Hornady's initial offerings for the .375 Ruger are, left to right, 270-grain InterLock spirepoint, 300-grain InterBond roundnose, 300-grain FMJ roundnose. Initial testing in Africa proved to the author that these bullets do everything anyone needs a .375 to do.

It was early in the year when I heard the first rumor about a "new .375 cartridge." It remained cloaked in secrecy for some time, but so what? Ho hum, yawn. Anything anybody needed in a .375-caliber cartridge was done in by Holland and Holland in 1912, right? Anything anybody thought they needed in a .375 cartridge was done by Roy Weatherby, not once but twice (.375 and .378 Weatherby Magnums)--and again by Remington in 2000 with the .375 RUM. Well, no hurry; this new wonder boy will come along in due time, and I'll have to grit my teeth and write about it.

Such was my attitude in early June 2006 when Steve Hornady and I went to Zimbabwe. I must be a retro sort of guy; I was extremely excited about the first American rifle and load for the .450/.400-3 inch (.400 Jeffery) that I carried, and I wasn't in the least jealous that Steve carried the first M77 Ruger in .375 Ruger.

I must say that Steve did some very good work with this rifle and cartridge. During the course of nearly three weeks he took more than a dozen animals from impala to Cape buffalo in size with the .375 Ruger, and he managed to use all three of Hornady's loads for the new cartridge: 270-grain Interlock spirepoint, 300-grain InterBond roundnose and 300-grain FMJ roundnose.

OK, I was actually, grudgingly, impressed. Steve Hornady hadn't been in Africa for a long, long time, but he's done as much mountain hunting as anyone I know. He shot like a machine, making difficult shots look easy and easy shots look like child's play.

Yeah, I probably look like I'm thinking, "This is gonna hurt." With a fairly short, trim barrel and the standard-length action the M77 in .375 Ruger is fairly light and produces stout recoil off the bench--but it isn't unmanageable, and most experienced shooters should be able to handle it.

But nobody makes taking that amount of game look easy with a poor rifle or an unsuitable cartridge, nor can it be done without consistently good bullet performance. In his hands the .375 Ruger performed at least as well as any .375 H&H I've ever seen.

A BRAND-NEW .375
This is not damning with faint praise, not at all. The .375 H&H provides one of the world's greatest benchmarks for performance. Throughout most of Africa it is the accepted minimum for thick-skinned dangerous game, and it is also a world standard in terms of versatility. With a 95-year track record, it is also a benchmark for bullet performance.

Any .375 cartridge must first be judged against the H&H. It is my opinion that the primary reason the .376 Steyr failed is because it didn't come close enough in performance. The .378 Weatherby, on the other hand, has never been popular because it is too much of a good thing: too much more recoil and too fast for most .375 bullets.

Wayne Holt checking zero on his synthetic-stocked Ruger M77 Mk II in .375 Ruger. The author has now seen four different .375 Ruger rifles, and all have shot very well.

The .375 Ruger is not the .375 H&H, but it measures up well, and in all ways. In fact, as much as it truly galls me to say this, the .375 Ruger is probably a better cartridge. (Ouch, just typing that line hurt me.) The .375 Ruger is a joint project between Hornady and Ruger, and it is the first big-game rifle cartridge to bear the Ruger name.

It starts with a very clever case, a straight, unbelted case with exactly the same .532-inch rim as the .375 H&H. Since it is a rimless, unbelted case that doesn't "step down" in front of the belt, it is thus a fatter case than the .375. The case ends at 21?2 inches--.30 inch shorter than the .375 H&H--but since it's a bit fatter and has no taper before the shoulder, it slightly exceeds the .375 H&H in powder capacity.