In 2018, my readers knew I was hunting Texas at Wildlife Systems, Rocky Creek with Larry Weishuhn (Mr. Whitetail). Larry invariably had a friendly smile and soft Texas drawl. Photo below Larry’s buck antlers for rattling made my NH antlers look small!
I mentioned to Larry that I left my Ruger M77 Hawkeye Africa rifle in .375 Ruger home. Larry pipes right up, “shot a number of deer with my .375 Ruger, you should have brought it”! Love that cartridge! Me too, “I’m thinkin” Now (November 2020) I am taking the .375 Ruger back for a Trophy Deer Hunt to Texas — lots of land to self distance!
I recently sent an email to Larry:
Hi Larry,
You and I have championed the 375 Ruger for years certainly for me since 2012/2013. I have written dozens of articles on the .375 Ruger as part of my Ruger M77 Hawkeye African Rifle.
Here are just a few of my articles. I shot hand loaded 260g Nosler AB’s at 600 yards prone “High Power Practice” full power and my groups were 3 ½ inches at 600 yds and 3/8th inch 3 shot at 100 yards. As a handloader “the .375 Ruger makes me smile”. Sounds like the title of a new article!!
https://www.nhrifleman.com/hand-loading-the-375-ruger-for-deer-bear-moose-and-cape-buffalo/
https://www.nhrifleman.com/the-375-ruger-cartridge-a-handloaders-dream-cartridge/
https://www.nhrifleman.com/reloading-the-375-ruger-changed-me-by-ed-hale/
https://www.nhrifleman.com/the-375-ruger-enough-cartridge-and-accurate/
https://www.nhrifleman.com/ruger-375-buffs-cant-get-enough/
Robert Ruark always said; USE ENOUGH GUN and the .375 Ruger does that splendidly. I am taking my .375 Ruger to Rocky Creek in November.
AND LARRY E-MAILS BACK
Ed,
THANK YOU SIR… Great articles!
Perfect choice for Rocky Creek! In my opinion!
I’ve taken elephant, hippo, several African and Australian buffalo, African lion, and plains game on down to blue duiker; in Europe
roe deer, fallow, red stag, mouflon, ibex; in North America a near 11 foot brown bear down to whitetails.. Still my one most favorite round with which to hunt the world. Have shot it out to 700 yards.
I do like your new title!
All the BEST,
Larry
*********
Larry notes that he uses factory Hornady Ammo for all his hunts.
I on the other hand have almost never hunted game with a factory load of any caliber and derive great satisfaction from hand-loading my own rounds customized to each rifle.
Each to his own, right. Larry is a good friend and a world class sportsman!
You can find Larry on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/larryweishuhnoutdoors/
Happy Birthday Larry!
Perhaps I got that reloading bug from Jim Carmichael of “Outdoor Life” Fame. I recall that Jim had a 458 slug taken from a bull elephant that he harvested and said that it was in such great shape that he could hand-load it again. Jim was a great shot and at the time reloaded for his bench rest competition, as I recall. Being of an engineering mindset hand loading is a great hobby!
Just yesterday I loaded up some more .375 Ruger rounds with SR 4759 (now out of manufacture) with an additional grain of powder with Speer’s 235 grain Hot Core Bullet made famous by Vernon Speer. Molten lead poured hot with the copper jacket is near enough to bonded in my book. I achieved around 2200 fps, my secret deer load goal and shot a 3 shot one inch group at 100 yards. Why 2200 fps? Because, I believed that out to 150 yards I would still get decent mushrooming and delivered energy with this reduced load in a semi-spitzer and still have hit that big buck with the .375 diameter “Hammer of Thor”! Yet the recoil was just a bit less than a full power 30-06 shooting 180 grain ammo.
It is interesting to note for the technical folks out there that in 2005 Chuck Hawkes, the owner/managing editor of Guns & Shooting Online first published his formula called Killing Power Score or KPS where the frontal bullet area (.1104 for the .375 vs .0745 for a .308) was instrumental in the calculation along with BC and bullet speed. The .375 has more frontal area and thus if you can control speed and BC you can customize your so called “Hammer”.
Below is a big bull moose with a smaller rack that I whacked with a 300 grain Nosler AB with a load of RL-15, the bull dropped in 2 steps at the shot. The wind was blowing up to 30 mph and the thermometer was in the teens. With Wind Chill being well below zero I was happy to have this bull in my Leupold VX-6 crosshairs.
800 pound Newfoundland Moose October 2019
First reduced load harvest was fat Red Deer with Hornady’s now defunct 220 grain FP traveling around 1500 fps. At 30 yards I got full penetration and the deer fell dead with a heart shot.
Below is my New Hampshire bull taken with the .375 Ruger and 260 grain heads. My partner followed up with his .308 Winchester.
Below is an 800 pound Bison, a one shot kill with the .375 Ruger and 260 g Nosler AB. The bull was moving fast at 100 yards but felt confident at the shot. He fell dead as a door-nail entering a rear rib and up thru the heart and lungs, broke the far shoulder and kept going. We were lucky as all get-out to have a skidder nearby to load in the truck.
The .375 Ruger, Larry and I agree is one cartridge for the World!
Good Hunting!
© 2020