The versatility of the 375 H&H

[Sika98k]

I’ve been down on the range lately practicing for an upcoming hunt. Previously I have been shooting 270 or 235 grain loads. For the buffalo a step up is required to 300gr bullets.
When I bought this rifle some years ago it had been only lightly used. However it seemed overly heavy. Investigation inside the stock revealed a steel recoil reducer. Well that came out quickly !
Last weekend I put 11 rounds of 300gr down range, got my eyebrow kissed lightly twice and my shoulder had a nice dark, now yellow, bruise. I reflected that shooting wearing a T-shirt was maybe not the best idea !
Back at it today with a few tricks up my sleeve or rather in my shoulder. The recoil reducer went back in with some gorilla glue. A shooting vest I wear during the summer pigeon shooting had a Beretta gel pad sown into the shoulder pad sometime ago.
What a difference! I was actually able to shoot the rifle without looking like a bulldog chewing a wasps nest.
However the point of my post was the versatility of this caliber. Some of us will have read John “Pondoro” Taylor’s book, African rifles and cartridges. In this he extols the 375H&H, amongst its many virtues is the calibers capability of shooting 3 loads to virtually the same point of impact.
With me I had some RWS 300 gr, Federal 270gr and 235. So I put them to the test, one of each into the target. Not scientific I admit but the result astonished me. I was using a Zeiss Duralyt 1,2-5x32 with an illuminated reticle. The reticle covered the bull at 100yds. Ok, one click up is required.

 

[375er]

I’ve been down on the range lately practicing for an upcoming hunt. Previously I have been shooting 270 or 235 grain loads. For the buffalo a step up is required to 300gr bullets.
When I bought this rifle some years ago it had been only lightly used. However it seemed overly heavy. Investigation inside the stock revealed a steel recoil reducer. Well that came out quickly !
Last weekend I put 11 rounds of 300gr down range, got my eyebrow kissed lightly twice and my shoulder had a nice dark, now yellow, bruise. I reflected that shooting wearing a T-shirt was maybe not the best idea !
Back at it today with a few tricks up my sleeve or rather in my shoulder. The recoil reducer went back in with some gorilla glue. A shooting vest I wear during the summer pigeon shooting had a Beretta gel pad sown into the shoulder pad sometime ago.
What a difference! I was actually able to shoot the rifle without looking like a bulldog chewing a wasps nest.
However the point of my post was the versatility of this caliber. Some of us will have read John “Pondoro” Taylor’s book, African rifles and cartridges. In this he extols the 375H&H, amongst its many virtues is the calibers capability of shooting 3 loads to virtually the same point of impact.
With me I had some RWS 300 gr, Federal 270gr and 235. So I put them to the test, one of each into the target. Not scientific I admit but the result astonished me. I was using a Zeiss Duralyt 1,2-5x32 with an illuminated reticle. The reticle covered the bull at 100yds. Ok, one click up is required.
View attachment 690466

All part of the greatness!!!!

 

[Hunter-Habib]

The Swiss Army Knife of rifle calibers. An excellent performer for everything on earth, except for body shots on bull elephant.

51 years of hunting in African Safaris (and counting). This magnificent jewel of a caliber has never given me even the slightest bit of trouble (barring two bull elephants out of which one was purely due to faulty bullets). When Canadian Colonel Jefferson Spydell at Holland & Holland designed this caliber in 1912… I don’t think even he properly understood what he had just created.

 

[375er]

The Swiss Army Knife of rifle calibers. An excellent performer for everything on earth, except for body shots on bull elephant.

51 years of hunting in African Safaris (and counting). This magnificent jewel of a caliber has never given me even the slightest bit of trouble (barring two bull elephants out of which one was purely due to faulty bullets). When Canadian Colonel Jefferson Spydell at Holland & Holland designed this caliber in 1912… I don’t think even he properly understood what he had just created.
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Well said Sir!!!

 

[mark-hunter]

In this he extols the 375H&H, amongst its many virtues is the calibers capability of shooting 3 loads to virtually the same point of impact.

This is famous quote, of unknown origin, in many published articles on 375 H&H, that gives almost magical nature of the caliber. Various authors read other authors, and they catch the interesting phrases, and then it gets repeated.

The same can also be found in modern Wikipedia article on 375 H&H.
But my limited experience with 375 H&H (about 4 years in my possession by now) shows quite normal varying distribution of point of impact, with change of different lots or factory ammo: PPU, Norma, RWS factory ammo. Basically, if you want perfect point of impact, you need to zero for each factory lot. Nothing strange or magical in it!

As this was very common statement produced by many authors, I tried looking deeper into it. it was not logical, and it was not as per my experience.

What I came up with is several things for consideration, giving a better taste of reality:

1. How the point of impact was determined, with acceptable group size (accuracy)? This was never clarified. If determined by iron sights, then there was certainly a bigger margin of error accepted. Old rifles standard was up to 2 MOA, modern rifle standard is 1 MOA.

2. Distance? None of these statements claim exact distance at which the same point of impact was determined.
Same point of impact at 200 meters would be something, but the same point of impacts at 50 meters would not be overly impressive.

