.375 H&H Squirrel Loads

[Shooter]

I just found that Lee's .36 cal CB pistol bullets fit neatly in a .375 case. I am thinking of loading them over 4 grain of Bullseye with a pistol primer for squirrel/groundhog.
Anyone tryed this?

[Doc_Stihl]

I'd say YIKES on 4gr of Bulllseye in the big case. Trail boss works well in the 375HH.

[Larry Gibson]

4 -5 gr of Bullseye works wonderfully in that case under such a cast bullet. Lightly TL the bullets in LLA.

4 gr of Bullseye is also a very good small game plinking load under a .375 RB (lightly TL'd with LLA). Runs at 850 fps out of my M70 and has accounted for numerous rabbits, hares, ptarmigan and grouse.........

Larry Gibson

[Shooter]

Well I gave it a try, no glee. The Lee bullets key-hole @ 25M. Back to the drawing board.
Tryed some full power loads, and found out why .375 H&H Encore barrels are so cheep.:holysheep

[x101airborne]

Well I gave it a try, no glee. The Lee bullets key-hole @ 25M. Back to the drawing board.
Tryed some full power loads, and found out why .375 H&H Encore barrels are so cheep.:holysheep

Hahahahaaahhhhaa. I will bet! I fired one round of factory level jacketed in my 338-06 Encore and man, that is a handfull!

But if you know of a cheap H&H barrel for sale, I may be interested.

[Shooter]

Sent you a PM. The .375 is OK in my 10# Mauser, but the Encore only weighs 8#.
I have heard of a .416 barrel, I won't be going there.
I'm working on some deer loads using 375449 and Unique at .38-55 velocity.

[Hamish]

Tryed some full power loads, and found out why .375 H&H Encore barrels are so cheep.:holysheep

I smell a coming resurgence in .375 low power load development.

[Canuck Bob]

Wow, you got some BIG squirrels in Virginia!

[Shooter]

The "saber tooth" reds are the worst, when knocked from the tree they invaribly go to the thickest brush, and charge when approched. One needs a good stopping rifle, or shotgun.:bigsmyl2::kidding:

[OnHoPr]

As my eyes are declining with age, so is my shooting. Those squirrels are getting tougher and tougher, or my shots are not as keen as they once were. I was thinking of reloading a .223 with cast for those tree cats. Then a couple of years ago I shot at a black squirrel that was 20 yds away from me in a oak tree half way up and the darn thing high tailed down the tree and came straight for me. I had a .22 semi-auto and started shooting from half shoulder at 10 to 5 yds until it finally veered off. I could see the stained fangs on that beast, like a panther charge. It took a moment to compose myself. Then I thought of making one of those videos of black death. The only thing I needed was a mite more gun such as the .375 H&H. But, way I have been shooting lately I might need one of those for squirrel huntin. I suppose that I'll have to shoot twice as many squirrels, because I would only have to clean half of them.:Fire::kidding::bigsmyl2:

[Olevern]

Just curious, is this the only gun you own, or maybe the closest to a small game rifle you own? Not looking to insult, but just can't think of a valid reason to want to hunt small game with a caliber that is probably excessive for all but the Polar and grizzly bears, at least on this continent.

Now if the answer is "because I can", I say, knock yourself out. Your gun and your time. I have even downloaded my .375 H&H with a 235 gn. bullet and taken deer with it, but even I can't think of a good reason why, I just got bored with all the other rifles in the safes and so bypassed many more suitable guns for the .375 one deer season.

Come to think of it, I guess if you owned a civil war cannon and wanted to hunt chipmunks with it, who am I to critize?

Just curious as to what your reasoning was.

[smoked turkey]

I'll jump in here and state that I used my 375 H&H last season using cast and a light load to take a nice doe at approx 125 yards. The load performed beautifully without undo destruction of meat. Nice blood trail and ended up with good meat in the freezer. I would like to hunt grizzly or moose with my 375, but due to the expense it likely will not happen. In the meantime I enjoy shooting my 375 "medium bore" as it is sometimes called. I view the 375 H&H as one of the worlds great cartridges. It is also very versital being able to kill even the largest dangerous game with the proper bullet. Cast boolit shooting is a natural for this caliber especially if smaller game such as deer are on the menu. I have other rifles that I shoot and are probably more suited for whitetails. However I have not seen any other caliber perform any better on whitetail than my 375 H&H. I am considering using my .416 Remington mag next year with cast just to give the old girl a workout since Africa with her is not gonna happen.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Have you slugged the barrel? If fit is good, maybe try pushing it a tad faster. Did you chrono the load?

