375 H&H vs 416 Rem

[BryceM]

Just do what I did and get one of each.

.416 Rigby in CZ550
.375 H&H in Browning Safari

Be warned. Once you have them, they'll beg to be used on big, nasty critters.

 

[M70375!]

I use 300gr TSX's in my 416RM and it works fine as a general purpose hunting rifle and its plenty fun to shoot. In fact, I've never used it for DG, just PG and medium to large game in North America.

-Matt

I have both and like the 416 REM much better, I use 350 grain for coyotes and moose and elk and 400-430 grain for elephant and Cape buffalo, will use it for leopard also. There is no such thing as being over gunned , dead is dead.

 

[LimbNoMo]

What do you have besides the .375 H&H or .416 Rem Mag?

 

[M70375!]

300 win, 338 win 338 Edge+P, 270, 22-250, 223, 20 Practical, 243 win, 25/06

 

[JG26Irish_2]

When I 1st began prep for Safari I wanted a 416 Rigby (not the Rem). Despite a long search, I was having a hard time finding one. During this time, I came across a FN Browning Safari Grade 375HH rifle in Anchorage, Alaska for sale. It was the perfect match for my FN Browning 308 Medalion Grade light rifle. I bought the 375HH thinking that providence had led me to the best choice.

I took that pair on my first Safari and they both served admirably. But, I learned during this process that not all FN Brownings are created equal. My 308 was a perfect Mauser clone CRF rifle but sometime in the late 60's push feed became the vogue and FN following the trend built some Hi-Power rifles that looked like Mausers but were actually push feed. Mine was one of those. In the dusty African environment the plunger ejector became almost non-functional from dust in the action. It worked but only just and I made a mental note to replace it with a CRF rifle prior to my DG hunting.

At this time, I could have bought a 416 Rigby but having used the 375HH, I decided that unless I were to hunt Elephant, I did not need a bigger rifle. Plus there is a much better array of ammo available for the 375. Finally, stats from one of the PH's on this site show that of the available DG calibers out there, the 375's consistently result in the highest percentage of one shot kills on Cape Buffalo at 80% than ANY other caliber including the 416's and the big NE Express doubles. I think we can all surmise that a well placed 500NE is a more effective killer than a 375HH on pretty much any animal. The problem is the shooter's ability to consistently place those big ass bullets well on anything further than 50y away coupled with most dbl rifle owner's being loath to mount a red dot or scope to aid their aiming leading often to less than proper bullet placement in the real world. The same can occur with 458's and 416's since the recoil is more making scopes possibly dangerous to the shooter's eye. Irons can be accurate but are never as precise as a good scope. I watched a hunter with a 600NE miss a buff at 20y three shots in a row before wounding it with shot #4. His PH Mark Sulivan (who does shoot his 570 well) killed it for the client. Most shooters lack Mark's skill or recoil tollerance. Don't get me wrong, I shoot 458's well and am not bothered by the recoil and just finished shooting 30rds of 338 RCM out of a 6.5lb rifle without issue. It kicks more than the 375.

Still since I shoot my 375 well, and have good scopes, I chose to buy a 2nd 375HH. It is a custom Shaw rifle and is fitted with a nice Kahles K16i 1-6x optic. It is supremely accurate, must better than my old FN which was already a good shooter. I am all about rifles that shoot extremely well. I used to think that 1.5 or 2" groups at 100y with 375's were good. Now, any group less than 1/2" is a failure. I have great confidence that I can shoot anything with it out to 400y but would limit shots on DG to 100y and PG to about 200y. My choice was the 375HH and I believe that a very well place 375 is much more effective than a sort of well placed anything else. If I were to hunt Ele, I would take a 458 or larger but those shots are up close by necessity. We will be hunting Cape Buff soon this year with the 375 using 300g Barnes TSX ammo. Stay tuned for hunt report.

Some pics of my 375HH and two 100y groups from my last range session. The 3sh grp was some old Barnes ammo and the 2sh grp was the new ammo I bought for Africa. I moved the scope two clicks left after the first groups. It is 1" high from 40-140y and zeroed from 150-180y and drops one more inch for each 10y increase in range all the way to 250y.