Boar Hunting (Bullet selection)

[vlcruz2001]

Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum and new to the hunting sport. Me and a buddy will be going on our first hunt in Feb of 05 for wild pig and would like to ask you experinced guys a question or two.

First: Both will be shooting 308 Win
Location: Northern CA

Question is bullet selection: I asked a few people this question and got a different answer each time. What bullet do you guys recommend and what weight?

I have bought a box of Nosler Partions in 165gn and Nosler Ballistic Silver Ballistic Tip in 180gn.

My buddy is leaning twards the Hornady line of bullets in the 150gn range.

Another question is are sidearms needed?

 

[Rick]

The 165 gr Partitions should be perfect. I would stay away from the Ballistic Silvertips or Ballistic Tips - they may fail to penetrate the gristle plate on a bigger boar.

Some people love the 150 gr bullets from their .30-06s for hogs. I always preferred a 165 in a .30-06 or a 180 in a .300 mag, but I've never owned a .308.

I've never "needed" a handgun when hunting pigs. I've used one as my primary weapon a few times, but do not want the extra weight if I am carrying a rifle.

 

[Backcountry]

El cheapo Remington Corelokt 165 or 180 grain will do just fine... sometimes you can find that ammo on sale at Big-5 for $10/box! It's what I shoot for pigs in .308... that bullet (in either .308 or .30-06) has probably killed more pigs than any other in this state. I agree that a ballistic tip might not be a good idea for use on big pigs (but they tear the dickens out of deer).

I'd say to use whatever round shoots best on your rifle... the terminal ballistics should be less of a concern than how accurate a specific loading is in your specific rifle. All will do the job if placed in the kill zone.

I'm also in agreement about the sidearm... I used to carry my .357 GP100, but it's simply too much weight and gets caught on the brush, etc... a .44 would be an even bigger pain to lug around. I'd say I only carry a handgun now 1 trip out of 10.

Good luck on your hunt!

Backcountry

 

[slowpoke]

I've shot a few hogs with a 308 and the 165grn ballistic tips and they did a good job. The bullets are going a little slower in the 308 and it appears to help. You will loose some meat with sa houlder shot though. The largest boar I shot with them was 250 lbs +/- and it was a 1 shot kill. That being said the partitions are a better option, but either will work. Good luck

 

[Speckmisser]

Go with the Noslers, or as Backcountry said, the Remington Core-Lokt. My Browning BAR loves the 180gr Remington Core-Lokts... but it hasn't had a chance at a hog yet. I usually use the -06.

The ballistic tips will kill, but they waste way too much meat... and I've used them on three hogs and two deer.

Personally, the only thing I'll ever use ballistic tips for is varmints.

The Hornadys are good too, by the way.

 

[scr83jp]

Just a suggestion for ammo go to http://www.centuryarms.com/store/ ,on the left sidebar click on ammunition then check PMP(made in Pretoria,S. Africa) or Hotshot made in Bosnia both brands are reloadable boxer primed.I bought 30-06 PMP at Cabela's in Sidney,NE summer 03 to try it learning it's accurate.At the SHOT Show I bought 1000 rounds of PMP 45acp 220gr ball ammo from Century Arms, very accurate.

 

[Caninelaw]

IMHO you can't beat the Nosler Partions. Shot a small (100 lb) pig with one a few years ago, (7mm 140 gr), Punched right through him and left a quarter sized hole on the far side spraying lungs all over the landscape. He went just far enough for me to chamber another round and went down for good before I could line up te crosshairs again.

 

[BlackMax]

vlcruz2001, I have posted an article written by the Jim Mathews of California Hog Hunter Magazine that discusses good bullets to use on hogs. Generally, for hogs you want a bullet that is tough and will hold together well if it hits bone or cartilage. A couple of new bullets that are not covered in this article that are good for hogs, in my opinion, are the new Core-Lok Ultra and the Hornady Intercore. Both bullets have thicker jackets than most bullets designed to take deer-sized game or varmits and will retain most of their weight. The majority of the Barnes bullets are solid copper and the tend to hold together better than a lot of lead or lead, copper-jacketed bullets.


CHOOSING A TOUGH SLUG FOR BOARS
(From Vol. 1, No. 1)

If you think of hogs as animals that have all of the toughness of an elk compressed down into a package that only weighs from 150 to 250 pounds, and occasionally larger, you are less likely to make mistakes when choosing a proper slug for your hunting rifle.

