Info On 375 H&H

375 H&H is a great big game caliber; seems to me it's just growing in popularity. Proven stopping power on anything you point it at, fairly readily available ammunition, and the recoil is not as bad as some would have you think. It's not uncommon for guys to consider the .338 win mag more of a kicker than the .375 H&H. I don't actually know anyone who ever bought a .375 H&H and regretted it - about the best evidence I can find to support owning a rifle in this caliber.
 
My CZ-550 Safari is by far my favorite rifle. I plan on taking it out this year for whitetails simply because I enjoy shooting it more than anything else I own. Its no mountain rifle, but beyond that the .375 H&H is arguably the only hunting round as versatile as the .30-06.

The recoil isn't bad at all - much more of a push than a shove, as others have mentioned. I found that shooting a lightweight .300 Win Mag was much more unpleasant. A .375 built on a properly sized receiver, with a sufficiently heavy stock will have enough weight to absorb a lot of that recoil. I think a lot of the really vicious .375's people had bad experiences with were simply too lightweight for that kind of a cartridge.
 
Buddy favours 235 gr. Speer SP's for his deer load @ +/- 2600. and 260 Nosler Partitions for moose at about 2750.

Both loads are very effective and not at all unpleasant to shoot. The deer load is a lot less damaging than most of the other guys 30-06's and 7mm's - you can pretty much "eat right up to the hole ! "
 
I have owned two 375 H&H's. One was a Brono 602 and the second I still own a Blaser R93. The 375 H&H was one of the first Magnum Rounds and Magnum rounds have there purpose. I have a Wby 257 Mag and Wby 300 Mag. The 300 Wby Mag is good for anything in North America and half of Africa. However if I was hunting the largest bears, such as Polar, Grizzily or Kodiak I would like the extra stopping power of the 375 H&H. The same goes for the 375 H&H, you can take anything in North America with confidence, but you might want a round in the 400's for the largest game such as Elephants or Rhino. What you are really getting is more hitting and stopping power with a Magnum. My other calibre of choice is the 30-06, I have killed Coyote to Bear/Moose with this calibre but I cannot deny that the magnum calibers can do the same job better (either flatter or harder).
You need to decide whether you want to be a one rifle hunter. In North America I would not recommend a 375 H&H for a one rifle man. In Africa however I would support that as your single weapon. In North America I would recommend a 30-06. 7mm Rem Mag or 300 Wby Mag for the one rifle hunter. The nice thing about all three of those calibers is you can still take alot of plains game if you ever have the chance to go to Africa.
Another bonus of the 375 H&H is it is often listed as the minimal calibre for hunting dangerous game in the Dark Continent.
I knew a guide once that swore that he never went into the mountains without a 375 H&H, it was the only rifle he would trust against a charging Grizzily.
Hunting literature is filled with praise for the 375 H&H and with commercial rounds available from Norma anywhere from 270 to 350 grains, it is a versatile cartridge. There is a reason it has been around for over a century.
 
When I bought my 375 Remington Safari a lot of my buddies commented it was overkill!Three moose later they sure changed thier attitudes, my moose were hanging while a couple of them were out chasing wounded animals and thats no fun where I live.All three dropped where they where they were hit including a 260yd. shot.So far I've only used 270gr.factory ammo but we're working up some good loads for this fall.Should be interesting.
 
Maybe I'll add a little to what I said earlier. i have a laminated Sako AV with the hard red buttpad. It's brutal to sight in and shoot of the bench, but out in the field when's there's hair in the scope recoil isn't noticed. If you don't pay attention with mine you'll eat the scope, three of my 300 mag buddy's have done it so far. The first time I sighted it in I put in one of those Leadsled gun clamps so it couldn't move. It completely destroyed a brand new variX3 (internals) with the first shot.

Great Caliber, you just have to respect it.
 
Compared to a 30-06 an 8.5 pound 375 H&H kicks plenty.

All of the shooters that say the 375 doesn't kick are experienced riflemen. To an experienced rifleman the 375 is a modest thump.
I can comfortably shoot 50-100 rounds in an afternoon, but that does not mean the same rifle and load wont beat the crap out of a new shooter.

A new 375 shooter may (at first) feel like he has a monster by the tail and needs to proceed with mastering the new rifle carefully and patiently.
I regularly see shooters fail miserably when trying to shoot something recoiling as modestly as a 338Win, 375H&H, or a 300Ultra.

Get your nervous system afraid of a rifle and you will never master it. New shooters need to cut themselves some slack and shoot only as many rounds as they are (very) comfortable with.
 
John303 said:
What surprised the H out of me the first I fired my Ruger #1 in .375 H&H was the fact it wanted to jump out of my hands. A firm grip with both hands (not a death grip) is a must or have a friend ready to grab it in mid air, not a problem anymore. --- John303
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That's exactly opposite to what I have experienced. I have the same Ruger #1 tropical in 375H&H but it recoils straight back. And yes it does kick the crap outta me even with a bushnell elite 3200 scope mounted, 3 shots at the bench sighting in and I had to stop.

Ended up using a sandbag for recoil pad between my shoulder and the gun. The recoil pad that came with the gun was absolutely useless, might as well be solid wood.

Still a very well rounded round though.
 
I didn't mean to say that the recoil was "negligible" there is plenty of that, but along with the recoil there was a "lift" sending the rifle up and away from the shoulder. Never had it happen to me before but then about the largest calibre I have used was in the .300 catagory.

One of the first things I did was to install a Deac. recoil pad to ease the recoil. I'm about to do the same on my #1 in .300 Weatherby. --- John303.
 
John, the #1 Rugers are very cool guns and I like them a lot, but they do not handle big gun recoil very well. I've had them in 416 Rigby and 460 WBY. My other guns in those calibers were way, way easier to handle. When my brother first got his 375 he couldn't believe how easy it was on the shoulder, he was used to his Mod 70 in 300 WBY. He parked the 300 and used the 375 for everything. With practice 375 recoil should not be a problem. If you fire 5-6 rounds a year before the season you'll never get it. If you want to use big guns you've got to shoot them as much as you would your little ones.
 
No doubt the .375 HH has notable recoil, but it isn't brutal by any means. That said an inexperienced shooter can become very flinchy, very quickly if they don't work their way, confidently, up to that kind of recoil. When a shooter starts getting a bit weary or jumpy, it's a good idea to back down to something more comfortable- even a .22LR- get the confidence back and work their way back up.

I love my Ruger #1, .375 HH, and I much prefer to shoot it from the bench, than my .444 Marlin. But they're both fun to hunt with!
 
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