On test the .375 Staghound

 

Recently I was given this Black Diamond rifle in .375 Staghound to do some load development work on.  This calibre is one of the many that are based on the 505 Gibbs cartridge. Others include the Chey Tac and Snipe Tac range of cartridges. This particular rifle is one of only four in the .375 Staghound calibre, that are known to have been imported into Australia. They were imported a few years ago and as such would now be considered a collectors item by many. This rifle built is based on a single shot Lawton action. It has a 33" match grade barrel that is 1.1" at the muzzle. The scope was an IOR tactical 8 -32x56 scope.

This rifle weighed in at about 22 pounds so it was definitely not a light weight stalker. Combined with its hefty weight and large effective muzzle brake, this rifle was quite easy to shoot. The extra weight also helped the rifle sit rock solid in the sand bags, this made for easy aiming.   Shooting off the ground with a Harris bipod required some good technique or the bipod would tend to collapse under the weight and recoil. But with care it was also quite easy to shoot. An Atlas bipod was available but the required bottom rail was not. This was a pity as the Atlas looks to be a quality product an I would like to have tried it on a rifle such as this. The Jewell trigger on this rifle was set at a very light 2oz, so care needed to be taken once the rifle was loaded not to touch the trigger before the cross hair was on the centre of the target. .  Once a few bugs had been removed from the system the rifle proved to be very accurate using 350 grain Sierra Hollow point boat tail bullets. The most accurate load consisted of 132 grains of AR2225, Federal 215 magnum primer and Bertram brass. The bullet was seated 0.010" into the lands. Although not the fastest load it was quite accurate.  This load was developed following some kind advice from Geoff Grenfell of Grenfell Armouring Services in Bendigo.  As any long range shooter knows, accuracy is more important than velocity. Given further load development, I think that another accuracy node may exist at a higher velocity but that is for future testing by the owner. In the mean time he has a very accurate rifle with a moderate load that will give excellent case life. This has been an interesting exercise and while on a recent shoot on a very large section of private property we were able to safely test this rifle out to quite a long range. The rifle performed very well and was quite accurate.

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