WildRose
Well-Known Member
Wildrose- this may or may not have any effect on the subject of faster and slower powders but one of the things I have been considering is powder volume with a given suppressor. The can I am running is rated for magnums into the 338L arena however hearing safe levels of reduction start to become an issue. I knew this when I bought the can (small for that case capacity) but I wanted something a little lighter and handier hence the new trend of short! This is one of the reasons to consider a 375 ruger over a 375-338 Norma...less powder volume, lower noise level. A 340 Weatherby or 33 nosler with a faster burning powder may well be a good way to go. I am glad to see so much response and great ideas rolling out here.
Thanks for the good comments guys!
Dan
Dan I bought my first .375 R specifically for an African trip and was incredibly pleased with it's performance on everything up to and including buff. More importantly the PH's and outfitters that had not yet seen them in the field were really pleased with it.
I've shot it a lot on the biggest boars I can find and shooting the Perigrines I'm getting full body penetrations and exits even with a straight on head/chest shot exiting the flanks or right through the back end.
Shooting the factory hornady loads I got all pass throughs at least partially but was not happy that even with shoulder shots the bullet and jacket would separate completely. I recovered either the jacket or the lead core or some portion of both with each shot and none of the shots that didn't break the shoulders or sever the spine still resulted in them at least attempting to run off. Worst was with the 300DGS that with a perfect pass through heart/lung still allowed for him to charge me from over 250 yards requiring a pretty dramatic series of rapid follow ups.
There is nothing in the world I would not be confident in shooting out to 400 yards with it, especially in the 26" custom I bought last year. It's a real monster killer.
Adding the .375 Ruger to my arsenal completely eliminated any need I would ever have for a .338 of any kind. If I want to shoot beyond it's max Range my Rums are all I will ever need.
I will do some plinking beyond 1000 yards but I will never need to kill an animal bad enough to shoot beyond that range.