them up and go from there.
Powders in the burning range of H4831, RL19, RL22 are good candidates for the .375's and have always produced good velocities and excellent accuracy for me and my buddies. Hope this helps a bit.- Sheister

Greetings,

I have had very good results with the Nosler 260 Partition, Sierra 300 SPBT, and the Hornady 300 RN.

Favourite powders are Reloder 15 & 19, IMR 4350 & 4064.

Rifle is a pre-64 M70 bedded in a McMillan Supergrade with the trigger cleaned up.

The rifle easily shoots 1.25-1.5" groups, (5 shots). Occasionally, I can pull sub-moa targets, but that is not the norm for me. So I'm a lousy shot!

Best part is this, the rifle will just as easily put 10 shots in that 1.5" even when fairly hot and dirty. She's a keeper.

In my opinion, the best buy out there for the 375 H&H, when considering cost, accuracy, and performance on N.A. game, is the Hornady 300 grain RN. They go where I point 'em and the critter falls down fast

Good luck.

~Holmes

Rancher,

.375 H&H rifles usually shoot well. A great factory load is the Remington Premium with the 300 grain Swift A-Frame bullet. This load shoots under 1" in my two rifles, and in the rifles of two friends. One guy is going quietly buggy trying to find a reload with this bullet that will equal the accuracy of the factory load.

I just go hunting with the factory load.

jim dodd

I've had good luck with most .375 rifles.

I second HunterJim on the Remington Premium factory loads with 300 grain Swift A-Frame bullets in both 375 H&H (gave an honest 2530 fps and 3/4" three-shot groups at 100 yards in my M-70 Winchester, factory stainless Classic, 24" barrel).

One Winchester Super Express I owned would do only 1.5 MOA for three shots with the same ammo, however.

Also the 375 RUM Premium loading gives about 2800 fps in two of my rifles and shoots sub MOA for 3 shots at 100 yards.

Two favorite handloads, both getting about 3/4 MOA for 3 shots:

375 H&H: 300 grain Barnes X-Bullet
WW brass, GM215M primer, 72.0 grains of RL-15, 2529 fps, in a 24" Douglas stainless barrel.

378 WBY: 300 grain Sierra GameKing
Wby/Norma brass, F215 primer, 111.0 grains of IMR 7828, 2860 fps, in a 25" CZ factory barrel, rechambered from 375 H&H to 378 WBY.

Oops, forgot to specify the bullets in the above loads, and nobody noticed. Nice scanner work below Canuck.

[ 12-01-2002, 17:45: Message edited by: DaggaRon ]

The load my 375 likes the best is:

RP cases, 300gr Sierra BT, CCI 250, 71gr RL 15, 2528 fps, 24" barrel (Win factory).



I just happened to be scanning some of my saved groups in the other day, so I thought I might has well post one.

Canuck

A have found that a good many .375's like IMR-4895 & H-4895 with bullets from 210 to 250 grains and Varget, IMR-4320, Win-760 and RL-15 with bullets from 270 to 300 grains. IMR-4350 also does well with 300 grainers in quite a few rifles.

Rancher; A load which I used in my old push feed Mod.70 win.( prior to it's retirement)was pretty impressive ( at least to me).
Hornady 270 SP's over 82.0 grns.( WELL OVER MAX.) WW760, Rem. brass and CCI Mag. primers. When shooting 5 shot groups at 100yrds.( no cooling of barrel between shots) the first 4 would sometimes go under 1/2 in., then throw the 5th. shot out about 1 to 1 1/2 inches from the group( due to barrel heating).
The rifle was a real "sweetheart" to shoot! -memtb

Iused 76.0 grs of WW760 behind a woodleigh 300 gr soft. accuracy was always <1 inch at 100 yrds out of a Browning Safari grade. I used this thing on alot of AFRICAN game with great results.-Rob

I have had excellent accuracy with both my . 375�s. My current rifle seems to like basically anything I put into it, fx. barnes 235 XLC�s that my former rifle wouldn�t shoot at all. Partition 260 grain has been very accurate in both rifles, so has the 300 grain Woodleigh. I have shot most game with the Woodleigh, they are close to perfect in my opinion. Personally i would not recommend the 300 gr Hornady RN for anything but practice, they blow up on short range shots. I had one tear an 8 inch hole in a roe deer (about 50 pounds) shot at about 30 yards.

Tron

I believe most 375 are inherently accurate...I like RL-15 mostly...The most accruate bullet I have shot is the North Fork bullet, but Noslers ans most bullets shoot well...

Don't believe that O'Conner clip about them shootin all loads to the same POI, most of them won't do it...a few will....

376 steyr, 225 hornady SP, made for the 376, 2850 ish

.147 or so

jeffe

Holmes

No, the bullet exited. Roe deer is very light game, so anything else would be a total failure. Fragments of lead and jacket was found in the meat on the exit side though. The deer went down like in a cartoon, I saw four legs in the air before the recoil took my sight picture. What makes me loose all confidence in this bullet is the size of the exit hole, enormous. With that kind of expansion on the fragile rib cage of a roe deer (it did not hit any bones, just a clean trough the ribs lung shot) I don�t want to find out what happens if I hit a moose with this bullet. And most of the exit side of the deer was fox bait. I have hunted with controlled expansion bullets since, mostly woodleighs that are pretty similar to the hornadys except for the bonded core. Makes all the difference.

Tron

Holmes

I would like to add, and I guess this was the essence of your post, that I think your point about different hunters getting different terminal performance with same bullets is very relevant. I usually shoot behind the shoulder, high/medium high lung shots and don�t stress the bullets too much. So I worry (needlessly?) that my newly developed loads with the Barnes XLC (.375) and Swift A-frame (7RM) may not put the game down as fast as the softer bullets (woodleigh) I�ve been using last couple of seasons. Then again they probably will work better for shots trough the shoulders, wich I had on two occasions this year. Really messy with a soft bullet. I think another point regarding conventional bullets without controlled expansion, is that their performance will vary more from lot to lot. I have never heard about bullets like the Barnes x or Nosler PT really failing. Or maybe I should just see a shrink about these thoughts and stop boring you guys...

Tron

Why should a 375 be accurate? The cartridge is not short, fat, or sharp-shouldered. Yet mine probably shoots more accurately than my 30-06.

H. C.