[rockrat]

Why not a round ball lubed with LLA? Might have to try that in mine.

[Shooter]

Just curious, is this the only gun you own, or maybe the closest to a small game rifle you own? Not looking to insult, but just can't think of a valid reason to want to hunt small game with a caliber that is probably excessive for all but the Polar and grizzly bears, at least on this continent.

Now if the answer is "because I can", I say, knock yourself out. Your gun and your time. I have even downloaded my .375 H&H with a 235 gn. bullet and taken deer with it, but even I can't think of a good reason why, I just got bored with all the other rifles in the safes and so bypassed many more suitable guns for the .375 one deer season.

Come to think of it, I guess if you owned a civil war cannon and wanted to hunt chipmunks with it, who am I to critize?

Just curious as to what your reasoning was.

You caught me, My name is Mike, and I am a gun nut. To quote Eastwood in one of his movies; "I've killed everthing that walks, crawls, or flys" in my area. The challange is to do it differently.
I am drawn to big bores, and the romance of Africa. But due to disabilitys, I will never get to go. So, I play. They use a lot of powder, so I load them down.
Today, I had good results with 375449 over 14.5 Gr. Unique in my .374 Encore. 4"@ 100. Plenty good for deer.
Yes, I do have a 1/2 scale mountain howitzer and a Spanish 4 bore swivel gun.
Yes, I have considered using them for deer. I have patterned the howitzer, and find if it were set on a trail at about 25 yards, it would be great. But it costs about $15 a shot.
I give most of the meat to Hunters for the Hungry. Deer are like rats around here, so they need to be thinned.
I would like to see a rare spieces, like quail
In the 70's, I hunted with muzzle loaders exclucively, squirrel hunting with a .32 flint is the purest form IMO. Dove hunting with a ML shotgun is a blast.
Then, I went to hand gun hunting. Many T/C barrels later, I still prefer a single shot gun.

[Larry Gibson]

Why not a round ball lubed with LLA? Might have to try that in mine.

Read post #3.

Larry Gibson

[Larry Gibson]

just can't think of a valid reason to want to hunt small game with a caliber that is probably excessive for all but the Polar and grizzly bears, at least on this continent.

No argument here as i respect the opinion expressed. However I would proffer an opposing view because personally I can't think of a "valid reason" why a "valid reason" is needed for such.

I regularly hunt big game with 35 - 45 caliber rifles including a M70 375 H&H. When hunting the big game in polar and grizzly bear country the .375 H&H is "comforting".....perhaps a bit much for caribou but not for moose in dense cover or even elk in a pole patch....and with grizz about the .375 H&H is indeed "comforting". When doing so I also have some cartridges loaded as mentioned for rabbit/hare, grouse and ptarmigan for the pot since I don't carry a "small game" rifle along when hunting "big game".

I also admit to hunting/shooting small game and small varmints with just about every handgun and rifle cartridge I've had. Those include the magnum handgun cartridges (is a .44 magnum really needed for squirrels by the above reasoning?) and every big game cartridge from .244 caliber up through .45 caliber. Why I even went hunting once with a .50 BMG rifle to shoot rock chucks. Why do I use reduced cast bullet loads or even HV jacketed loads for such small game or varmints? Simply because I want to is "why" and is all the "valid reason" I need...........

Larry Gibson

[caseyboy]

Larry says it well. No real reason needed. That is a great picture. The bullet is as big as the rodent. That is almost equivalent to the fly-fishing quest of a 20" trout on a size 20 fly.

[FergusonTO35]

I completely understand the desire to download a cartridge. Yesterday I had a wonderful time shooting 115 grain slugs with H4227 out of my Marlin .30 WCF. That is a dandy load for small game, varmints, and all around shooting.

[TCFAN]

Shooter
Is your Encore 375H&H in a pistol or rifle configuration. I would love to have a 375 in a rifle for my Encore for deer hunting and general shooting with down loaded cast boolits just like Smoked Turkey is doing with his 375...Terry

[cptuap]

My question on the original question is, is there a need to go with a pistol primer or will the standard rifle primer be ok if not better? Charlie

[FergusonTO35]

A .375 pistol? Yikes!! I really love the big bore mystique but I don't like the noise and recoil. Awhile back a local place received a special run of Remington 700's in .375 H&H. I was seriously considering one for reduced loads with cast boolits.

