How unusual,,, they did not attach the word "magnum" to this new cartridge.
Cheese
Refreshing, no?
So it won't preform as well as a .375RUM and it will preform slightly better than a .375 H&H .and we are suposed to get excited about it . YAWN ! 
No, it won’t perform as well as a .375 RUM. Nor does it need to in order to be quite successful. The .30-06 is still very popular (as in #1 in sales on many charts) even though the various .300 magnums offer superior performance.
Hunters currently have very limited options in a .375. Many standard-length (.30-06) rifle actions, like the standard-length Ruger M77 MKII, have magazine or other restrictions which limit cartridge COL to 3.400”. Those limitations prevent them from being chambered in the .375 RUM, .375 and .378 Weatherby, or the .375 H&H. The .376 Steyr, at 3.110” COL, is a fine round for its intended purposes but it is too short to take full advantage of a standard-length action. The .375 Dakota, while suitable, is a proprietary cartridge and ammo is virtually unavailable. (Try locating some online and you’ll see what I mean.)
Ruger only offers the .375H&H in their ‘Magnum’ action which lists for $1,975 and tips the scales at 10 pounds. (For perspective, that’s more than the combined total I paid for my Ruger M77 in .257 Roberts, NIB Ruger M77 in 7mm Rem Mag, NIB Ruger M77 MKII in .300 Win Mag, Remington M700 BDL in .308 Win, Marlin 336 in .30-30 and Marlin 1895 in .45-70.) Remington offers .375 H&H and RUM in their M700 XCR. It lists for $980, weighs 7-5/8 pounds and measures 46.5” in length. The least expensive Dakota rifle runs over $3,000 when iron sights are added, and Winchester no longer makes the M70. The CZ Safari Magnum runs $875, weighs 9.4 pounds and has a 25” barrel with an overall length of 46.5”. The Steyr Mannlicher Scout weighs 6.6 pounds and has an overall length of 38.6”, but list price is over $2000 and good luck finding one. Many people don’t care for the Steyr for a number of reasons. Of course none of this is an issue if one of those offerings is what you want. They don’t really do it for me.
The .375 Ruger in the new Alaskan (synthetic/stainless) model should be very similar to Ruger’s All-Weather (synthetic/stainless) .350 Magnum, which also has a 22” barrel, weighs 7 pounds, measures 42” overall and lists for $695. The Alaskan should have iron sights, may weigh a bit more, and the cost will probably be a bit higher, but still well under $1,000. I would be surprised if Savage/Stevens and CZ don’t chamber for this cartridge as well, as there is no barrier to doing so in their standard-length actions.
As a North American hunting cartridge, the new .375 Ruger and the Alaskan model has several advantages. The first is the cartridge diameter is such that you don’t have to give up a round in the magazine compared to standard cartridges. If a .404 Jeffery case had been the base as with the WSMs and the RUMs, say goodbye to one cartridge. The 22” barrel length of the new Alaskan is another advantage. My Ruger in .257 Roberts also has a 22” barrel and I find it surprisingly more handy than my 24” Rugers.
Then there is the matter of reloading. While the RUM offers a little more performance on the top end, it does so at a cost in recoil that many shooters cannot tolerate. The Ruger doesn’t quite match the RUM’s top-end velocity but the smaller case of the Ruger will allow it to be downloaded more easily. In my own case I shoot a .375 Winchester and would likely develop loads for the Ruger that bumped performance a couple hundred fps but stayed well below maximum. And I would probably have maximum loads for those occasions when Ithought they were warranted. When it comes to reloading presses, there are a gazillion RockChucker and other presses out there that are designed for .30-06-length cartridges – mine is one of them. The slightly shorter Ruger cartridge will work better in these than do the RUMs and H&H cartridges.
There is also the little matter of the Ruger action in general. While I love my M700 in .308 Win and my M700 ML .50 muzzlestuffer, I prefer Ruger actions for several reasons. A standard-action Ruger in .375 Dakota has been on my wish list for some years now, and the .375 Ruger will fulfill that wish.
So what we have in the .375 Ruger is a cartridge that will come initially in an affordable rifle that is a handy 42” or so OAL, comes in a weight suitable for humping the mountains after elk, offers performance options from that of a hot .375 Winchester to better than H&H, doesn't reduce the magazine capacity and will be easy to reload. Further, rifles and ammunition will probably be offered by other manufacturers, resulting in more choices for consumers while helping to keep street costs down. None of the other cartridges discussed above offer all these advantages.
Yawn if you want, but Ruger and Hornady think they have a winner. So do I.
