375 Win

4

458winshooter

New member
Hey folks I was just wondering what you guys think about the 375 Winchester and what went wrong with it.I always get a one book/one caliber book for every cartridge I reload but its data is in my 458 Win book.It looks like a good round but I have only seen one rifle chambered for it in my life and that was about 30 years ago.
 
I had a "Big Bore" M94 when they were new. In fact mine was serial 3075. So close.

It's a slow, big bullet. If that works for you then fine.
 
I don't think the market was clamoring for a modern smokeless offering of the 38-55. Plus if I remember correctly the early big bore 375's were old style top eject and the action was thicker where the Williams peep should side mount. By the time they went angle eject and had more sight options it had to share big bore sales with 307, 356, and 444.

I went for the 307. If the FTX had come around sooner the big bore line might have stuck around longer.
 
Marlin made a few, my brother owned one briefly. They offered very little real advantage over 30-30. At least not enough to have to hunt for hard to find ammo. Probably not a bad choice for a handloader.
 
I think the real problem for it was that it kind of does a lot of things but really does nothing very well. It is under powered for dangerous game. It shoots about as flat as a good muzzle loader. It recoils pretty hard. It never really had a lot of suitable bullets made for it.
 
375 Contender

I have a 21 inch contender barrel for the 375 and a lot of brass.
It's a nice step up from the 30-30 but some times not much more then a 44 Mag from the same barrel but still a grate pig and bear gun.
I would love to get a 94 in 375 but I can use Speer 235 Gr Spitzer bullets with abandon in the contender. Reloader 7 and any bullet under 270 Gr and you can stop anything under 600 Lbs with one good shot.


Just me
 
i have a 336 marlin cowboy in 38-55 and i use 375 brass and rl-7 with the 220 fn hornady bullet at 2000fps with no problems at all and i could go higher if i wanted to.eastbank.
 
I picked up a Winchester lever action 94 in .375 Win at a gun show a while back in very excellent condition and at a good price. Couldn't believe my good luck. Just use it as a fun gun, shooting mostly cast lead bullets.
 
The 375 really did not offer a significant advantage over the 35 Remington as far as lever action cartridges are concerned. It lasted less than 20 years of production. And its doubtful that many hunters traded in their 30-30 carbines for 375's.

Jack
 
I believe that it was just a mistake. There were many cartridges that are perfect for their individual uses, and in a sense, IMO, there are no particular situations that would call for this round to the exclusion of others. To a certain extent, or there are a half dozen other alternatives that will do the same job as well or better, at least in the past, a cartridge had little hope of survival. History is littered with marginal cartridges that just didn't fly because people wouldn't recklessly buy a new caliber on a whim, like we do now.

For example, we had the range of .44 magnum to .444 marlin to .45-70, and mankind at large was pretty happy. No need for a dozen different .40+ bore rifle cartridges.

The market for lever rifles has always been huge. I suspect that people just chose to go for the real large bore when offered a choice, and got 45-70. I know that my brother in law did, and my other BIL went 30-30. No in betweens. Funny, the one with the 45-70 bought it for deer, and the other actually hunted with a .44 magnum for deer for many years.

I SUSPECT THAT IF ANOTHER COMPANY BROUGHT OUT AN EQUIVALENT ROUND, ENGINEERED IT RIGHT, MARKETED IT WELL, AND IT GOT GOOD PUBLICITY, IT WOULD FLY OFF OF THE SHELVES NOW.

People are more affluent than they were 40 years ago, with more (ostensibly) disposable income and are willing to spend maybe twenty times as much each year on guns and toys than the average hunter did during the 60s and such. No more families with an 8 gun cabinet with empty spaces in it. I'm sure that a heck of a lot of people here have twenty or even 40 space firearms safes at home that cost $2-3,000, and this sort of prosperity and discretionary income is what decides whether a cartridge, or even company survives. When my father died, I carried home almost 20 half empty boxes of 30.-06. He sighted in, he hunted, he had dinner for a few weeks. Then he got a new box for the next year.

When I was growing up, leupold was kind of a marginal company, made great products and they were very popular, but their sales volume was low. Only a half dozen companies really ran the entire optics market. Eight feet of shelf space ran the entire department. Look at the scopes available online or in a mass store like cabelas, and you'll see what I mean. The market is huge now, and very diverse, and when that round was released, the market was pretty small and insular. I know people who own a half dozen AR rifles. I know one who is so crazy that if he had a chance, he would buy an AR in .375 winchester just because he could hunt black bear with it.
 
Answer to an unasked question like a lot of 'new' stuff. Manufacturers have to bring new stuff out regularly or risk losing market share.
 
I wonder if the fact that you can put a round of it in the chamber of a .38-55 and potentially blow an old gun up made people leery of it. Ideally when doing this sort of thing, the newer, stronger rifle should chamber both cartridges and the older weaker one not, but this was the other way round. A disaster waiting to happen, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that a few did.
 
375 Winchester

I own a Marlin 375 (336) in 375 Win and love it, it is my primary gun for thick timber outings, and packs quite a wallop with 200 grains @ 2300 fps or 260 cast @ 1900 fps. You can eat to the hole, so I've read, it's light enough to carry all day and wears a Williams peep sight with a Gold 1/16" dot up front. I can maintain 3"-4" out to 150 yds and recoil is easily managed. It's like a 38-55 on steroids. :cool:
 
I felt much the same as pathdoc said. Might just as well have a modern 38-55 and load it with regular or premium as needed. I think the idea of the 375 Winchester could have been a lot more successful if they used a different case and made it more powerful. Maybe a 375 based upon a 444 Marlin, or 45-70, or perhaps best of all, 348 Winchester. Maybe use the model 1886, or 71 to introduce it. They could still do it, but would have to call it something else. "Introducing the model 86/71 in the exiting new cartridge, the powerful 375 Alaskan." Something like a 348, necked up to 375, and then improved in the spirit of Ackley. The model 94 has been experimented with enough. The two best cartridges for it are 30WCF and 38-55. I would imagine that the 444 Marlin is a bit too much, and am surprised that they've even gone there with it.
 
they did make the 94 in 444 marlin, i have a timber carbine big bore in 444 marlin and it is a good heavy woods rifle. i don,t think i,ll shoot it out, but if i did i would have it rebarreled to 375 JDJ. i had a 375 JDJ in a contender and it was a real stomper and easy to make the cases and reload. eastbank.
 
Winchester offered the 94 in .444 for one or two years.

I always get a chukle when I think about that, because some years ago someone here was spouting off about how Winchester had dropped the .338 in favor of the .444, how American Rifleman had tested the .338 vs the .444 and the .444 out performed it at all distances...

He was a hoot.
 
.375 Winchester

I have a top eject Model 94 XTR Big Bore in .375 Winchester. It is an excellent short range deer and hog cartridge. I have a few lever action rifles in different chamberings... The .30-30 Winchester is one of my favorite cartridges but in my experience the .30-30 and .38-55 are not in the same class as the .375. To me, the .30-30, .32 WS, .35 Rem and the .38-55 are in the same class. The .375 is in the same class as the .444 marlin and the .45-70 Gov't.

Just my opinion (everybody has one...) I own rifles in and load for all of the above mentioned cartridges.

My 1895G Guide Gun with my Model 94 .375 Win.
22ad1169-1984-47bc-b162-aa49c1364560_zps5a328139.jpg


Group shot of my leverguns before I added the 1895G
PA152103.jpg
 
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