[Jeffrey]

American Rifleman recently had an article on the 375 H&H. An Encore in that calibre had me sorely tempted for a while. There are those that are fascinated by powerful handguns. Powerful rifles fascinate me. My H&R 444 is my current favorite. 10 grns Unique under a 265 RD has been great fun. Isn't that the point of reloading? Not only do we save a LOT of money on ammo (or shoot a lot more) but we also get to shot our favorite firearms with ammo we couldn't buy if we wanted to.

[Larry Gibson]

My question on the original question is, is there a need to go with a pistol primer or will the standard rifle primer be ok if not better? Charlie

Standard LR primers will work fine with small charges of powder in the large case. The Encore should fire them w/o problems.

Larry Gibson

[Shooter]

Terry, My Encore is a rifle.

Charlie, I have been using pistol primers with good results.

[Olevern]

Why not a round ball lubed with LLA? Might have to try that in mine.

Let us know if those rb's keyhole, will ya? :bigsmyl2:

[cptuap]

In looking for light loads for my Ruger#1 in .375H&H, I tried 10 to 12 grains of Bullseye with the 375449 cast soft and hard with good results. Soft or hard, 10,11,or 12 grains put all rounds within a 4" circle at 100yds. The 12 grain load ran about 1200 fps and I figure it might do ok for a short range deer load. The lighter bullets Shooter suggests with the 4-5 grains of Bullseye sound like a fun experiment. Just how much more or less can we do with the .375H&H? What fun! Charlie Oh ya! RB. Wow!

[1Shirt]

When I first started shooting a 375 H&H about 30 years ago, I tried just about every thing bullet weight, both cast and jacketed, and that included round ball with unique and bullseye loads. Fun, but most impractical. About the biggest cal that I would go squirrel hunting with would be a 30-30 with round ball with LLA, and limit myself to 25 yds (shoots fine to that in my 94 Win). However for all the messing around with center fires, would always go back to my 10-22 in LR for tree rats!
1Shirt!:coffee:

[Larry Gibson]

1Shirt

Some of us (mostly out west) consider that when "hunting" squirrels they are of the eating variety mostly shot out of trees. No doubt there the .22LR is about the best to use. However, out west we have numerous types of ground squirrels that are not for eating.....just shooting as they are vermine. Thus the larger calibers with such reduced loads with cast or even full power cast bullet loads can be used for such "squirrel shooting".......and a lot of fun it is:cbpour:

:drinks:

Larry Gibson

[1Shirt]

Well Larry, guess it is "to each his own!"
1Shirt!

[Larry Gibson]

Well Larry, guess it is "to each his own!"
1Shirt!


Yup, guess it just depends on where you are and what the shooting/hunting consists of. Probably why I agree 100% with; "[I][However for all the messing around with center fires, would always go back to my 10-22 in LR for tree rats!
/I]. That's where I end up most often when hunting tree rats.:D

Larry Gibson

[Olevern]

Yup, guess it just depends on where you are and what the shooting/hunting consists of. Probably why I agree 100% with; "[I][However for all the messing around with center fires, would always go back to my 10-22 in LR for tree rats!
/I]. That's where I end up most often when hunting tree rats.:D

Larry Gibson

I wish I could hunt squirrels with my 10-22 in Pa. No semi-autos allowed. I would also like to hunt squirrels with my various .32 revolvers (most of them Ruger single six's) but that too is verboten (nothing over .23 caliber for small game). I just read the hunting regs over again and see I can use either a black powder rifle or PISTOL in .44 cal or under for squirrel...hum...I have an old Lyman 58 Army in .36 cal that could be put to use in the squirrel woods.

I am thinking about looking for a small capacity .22 centerfire barrel for my contender to load with cast for squirrel (perhaps a .221 Rem. Fireball or .22 Hornet). I had a hornet barrel at one point but seem to have lost/misplaced it in my last move.

Like y'all, I sometimes like to do things differently, 22LR is probably the most logical choice for squirrel and that and my various .410 shotguns see most of the squirrel duty.(along with occasional use of my T/C Cherokee .32 frontloader) However I pursue squirrel, I definately do not want wasted meat as squirrel is probably my most treasured field to table meat.