Bullet failure on the tough bones and grass filled guts of wild pigs is the biggest reason hunters lose game — not from shooting with a caliber that is inadequate. Members of the Hog Hunter staff have seen and shot pigs with everything from a lowly .22 Hornet to a .338 Winchester Magnum. While our staff has a tendency to believe that most of the .22 centerfires are too small for pigs, we know a hunter who has used a .243 Winchester repeatedly and with great success because he used good bullets exclusively — Nosler 95- and 100-grain Partitions — and chose his shots carefully.

On the other hand, I still remember with alarming clarity my first wild pig. It was shot with a .356 Winchester from a lever-action rifle. The cartridge was brand new, not even available to the public yet. I was on a hunt at Dye Creek Ranch near Red Bluff with a group of other writers from Petersen’s Publishing, and I was somehow elected to use the new .356 for this field test.

Mike Ballew was the game manager of the ranch back in those days, and we bellied up on a big boar. From a solid prone position, I whacked the pig right behind the shoulder. The pig flipped upside down with all four feet in the air. Then it moved ever so slightly. Since, it was my first pig, I asked Ballew if I should shoot it again.

“That pig’s dead,” said Ballew, and those words were no more past the end of his lips when the dead pig was up and running across the hillside with ghostly speed. It was not dead.

Bob Robb said later that I looked like Chuck Connors of The Rifleman television series fame. I emptied the .356 at that pig, reloaded, and shot some more before it crested the ridge. The reality is that I hit the pig about seven other times with those 200-grain prototype Winchester Silvertips — at least as near as we could tell later when salvaging edible meat. The performance was explosive. Literally. The bullets were behaving like fragile .22 varmint slugs, blowing great divots out of the pig and causing terrible damage to it’s meaty exterior, but never penetrating into the vital organs. I was accused of killing the pig by loading it up with so much lead that it died of heart failure from packing so much extra weight around while running furiously across that hillside.

Those prototype slugs were obviously made with too soft a lead core and/or jacket material that was too thin, and Winchester corrected the problem before the ammunition came on the general marketplace. But the example graphically illustrates the toughness of wild pigs.

Unlike deer, pigs have massive bones in the forequarters covering their vital organs, which are set further forward than with deer. Hunters accustomed to shooting deer well behind the shoulder “in the pocket” will not score a lung hit on a direct broadside shot on a pig. They will hit liver or gut, and pigs shot that way will travel a long distance.

The biggest mistake first-time — hell, even veteran hunters — make is not using a bullet that will break a front shoulder and penetrate into the vital organs. Most pigs are deer-sized game, so hunters mistakenly believe they can shoot the same lightly-constructed slugs and kill pigs. Well, they might get away with it for the first few animals, but then a slug will come apart on a front shoulder or it will not penetrate enough to reach into the heart-lung area from a rear angle. Then the hunter has a wounded pig on his hands, and that either leads to an animal escaping or getting shot up with multiple hits to finally anchor it.

In speaking with guides throughout the state and based on our staff’s experience, there was unanimous agreement the following bullets were up to the task (listed in order of preference): Winchester Fail Safes, Barnes X-Bullets, Trophy Bonded Bear Claws, Nosler Partition (or the new Combined Technology partition slug made in a joint effort with Winchester and Nosler), Swift A-Frames, Woodleigh Weldcores, and Speer Grand Slams. All of these bullets open up rapidly and reliably, yet they still have the ability to penetrate through bones.

The Bear Claws, Noslers, Swifts, Woodleighs, and Grand Slams do not have the penetration ability in most deer calibers for you to shoot a pig running away from you and have the slug penetrate through a ham or hip, the barley- or grass-filled gut, and into the vitals. Out of calibers from the .270 upward, the other two slugs — the Fail Safe and the X-Bullet — absolutely offer this penetration.

I shot a young boar on the Tejon Ranch in early April with a 140-grain Winchester Fail Safe from 7mm-08. The slug shattered the femur, devastated the ham with rapid expansion, ranged through the entire gut cavity, into the chest cavity, exited the chest, reentered the foreleg, cracked the foreleg and then deflected down along the bone to come to rest under the skin — penetrating nearly three-feet of pig. It looked nearly just like one that has been shot into ballistic gelatin and used in Winchester’s advertising. (It’s the bullet pictured with this story) That is the performance you want in a slug to be used for pig hunting.

“It amazes me the number of people who don’t put any thought into the thing that’s doing the killing. To them, a bullet’s a bullet. They worry more about caliber and scope, and don’t get me wrong, those are important, but the bullet is the most important thing in hog hunting,” said August Harden, a longtime pig guide and operator of Cross County Outfitters in Paso Robles.

Guides like Harden see 100 or more pigs shot a year and have a good insight on what works and what doesn’t. Hardin is blunt in only recommending two slugs unequivocally under all shooting conditions — Barnes X-Bullets and Fail Safes.

