.375 Ruger or Savage ?

Michael458 said:
BowWow.............. I think it depends on what your end goal is. Unless you say different, for this post, I will assume just having and owning a larger bore, maybe do some local hunting, and maybe do some shooting.

Big questions...... Do you Hand Load? If so, then you can increase your potentials a 1000 fold. If you hand load, I urge you to forget the smaller calibers and go straight to .458 caliber. There are literally 100s of bullets available in .458 caliber for many various missions. As Ronn says, 45/70 is great. It is. If you did not want to go the lever gun route, take a look at a Ruger #1.......... man, they are great fun. A Ruger #1 in 45/70 has tremendous advantages over the lever version, and you can damn near dupicate 458 Winchester ballistics if you wanted, or you can down load to 1000-1200 fps and have a big fat slow bullet, no recoil to speak of, and have a lot of fun with it. Decide to do some hunting, you have so many wonderful bullets to choose from it is staggering.
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Being a fan of the 45/70, there are other options past a Ruger #1 for a strong action. Please meet the Siamese Mauser, a bolt action 45/70 in the classic Mauser action and extremely strong. This rifle coupled with handloading prowess insures that the hunter will never be undergunned on the North American continent and probably very adequately armed elsewhere and unlike the #1, there are several followup shots in the magazine at the ready.

But lately I've been going very old school on a big bore- 50/70 in a Remington Roller with tang sights, Hadley eyecup and spirit level equipped front globe sight. Yeah, it doesn't have, nor is capable of power levels the Mauser can get to but sometimes it's just cool to be launching 400gr boolits with real black powder. Sorta like driving a classic car that hasn't been molested.
 
Michael458 said:
OMG........ I just remembered that I have been Lying like a dog to all of you about .375............ I am so sorry for this. It was not intentional.......

I do indeed own at least TWO .375s, and I LOVE THEM......... OMG..... I don't even know how to admit to this.................

I completely forgot about this..........

38-55.............. It is actually .375 Caliber...............................I have even used it to hunt successfully with as well....................

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I suppose I am going to have to "Eat Some Crap" over this..............

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And, I have a single shot 1885 chambered in 38-55 as well........................
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You eat that cat?
 
Tailhunter said:
We ain’t got no elepants and tiggers and rhinnys in North Carolina.
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On the other hand, there has been in recent years an influx into North Carolina of creatures with cloaca (thinks to be mindful of community standards) - shall we say - that are as large as elepants, tiggers, and rhinnys. ;)

Huh ... hadn't really thought that I would need a big bore rifle, but now ...
 
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Michael458 said:
Yeah, but it is good to make dangerous game DEAD REALLY FAST............................I don't want to hunt these with no RAT caliber rifle.......... HEH HEH...................

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Different worlds.
Never been exposed to yours, so I have no understanding of the mindset.

but your guns sure are pretty. :p
 
Tailhunter said:
Different worlds.
Never been exposed to yours, so I have no understanding of the mindset.
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Its easy. If it can bite you and eat you, you don't want to give it any leeway. Get it in the dirt hard and fast, and good if you break things so it can't get to you to bite you! The larger calibers do that for you, starting at .458 and optimum at .500 or .510. When you go above those calibers, you have other issues to contend with such as platform size and weight, recoil and so forth that can slow you down. .458, .474, .500 and .510 is good. As long as you have the right sort of BULLETS of course......Even the best and biggest meanest cartridge you can have on the finest most expensive rifle out there, is not worth a crap without the right bullet.
 
Michael458 said:
Its easy. If it can bite you and eat you, you don't want to give it any leeway. Get it in the dirt hard and fast, and good if you break things so it can't get to you to bite you! The larger calibers do that for you, starting at .458 and optimum at .500 or .510. When you go above those calibers, you have other issues to contend with such as platform size and weight, recoil and so forth that can slow you down. .458, .474, .500 and .510 is good. As long as you have the right sort of BULLETS of course......Even the best and biggest meanest cartridge you can have on the finest most expensive rifle out there, is not worth a crap without the right bullet.
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I agree 100 %, one could almost say a .375 with a quality bullet is better than a .458 with a crappy slug:), just picking at you but there is some truth in the statement.
 
