These days, purchasing hand-loaded bullets for an Elk Hunt is like looking for a needle in a haystack. The .375 Ruger is a “one rifle for the world” kind of gun, and my Ruger African shoots more accurately than any rifle I own with a broad range of bullets.  I don’t have a 300 Win Mag rifle in my safe either, as the .375 covers it well.

Even some veteran hunting folks have a tough time mentally (fear) when they think of the heavy felt recoil from some so-called Magnum rifles, but with a state-of-the-art recoil pad that reduces the recoil up to 50%, they tame well.

It has been established, as a guide, that delivered energy to kill elk be in the neighborhood of 1500 ft-lbs. Here we easily exceed that terminal/delivered energy with the .375 Ruger.

I have two boxes of .375 bullets in my cupboard for hunting elk. I have Nosler 260 grain AccuBond bullets and Speer 235 grain Hot-Core semi-spitzer bullets seen below. I think both are good choices. But is one just a bit better?  Sure, I might try some other bullets before my hunt this next fall if they can be purchased,  but here is some data on these choices.

Both are sub-MOA accurate at 100 yards. My goal is to harvest a bull elk with ranges near 300 to 400 yards. The 260 grain Nosler AccuBond has a muzzle velocity of 2800+ fps and at 400 yards (7000 ft altitude).  Its terminal velocity on elk is 2178 fps and 400 yard energy is 2740 ft-lbs with a 90 degree wind deflection of 17 inches. It drops 16.5 inches with a 250 yard zero.

The Speer 235 grain Hot Core has a muzzle velocity of 3000 fps and at 400 yards its terminal velocity is 2064 fps and 400 yard energy is 2224 ft-lbs with a 90 degree wind deflection of 17 inches. I drops 16.5 inches with a 250 yard zero. Same drop and wind deflection as the Nosler.

The Ballistic data confirms that the Nosler AccuBond has 516 ft-lbs more terminal energy than the Speer bullet. At over 2700 ft-lbs of delivered energy the Nosler will easily open-up and mushroom yet still penetrate likely with a substantial exit wound on a broadside shot. I am a proponent of exit wounds for blood trailing.

Note: I did book an elk hunt and later cancelled after making several calls to many experts and doing a Satellite image review with Google Earth Pro. It was a featureless flat dessert landscape and I wanted more photogenic landscape with hills and trees for the many thousands of dollars it would cost.  I’ll keep looking.

Good Hunting!

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