If you have questions about what ammunition to bring on a hunt for your rifle, don’t hesitate to ask the guide. Perhaps, if he makes recommendations other than what you have read here, you might want to reconsider his qualifications.

With today’s premium ammunition featuring top quality slugs from all of the major makers, getting a good pig slug does not require reloading. All it requires is that you have enough respect for the animal to make the small investment in buying, or reloading, ammunition that provides a quick, clean, responsible kill.
— Jim Matthew Read the Reader’s Comments on Loads for Pigs

 

[larrysogla]

Only use Barnes-X in my hog hunting & have yet to recover a slug, but recover a pig??? It is anchored!!! God Bless. larrysogla.

 

[scr83jp]

In my 454 casull and 45 long colt brass I prefer using heat treated hard cast lead bullets from Cast Performance http://www.castperformance.com or you can purchase them from MidwayUSA http://www.midwayusa.com . Read info on the use of these bullets for African & American game on the cast performance site.My 41 mag Federal hunting loads have cast core bullets made by Cast Performance and Corbon uses them in some of their loadings also.I'm planning a pig hunt using these bullets.

 

[bighorn67]

I use Federal Premium Gold with the Barnes XLC in 168 grain. They drop in their tracks, or close to it with minimal meat loss.

Dave

 

[larrysogla]

Yessirr. Same thing here, minimal meat loss but a golf ball sized exit hole & twin holes(entry & exit) leaking a good blood trail to follow. No worry about hitting bone, it will still go through all the way out. 'Nuff said. larrysogla.

 

[boarhunter67]

I use 180 grain silvertips and have no problems with penetration. They are listed as medium deep.

 

[jephs422]

I go to Big 5 and buy the Remington Core Lokt 180 grain. I've never had any problems with 'em. They seem to penetrate a little better than 200 grain.

 

[bubba]

I've used 150 gr. Winchester Power points with good effect and it's not as expensive as some of the ammo that has been suggested. I've seen Ballistic Silvertip on hogs, they worked, but they to fragile and cause to much damage as Speck suggested. If you want to use a polymer tip, I've used the new Accubond load from winchester with good results on deer. Haven't tried it on hogs yet. But they had good weight retention and good expansion. Compared to failsafes, way better expansion than failsafes and nearly as good weight retention. 165 grain should do.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

 

[bigtusker]

I have been shooting Remington core lokt bullets for almost 20 years in 150 and 165 grains out of my .06 and have taken close to 200 hogs. For the price, I'd say you can't beat 'em.

 

[Mel Carter]

I've always used the Partitions out of my 300 mag, and love the the way they shoot. Everything has dropped in their tracks. But, this past season I have been able to recover bullets from my muley with my 300 mag, and from the hog my son shot using Trophy Bonded Bearclaws in 30-06. From expansion to weight retention, I think the bearclaws are better. If the bearclaws shot as good as the patitions out of my mag, that's what i'd be shooting. They are pricey though, at about $38.00 - $40.00 a box. If you go with the Remington, don't buy the soft points. A buddy shot a nice hog with those and we pulled the bullets out and they looked like a couple of pennies.

Just my

 

[fremont]

Killed two boars this year with 180 XBT Barnes out of my '06. Retrieved one bullet that went from about 15" above the tail on the spine (animal was walking up a steep hill) through the gut cavity, into the right lung, settling in the right shoulder. Traveled probably 2'+. Animal immediately hit the deck, paralyzed....squealing up a storm. Dead within 15 seconds. Devastating damage with no terrible amount of meat wasted. Spine entry wound looked like he got hit with 50BMG. Bullet was four petals splayed back, just like the ads. It had little to no weight loss. Other animal was slightly downhill, with me hitting him below and behind left ear, severing spine and taking out right lung....XBT exited into the ground below. He was dead before I could look away from the scope.

I personally think the Barnes is a better overall bullet than the Fail Safes, as the latters have a tendency to under-expand IMO, though, I'll admit that I have not seen their extensive use. I also would have no hesitation to use Partitions.

 

[PIGIG]

Originally posted by bigtusker@Nov 15 2004, 06:56 PM
I have been shooting Remington core lokt bullets for almost 20 years in 150 and 165 grains out of my .06 and have taken close to 200 hogs. For the price, I'd say you can't beat 'em.

here here i have taken many pigs with the Remington core lokt for the price it works great

 

[sidepass]

I've always wanted a big bore single so i just bought a TC Encore in 405 Winchester. Only factory ammo i can find is Hornady 300 grain fp or sp. Think i'll have to resume handloading.Pulled the press out of the basement,ordered dies.Might try it on a deer first. Anyone have any suggestions? Working up loads won't be to much fun at the bench but oh well .