Developing a hunting load

[Fjold]

I'm developing loads for my 375 H&H for a trip to Africa next year and here's the pic of what I loaded up this evening.

The 300 grain TSX is what I used for a soft point load in Namibia in 2008. Left to right I loaded some 260 grain Partition, 270 grain Barnes banded solid, 300 grain Partition, 300 grain Barnes TSX, 300 grain Barnes banded solid, 300 grain Hornady encapsulated solid. All with varying amounts of Reloader 15, IMR4064 and H4350.

I have some 270 and 300 grain Hornady spire points also but they're just for practice loads.

My shoulder is not looking forward to the next range session.

[Chief-7700]

They look nice. The pain will set you free.

[bcrich]

Frank, you are one lucky dude.....African hunting trip! that's gotta cost an arm & a leg. When you work up a hunting load- are you trying for a certain velocity so your shots will be effective on dangerous game? or do you go for accuracy? Those things look like they are really gonna hurt. Good luck!

[buffybuster]

I hate you!

Now we got that out of the way. I can't see being too much difference between the 270gr Barnes banded solid and the 300gr version. Are you trying for the same POI for the various loads?

[Fjold]

Chief 7700
I'm shooting the 300 grain TSX at 2470 fps (8' from the muzzle) and that groups at around 1/2 MOA, I'm going to adjust the solid loads up and down from about 2,400 fps up to 2,600 FPS to try to match the 100 yard POI for the TSX load. So I'll load the all the solids up and down to see if I can get them to impact in the same area as the 300 grain TSX.

Buff
Yep, The 300 grain solid is about 1/8" longer and sits deeper in the case so that bullets are the same distance to the lands of the barrel. My ideal would be a solid load that hits close enough to my 300 grain TSX load that I can shoot it interchangeably. I want to have a TSX in the chamber followed by three solids for Buffalo. As long as the solid will hit within an inch or so of the soft I'll be happy, I figure minute of Buffalo at 50-100 yards is all it takes.

I can shoot everything else with either softs or solids but for Buff I want the combination of both bullets.