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Yes, an interesting topic...

When you say "big advantage" then I would assume such a difference would be quite noticeable, demonstrable and significant and would be dramatically pointed out in legitimate comparisons in the field. In fact, I myself expected that such a difference existed and that many years ago prompted me to buy a .375. You are making a point to a guy that was absolutely sold on the .375 H&H Magnum for years until I started using lighter calibers. Now I am sold on all of them assuming proper bullets are chosen! I am not saying the .375 is a poor cartridge. Quite to the contrary, it is a superb cartridge. I'll still be the first to sing the praises of the .375 H&H Magnum and I haven't sold mine yet. So it is clear, let me say again it is an excellent cartridge.

But in the field I couldn't quantify any difference in effect on elk and deer, using the above cartridges or .348 Win or .30-06 or even the .300 Savage in addition. Those somewhat confusing observations prompted me to scratch my head and start looking for scientific data that might shed some light on what I considered hard to believe, meaning, I didn't believe my own observations but I couldn't deny them either. Living in densely populated elk country, initially I started speaking to men I knew who had vast experience killing elk. I guess our country is settled thick with highly unobservant fellows, since all agreed with me. But such "research" of my own still only took in several hundred elk.

Fortunately there is a body of scientific data that has been collected {and continues to be} on this subject, and it is not i-net speculation and forum anecdotes.

I'm sorry to say, your "big advantage" is not observable in any of that data, either, data collected in several extensive studies conducted in Scandinavia {Norway and Sweden and one I know of in Finland} on game animals of approximately US elk size {Scandinavian moose and hjort-the latter somewhat smaller than US elk/wapiti}.

You can quote mathematics, kinetic energy, etc tables and I will agree with you. If I was picking a cartridge based on those tables I'd go with the one that featured the higher numbers. In fact, years ago I did just that! But those tables can be compared against some very convincing collected field data in which you can seek out but not find a huge performance difference on game of whitetail to elk size and somewhat larger size.

Some use of ballistic media helps to make comparisons between cartridges and bullets. I've posted some of my own tests elsewhere on the site. They are somewhat entertaining to conduct but more importantly do in fact shed a lot of light on just how little the differences between catridges can be. Such projects do not explain the whole picture, but they do demonstrate why these differences are so hard to observe in the field.

Due to the kinetic energy tables, I have to believe that there are scenarios where, for example, the .375 is superior to the 6.5x55 or 7x57 on elk. At least that is what I want to believe. But the data I have read belies it, and in fact, we must remember there may be circumstances where the lighter calibers may be superior to the .375 in the field {involving ease of shooting for example}.

I have to believe that ease of shooting by the "average hunter" gives the nod to the lighter calibers. Do only experts shoot the heavier calibers? If so, why don't they significantly exceed the performance of those shooting lighter calibers? My explanation is that on an animal weighing a quarter to a half ton, the energy, bullet diameter and bullet weight differences between a 6.5x55 and .375 H&H Magnum are far less important, far less important, than where the bullets from either of those cartridges go and both of those cartridges have the capability to send an expanded bullet to the proper spot from any reasonable angle and a couple unreasonable angles to-boot.

And by the way, a .375 Flanged sounds like a great choice for a Western double, unless a guy just wants a 7x57R, 7x65R, 8x57JRS, 9.3x74R, etc, etc, etc...!!

Edited by 9ThreeXFifty7 (17/06/07 04:33 AM)

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