BigUglyMan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- New Scotland
As many of you have no doubt heard, I just returned from a 10 day dangerous game hunt in Zimbabwe's Chewore South Safari Area. While on the hunt I had the opportunity to become thoroughly familiar with the 375 Ruger M77 African, Trijicon Accupoint 3-9x and Hornady Dangerous Game ammunition and thought that I would offer my "example of one" as a product review.
Hornady Dangerous Game Ammunition
I used 300 grain DGX and DGS for all my hunting while in Zimbabwe. I've always considered the 375 as marginal as I tend toward larger diameter bullets and heavier weights for a given animal. I only recovered one bullet of the5 animals that I shot. The single bullet needed to kill my Cape Buffalo did not exit but the skinners could not recover it. Hindsight tells me that I should have stayed around and dug inside him myself. The recovered bullet came from my Warthog. The bullet, a 300gr DGX, penetrated a 3" Mopane tree and struck the warthog in th rear end, lodging in his liver. We spent 3 hours tracking him before finishing him off but I don't blame the bullet for that. In fact, I'm impressed that a softpoint penetrated 3" of green hardwood and still drove itself 18" into the warthog. The bullet fired into the buffalo penetrated the shoulder and chopped the aorta off, penetrated the lungs and likely lodged in the off shoulder as it wasn't under the hide. I shot my Impala with a 300gr DGS as I was nearly out of expanding bullets and I wanted to save it in case I came across a big kudu that we had seen. The shot was a classic "Portugese Heart Shot" (as they call them over there) and it penetrated the rear left ham, the length of the body cavity and broke the neck before whizzing off into MMBA.
The only criticism that I can level at the ammunition is that there were a few feeding hiccups. They all happened when I was using FMJ ammunition. I know that you can't exclusively blame the ammunition for feeding difficulties, but I think that the slightly blunt meplat didn't help things. in fact, the jam I had while reloading after my first (and only) shot on the buffalo drove the bullet back into the case. I think that the crimp wasn't tight enough (not sure if there's a cannelure on the DGS bullet - can someone confirm?) but whatever the case, that malfunction could have gotten me killed if the situation had gone differently. Call it 50% rifle and 50% ammo.
Trijicon Accupoint 3-9x40mm
This is a really sad one to review. The theory behind the scope with the lighted post reticle is incredibly sound. But once I got using it I was extremely disappointed. My first criticism is that the glass in the scope is poor. When I first looked through it I was greeted by an image distorted around the edges, similar to looking through the peephole in your front door. My second criticism is that the lighted portion of the reticle is far too large. I was using the post reticle with the lighted triangle on the top. The triangle is far too large and too bright. I found that the size and brightness caused my eye to want to focus on the triangle itself and not on the tip of the triangle where the POI was. This caused me to miss a few shots high that I really should have made. Of course, misses are caused by operator error and not inanimate objects, but a more subdued reticle in terms of size and brightness, would have made things much easier. I would redesign the reticle to have a lighted portion 25% the size of the current one (the top half of the triangle lighted would be much better) and do something about the brightness. I had the adjustable shade on the scope (the shade that controls the amount of fiber-optic exposed to ambient light) as closed as it could be and the reticle was still brighter than I wanted. Perhaps if the reticle was smaller it would in turn be dimmer. Trijicon turned what was great in theory into a failed experiment by giving us too much of a good thing. The reticle only needs to be bright enough to be easily distinguished against the target, not so bright that it draws your eye to it and distracts you from the shot you are about to make.
On the bright side, the power ring was rubber-armored and had high ridges so that it could be adjusted and checked (I was constantly checking to ensure that it was on 3x) without having to look at it. It also adjusted smoothly and easily but not so easily that it wandered if bumped. Perhaps my impression of the scope would be different if I was using the model with a crosshair rather than the post, but for a scope that carries an MSRP of $815 USD, I think that the execution fell short.
Ruger M77 Hawkeye African 375 Ruger
I was not surprised when I first picked up this rifle. It was built well and felt good in my hands. The iron sights have been redesigned and I intend to contact Ruger to get one of the rear sights to replace the folding version supplied with my #1H. The rifle was tight and did not rattle. It was actually fairly light and comfortable to carry, despite the 40mm scope on top. The only criticism I could level at the rifle is that I would prefer the swivel stud to be on a barrel band, not on the stock. That's a minor quibble though on an otherwise well built and quality rifle, and I'm sure that the stud on the wood stock was just a question of economics - you can't have a $1000 MSRP when you add on the custom touches.
But there was a hitch. Several, in fact. On three separate occasions the rifle jammed when feeding from the magazine while I was performing a fast reload after shooting an animal. As well, the rifle was often balky when feeding from the magazine (we kept the mag loaded and loaded the chamber when we set out from the truck). These balky feeds were cleared by releasing the forward pressure on the bolt. They only occurred when feeding the first round out of a full magazine, with the rounds staggered so that the top round was on the right hand side of the magazine with the mag full. I was unable to pin down the cause of the poor feeding in the time that I was there. If the rifle were mine I would spend some time polishing the feed ramp and ensuring that the ammunition fed correctly before tackling dangerous game, or any other game for that matter. The feeding issues only cropped up with Hornady 300gr DGS ammunition so it may be attributable to the slightly flat meplat on the bullet. But if that is the case I would also suspect that the rifle would misfeed ammunition loaded with the Barnes Banded Solid, which is fast becoming the darling of the African Safari Client. It could also be that there was a roughness or burr somewhere that hindered feeding. Either way, poor feeding is something that needs rectifying prior to embarking on an important hunt. As I said above, I blame the rifle and ammunition equally, not having had time to entirely sort out the problem.
