You are correct in one thing I've never shot anything with a LEE 402HP! I have, however, been shooting game up to and including Coastal Brown bear with hyper loaded 45-70s for years in a very strong Ruger No1. That makes little difference, however! Your assumption is that I have no experience shooting large animals with both the 45-70, and the 375 H&H, and that the 45-70 loaded with your magic bullet makes the 45-70 equal to the 375H&H. The 45-70 is illegal for all the big five over the leopard in every country where they are hunted. The 375H&H however is legal for all of the big five in every country where the big five are hunted. The reason for that is the 45-70 doesn't come up to the energy levels to be legal.

What you 45-70 crackpots don't seem to understand is simply because the barrel that carries the bullet from a 45-70 is .458 dia doesn't make it a big bore cartridge. The 45-70 is a good short range cartridge for woods hunting in North America, but when you get down to stopping power it is little better than a prayer. The 375 H&H with a 300 gr controlled expansion bullet does more tissue damage on large animals than any HOLLOW POINT bullet fired from a 45-70 at any range you want to name. The hollow point bullets are not a proper bullet for large dangerous game. What is needed is deep straight-line penetration, from any angle on tough animals like Cape buffalo.

I think you are probably the one who has no experience shooting dangerous game with either of the cartridges you claim to know so much about. I assure you testing bullets in jell, or wet paper is not what is needed to make such judgments. Let me know when you have taken a few Cape buffalo, and hippo with your illegal 45-70, and then we might be on the same level to discuss this. Till then, keep on shooting wet phone books, and an occasional mule deer, and making assumptions based on that data!

Today I own three rifles chambered for 45-70, and three chambered for 375H&H, and 75 other long rifles up to and including 577NE, and have taken "large" game with all of them above 25 cal, and dangerous game with all of them above 30 caliber. Somehow I get the idea you are under the misguided assumption that I'm a little 20 yr old punk, when I probably have kids older than you, the youngest being 45 yrs old, and the oldest being 53 yrs old. I was born in the 1930s, and started hunting on my own in 1940, and killed my first head of dangerous game at 13 yrs of age. So friend you peddle your vast experience someplace else, and when you fail to stop a pissed off cape buffalo (an animal that habitually takes an average of six shots from a 470NE before going down), with your little cowboy pop-gun your last thoughts are going to be "Damn, I wish I had USED ENOUGH GUN!"

..........................Bye now, hope to see you in the Upper Lupande of Zambia some day, but I doubt I will, you will, most likely, still be shooting wet paper!