3. Marketing. At the beginning of 375 H&H life, this was the proprietary cartridge of the H&H company.
They were selling their own ammunition, for their own rifles, in three weights. 235, 270 and 300 grains.
With a bit of effort and load tests for which this company is certainly capable of, most probably, they were able to get similar point of impact with tailored ammunition of their own production, in their own barrel length, twist rate and profile, and with similar shape of bullet (BC).
Once this was achieved to acceptable level of accuracy, this was advertised accordingly.

(my own tests, with three different brands of factory ammo in 375 show normal expected discrepancies, not supporting the early advertising articles.
More over all my tests were done with 300 grain bullets)

So, when only one company was making ammo for this caliber, this claim I would say was possible. But not today, with so many factories in production of ammo of this caliber.

But this claim is sticky and many authors like to qoute it, generation after generation.

4. The rifle that shoots the same point of impact? Is it possible?

Yes there is one, and accidentally I have that one.
Tikka t3 tac, in 308 win. With varmint barrel profile, 23-3/4 inch lenght, 1/11 twist.
What ever I load in that rifle, in different weights from 165 to 180 grains, shoots at same point of impact at 100 meters. I have no other explanation, but to conclude that this happens due to minimizing of barrel harmonics with varmint barrel profile.

 

[BANDF]

This is famous quote, of unknown origin, in many published articles on 375 H&H, that gives almost magical nature of the caliber. Various authors read other authors, and they catch the interesting phrases, and then it gets repeated.

The same can also be found in modern Wikipedia article on 375 H&H.
But my limited experience with 375 H&H (about 4 years in my possession by now) shows quite normal varying distribution of point of impact, with change of different lots or factory ammo: PPU, Norma, RWS factory ammo. Basically, if you want perfect point of impact, you need to zero for each factory lot. Nothing strange or magical in it!

As this was very common statement produced by many authors, I tried looking deeper into it. it was not logical, and it was not as per my experience.

What I came up with is several things for consideration, giving a better taste of reality:

1. How the point of impact was determined, with acceptable group size (accuracy)? This was never clarified. If determined by iron sights, then there was certainly a bigger margin of error accepted. Old rifles standard was up to 2 MOA, modern rifle standard is 1 MOA.

2. Distance? None of these statements claim exact distance at which the same point of impact was determined.
Same point of impact at 200 meters would be something, but the same point of impacts at 50 meters would not be overly impressive.

3. Marketing. At the beginning of 375 H&H life, this was the proprietary cartridge of the H&H company.
They were selling their own ammunition, for their own rifles, in three weights. 235, 270 and 300 grains.
With a bit of effort and load tests for which this company is certainly capable of, most probably, they were able to get similar point of impact with tailored ammunition of their own production, in their own barrel length, twist rate and profile, and with similar shape of bullet (BC).
Once this was achieved to acceptable level of accuracy, this was advertised accordingly.

(my own tests, with three different brands of factory ammo in 375 show normal expected discrepancies, not supporting the early advertising articles.
More over all my tests were done with 300 grain bullets)

So, when only one company was making ammo for this caliber, this claim I would say was possible. But not today, with so many factories in production of ammo of this caliber.

But this claim is sticky and many authors like to qoute it, generation after generation.

4. The rifle that shoots the same point of impact? Is it possible?

Yes there is one, and accidentally I have that one.
Tikka t3 tac, in 308 win. With varmint barrel profile, 23-3/4 inch lenght, 1/11 twist.
What ever I load in that rifle, in different weights from 165 to 180 grains, shoots at same point of impact at 100 meters. I have no other explanation, but to conclude that this happens due to minimizing of barrel harmonics with varmint barrel profile.

I don't want to take this too off topic, but you're correct in the comment that it was possible H&H had their loads done such that they had a similar POI @ 100. Modern manufacturers of ammunition (especially for LE and Military) offer various loads within a given calibre that will have the same POI at an established distance... it's not particularly rocket science per se to create those conditions!


I would tend to agree with your comments across the board, if you actually tested a statistically significant quantity of ammo across a few different brands in .375, you'd certainly see the true dispersion and realize that all three loads as referenced initially would definitely shoot differently.

 

[Green Chile]

Whether or not you can get your personal 375 to shoot different weight bullets to same general POI doesn’t really matter. The 375 H&H is truly the Swiss Army knife of African calibers as @Hunter-Habib truthfully states. There isn’t anything it can’t do in Africa or many other places. I even recall Boddington using one on his first sheep hunt successfully! Also, they seem to be quite accurate across the board, at least in the 1/2 dozen different examples I have owned.

 

[SRvet]

I too tried mine for matching POI with different loads, in my case hand loads with the 250g Barnes TTSX and the 300g TSX. The results were disappointing to say the least with the 250g load hitting about 5 inches high and four inches to the right. Definitely not close enough to use without rezero. This has proven to be consistent and I used the data shot several months before to rezero both loads (11 clicks down and 7 clicks left to go from the 300g TSX to the 250g TTSX) and it worked perfectly!