So there is my review. Far short of the "Just Got Back" thread that people are waiting for, but hopefully it's an interesting read.
Hornady Dangerous Game Ammunition
I used 300 grain DGX and DGS for all my hunting while in Zimbabwe. I've always considered the 375 as marginal as I tend toward larger diameter bullets and heavier weights for a given animal. I only recovered one bullet of the5 animals that I shot. The single bullet needed to kill my Cape Buffalo did not exit but the skinners could not recover it. Hindsight tells me that I should have stayed around and dug inside him myself. The recovered bullet came from my Warthog. The bullet, a 300gr DGX, penetrated a 3" Mopane tree and struck the warthog in th rear end, lodging in his liver. We spent 3 hours tracking him before finishing him off but I don't blame the bullet for that. In fact, I'm impressed that a softpoint penetrated 3" of green hardwood and still drove itself 18" into the warthog. The bullet fired into the buffalo penetrated the shoulder and chopped the aorta off, penetrated the lungs and likely lodged in the off shoulder as it wasn't under the hide. I shot my Impala with a 300gr DGS as I was nearly out of expanding bullets and I wanted to save it in case I came across a big kudu that we had seen. The shot was a classic "Portugese Heart Shot" (as they call them over there) and it penetrated the rear left ham, the length of the body cavity and broke the neck before whizzing off into MMBA.
The only criticism that I can level at the ammunition is that there were a few feeding hiccups. They all happened when I was using FMJ ammunition. I know that you can't exclusively blame the ammunition for feeding difficulties, but I think that the slightly blunt meplat didn't help things. in fact, the jam I had while reloading after my first (and only) shot on the buffalo drove the bullet back into the case. I think that the crimp wasn't tight enough (not sure if there's a cannelure on the DGS bullet - can someone confirm?) but whatever the case, that malfunction could have gotten me killed if the situation had gone differently. Call it 50% rifle and 50% ammo.
Trijicon Accupoint 3-9x40mm
This is a really sad one to review. The theory behind the scope with the lighted post reticle is incredibly sound. But once I got using it I was extremely disappointed. My first criticism is that the glass in the scope is poor. When I first looked through it I was greeted by an image distorted around the edges, similar to looking through the peephole in your front door. My second criticism is that the lighted portion of the reticle is far too large. I was using the post reticle with the lighted triangle on the top. The triangle is far too large and too bright. I found that the size and brightness caused my eye to want to focus on the triangle itself and not on the tip of the triangle where the POI was. This caused me to miss a few shots high that I really should have made. Of course, misses are caused by operator error and not inanimate objects, but a more subdued reticle in terms of size and brightness, would have made things much easier. I would redesign the reticle to have a lighted portion 25% the size of the current one (the top half of the triangle lighted would be much better) and do something about the brightness. I had the adjustable shade on the scope (the shade that controls the amount of fiber-optic exposed to ambient light) as closed as it could be and the reticle was still brighter than I wanted. Perhaps if the reticle was smaller it would in turn be dimmer. Trijicon turned what was great in theory into a failed experiment by giving us too much of a good thing. The reticle only needs to be bright enough to be easily distinguished against the target, not so bright that it draws your eye to it and distracts you from the shot you are about to make.
On the bright side, the power ring was rubber-armored and had high ridges so that it could be adjusted and checked (I was constantly checking to ensure that it was on 3x) without having to look at it. It also adjusted smoothly and easily but not so easily that it wandered if bumped. Perhaps my impression of the scope would be different if I was using the model with a crosshair rather than the post, but for a scope that carries an MSRP of $815 USD, I think that the execution fell short.
Ruger M77 Hawkeye African 375 Ruger
I was not surprised when I first picked up this rifle. It was built well and felt good in my hands. The iron sights have been redesigned and I intend to contact Ruger to get one of the rear sights to replace the folding version supplied with my #1H. The rifle was tight and did not rattle. It was actually fairly light and comfortable to carry, despite the 40mm scope on top. The only criticism I could level at the rifle is that I would prefer the swivel stud to be on a barrel band, not on the stock. That's a minor quibble though on an otherwise well built and quality rifle, and I'm sure that the stud on the wood stock was just a question of economics - you can't have a $1000 MSRP when you add on the custom touches.
But there was a hitch. Several, in fact. On three separate occasions the rifle jammed when feeding from the magazine while I was performing a fast reload after shooting an animal. As well, the rifle was often balky when feeding from the magazine (we kept the mag loaded and loaded the chamber when we set out from the truck). These balky feeds were cleared by releasing the forward pressure on the bolt. They only occurred when feeding the first round out of a full magazine, with the rounds staggered so that the top round was on the right hand side of the magazine with the mag full. I was unable to pin down the cause of the poor feeding in the time that I was there. If the rifle were mine I would spend some time polishing the feed ramp and ensuring that the ammunition fed correctly before tackling dangerous game, or any other game for that matter. The feeding issues only cropped up with Hornady 300gr DGS ammunition so it may be attributable to the slightly flat meplat on the bullet. But if that is the case I would also suspect that the rifle would misfeed ammunition loaded with the Barnes Banded Solid, which is fast becoming the darling of the African Safari Client. It could also be that there was a roughness or burr somewhere that hindered feeding. Either way, poor feeding is something that needs rectifying prior to embarking on an important hunt. As I said above, I blame the rifle and ammunition equally, not having had time to entirely sort out the problem.
So there is my review. Far short of the "Just Got Back" thread that people are waiting for, but hopefully it's an interesting read.