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OldNascar said:
I agree 100 %, one could almost say a .375 with a quality bullet is better than a .458 with a crappy slug:), just picking at you but there is some truth in the statement.
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Believe it or not, I would concur with that statement.........

I might have told this story already, forgive me if I have. My buddy in Australia, Paul Truccolo, ordered a nice $20'000 double rifle in 500 NE. Paul has a 500 MDM that has a tremendous reputation of hammering buffalo to the dirt at the shot, DRT. This is his backup rifle, but he got "double rifle" fever. Sam, Myself and the entire McCourry Clan pitched up in camp with Paul in 2012. The week before he had two hunters, both had 500 NE double rifles and Pauly was singing the blues to Sam and myself. He was convinced he had pissed his money away on a useless cartridge, it was funny as can be, we laughed our asses off about how hang dog he was. We knew already what the problem had to be, it is not the cartridge. Paul went on about how 500 NE absolutely would not kill buffalo, bullets bounced off of them, would not penetrate. He had to shoot and put down every single buffalo they shot, I think a total of 10 for the two of them. Paul was happy with his 500 MDM, it was a killing machine. The two hunters were not happy with their rifles either, and now they wanted 500 MDMs.

Sam and I asked what bullets they were using. Paul replied they were Hawk Bullets. Well, Hawk is not bonded, not premium bullets and notorious for flattened out like pancakes and breaking apart. You could not get a worse bullet for buffalo, in fact, not sure they would penetrate good enough on deer for that matter. He explained that none were penetrating the shoulder and getting to vitals.............. Both Sam and I nearly rolled around the ground laughing and asked who in the world made a decision to use Hawk bullets? They said their gunsmith recommended them. Unfortunately the gunsmith had never even seen a damn buffalo, much less ever shot one, so I am not sure how he became such an expert!

We told Pauly not to worry that he would see a difference the next day. Sam and I had been working on the big .510 Raptors for 500 NE and we had a smoking load with a new 475 Raptor in .510 caliber. The first big bull Sam shot with his 500 NE and the new 475 Raptor, stood, quivered a little bit, and dropped where he stood. This went on for another 8-10 buffalo that Sam shot with it. Paul was very happy now that he had not thrown $20'000 in the toilet.

Bullet is EVERYTHING............ It can make you successful or it can cause you to Fail miserably.....................Choose Wisely.
 
Tailhunter said:
Different worlds.
Never been exposed to yours, so I have no understanding of the mindset.
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Many years ago my hunting buddy and I were thinking and planning a Lion hunt. At the time he did not have a larger bore gun. He was debating on what caliber/cartridge and what have you. He wanted 375, I urged him to get a 458. A really big big male lion only weighs in at 450 maybe to 500 lbs. Of course 375 would do the job and has many times over. He discussed it with the PH at the time as well, the PH also urged him to go with the 458, lions you really don't want to play around with, you want to slam them hard right up front. Between myself and the PH advise, he indeed went with 458 Winchester. This was 5 years before any of the B&Ms. Our hunt was in August in Mozambique.

June rolled around and Zimbabwe was in turmoil. This was 2000. A PH Friend of mine got in touch with me that he had two areas that were being ransacked by lions and he had no hunters. Everyone was scared to go to Zimbabwe at the time because of the political situation. He asked if I wanted to come over and help out with the lion problems. I was on a airplane in a few days headed to Zimbabwe along with my Winchester M70 in 458 Winchester. I was loaded with 400 Swift A frames at 2325 fps. I figured this should work pretty good and hit lions hard. I won't go into the lion story, but I was right, I slammed a male and female in the dirt DRT on the 5th or 6th night as I recall. Yes, we were hunting at night. It was comforting to have that extra diameter.

Later we found ourselves in Mozambique and once again in an area with problem lions. Second night out, slam dunk a big body lion, broken shoulders, DRT and out. Of the 3 lions I shot that year, none of them took a step, just the way you want that to go down.

My buddy ended up being shit scared in Mozambique, got really tired of it, shot a female a few nights in and left the country back to South Africa. He never wanted to hunt lion again. But he slammed dunked it where it stood with his 458 Winchester.

Point is, with these sort of critters you really don't want to play around, you want to accomplish the mission with extreme prejudice. .458 + helps you do that, "With the Proper Bullet"......... of course.
 
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