On the cover is a very beautiful Red Deer taken a while back up in Maine at Lemon Stream Game Lands. I was testing out a reduced load for my .375 Ruger  in the Ruger M77 African and at the same time putting venison in the freezer.  Her coat was simply gorgeous and the meat was terrific. Lemon stream has lots of Red Stag too but I was not after trophies. I simply wanted good eating meat.  The several deer were scattered through the 400 acres in timber and this fat doe showed up at the end of the day. I shot her through the heart at 50 yards. I was shooting hand loads of 225 grain Hornady flat points at around 1700 fps as I recall, similar to the .375 Winchester in speed. The recoil with a winter jacket was less than my 50 cal muzzle loader.  The bullet went completely through her and she dropped after a few short steps. She dressed out at about 150 pounds. Because the Temperature was in the teens we got her back to the cabin and skinned and quartered her right then. I brought a big fishing cooler with me and loaded the quarters in my SUV and headed home the next day. During that next week my kitchen became the butcher shop and I personally cut vacuum sealed all that meat.

I have hand loaded that .375 Ruger up to Cape Buffalo loads with 300 grain solids and shot them within a few inches of 300 grain round nose soft points at 100 yards.

I took a Bull Moose with 260 grain Nosler AccuBonds 4 years ago with a Buffalo Load. If you look you can find that article in my Archives here. And the Buffalo/Bison Hunt too. I can’t say enough good about my .375 Ruger from a hand loader perspective. However, if you don’t hand load there is no reduced loading shells in the commercial market for it.

I have shot the .375 Ruger with Cape Buff loads with 260 grain Nosler AccuBonds out to 600 yards with 4000 ft lb at the Muzzle, look in the Archive section. I was shooting prone position and groups were astoundingly tight. Say 3 1/4 inches vertically at 600 yard unleashing 1500 ft lbs at that distance. In my hands, this Rifle can shoot. This year, the local deer population heard I was carrying the .375 with reduced loads of 230 grain round noses at 2100 fps and honestly they did not hang around. To bad I really want to show it to them. I’m sure they would’ve gotten a real eyeful. ®