A LEFTY AT LAST
I left Ken and Wayne in Mozambique to do a bit more hunting and headed home. As Ken had promised, when I got home there was a long Ruger box awaiting me, and in it was the very first left-hand Ruger M77 in .375 Ruger. This was a walnut-stocked rifle, 23-inch barrel, good iron sights. In another box was plenty of Hornady ammo. I wasted little time getting it to the range, and in a proper left-hand rifle I can offer more detailed shooting impressions.

The .375 H&H, left, with the new .375 Ruger. The new cartridge uses the same .532-inch rim diameter, but the belt is fatter and the body taper has slightly more case capacity even though, at 2 1/2 inches, it's .30 inch shorter.

Accuracy in this particular left-hand rifle is good, but in my opinion it's not as good as Steve Hornady's rifle was. This is no surprise; accuracy in any factory rifle is going to vary, and I saw the normal variance from good enough to very, very good. Too, none of the barrels have been shot enough to have been properly broken in, so at this stage good enough is definitely good enough.

Recoil is considerable. The .375 H&H is a pussycat for its power level, but when you go up from .375 H&H velocity you are going to go up fast in recoil. Ruger's straight stock design helps considerably, but you must also take into account the fact that, with a shorter barrel and a lighter (smaller equals lighter) action, most .375 Ruger rifles will be lighter than most .375 H&H rifles.

They do produce a bit more recoil. I can handle it. Ken, Steve and Wayne could handle it. My girlfriend, Donna (who is also left-handed), tried it and wasn't too sure about it. For almost anyone, however, the .375 Ruger kicks enough to take some getting used to, and I don't recommend shooting it off the bench any more than is absolutely necessary.

The author and professional hunter J.P. Kleinhans with a good waterbuck, dropped in its tracks with a frontal shot with a 270-grain Hornady InterLock.

Feeding is superb, not only in the left-hand rifle but in all the right-hand rifles I have seen. As most of you know by now, obtaining smooth feeding can be problematic with our new short, fat magnums, but this does not seem to be a problem with this cartridge, at least not in the Ruger M77 with .30-06-length action.

The reason I abandoned Wayne Holt and Ken Jorgensen in the wilds of Mozambique was because I had a short turnaround before a long-awaited safari in Tanzania. I'm leaving in just a few days, and that left-hand .375 Ruger is already in my gun case, with both solids and softs in my bulging duffel bag.

We're going to a new area, and I have no idea exactly what we'll find, but I'm certain the .375 Ruger will be up to the challenge--just as certain as I am that Hornady and Ruger have a winner of a .375 cartridge, a cartridge that may well redefine, for the first time since 1912, our concept of the world's best all-around cartridge.