Well, I have had the oppurtunity to sit back and read through a LOT of the threads on the site. While reading through most of the hog stuff, I have noted that there are a LOT of you out there who have a great deal of experience with these bruisers.
I thought I would toss out a few observations based on my new readings. Not to start up a flaming controversy, but just to summerize some of what has already been mentioned, for some other new feller who wanders in.
I have been hunting since I was able to walk and took my first deer at 6. Through the years, I have hunted the better part of Texas, some of Colorado, and made a trip up north to Wisconson. I have to admit that 98% of my hunting has been for whitetail deer. However, as the years came and went, I found myself more and more involved with the hogs. More as a control measure than anything else. The areas I hunt limit themselves to farm land and coastal fields for hay production. As anyone who has been into an area with an abundant hog population knows, these things can ruin a coastal field in a matter of hours or days.
As such, folks who know me, have asked that I help out here and there along the way to lessen the property damage and also to take in some extra meat. Well this being the case I have hunted these critters in many manners.
A pack of hogs has a pecking order. In this if you can pick out the dominant sow and take it first the rest will generally not haul it off to far at first. They will wait to see what the monarch is going to do. IF you make a clean shot and it drops with no commotion sometimes the rest will just go back to whatever they were doin in a matter of seconds to minutes. I have seen this happen a several occaisions. However by the same token if you bust one of the lower classed ones, then the rest are out of there in pursuit of the leader.
Most of the hunting I personally do is stalking. We know the lay of the land and where most of the hogs lay up. The hard part isn't shooting them it's getting into the stuff they live in, to get a shot. For this reason most of the time we hunt with pistols. My friend uses a 44mag and I a 41mag. I have also used a 10mm auto with a 7" barrrel and on down thru the calibers to a 30 carbine in a Blackhawk. By and far anything from a 357 mag with 158gr loads and up through the biggest thing your comfortable with is better. A wounded boar will hurt you beyond your wildest imagination in a matter of seconds. The boars aren't the only killers you will face either. A large saw with a litter is at least or more dangerous. She is defending her litter to the bitter end, either your or hers.
The biggest problem with hunting these critters is logistics. Most of the time, it is done in areas non conducive with emergency care. If you get got, it will most likely follow this senerio. First you will find the hogs, then you might not see the sow with the litter or the boar laying off to the edge of the rest of the pack. When these things charge, the first, if uninjured is generally a bluff, "generally" being very lightly taken here. If they are not bluffing you can count on them to knock you down as they will go for your legs first. Even if this is all they get if they hit an aurtery well you up the proverbal @$%% creek due to where your already at. Now if they only manage to slice you you still have more fun in store. Now you have been hit from the blindside in all of the excitment of pigs going evrywhere at the first shot. Your totally taken by surprise, and now your in serious pain. IF you haven't dropped your gun, you better have it up and ready, to take down the returning charging pig cause it is on it's way. IF you fail it will hit you with a mouth full of razors that will cut you to pieces in seconds. Ok, we're havin fun now. All we have to do is walk, crawl, or drag ourselves back to our mode of transportation and go to the hospital an hour away. Which if you have never tried to drive with a leg sticking up in the air is no easy thing to do.
The above I hope never happens to anyone. It is just a "what if" to let you know that it CAN and has probably already happened to some degree to folks out there chasing these critters. From a deer stand, your realitively safe. Throw a pack of hounds in on them to get them fired up and your looking at a good start. Hunting them out there by yourself, well your just asking for trouble. Always take a bud along if for nothing else to help make noise and get them up and going.
We shoot these things ranging in size from 3# on up to the last one I got which we had to haul in with a back hoe. Most are given away if folks want them, however we do leave the worst stinking ones, no matter what. We have tried them and 99% of the time if you can smell them when you walk up on them, keep on walking. A quick test is to cut off a small piece of the meat and burn it with a bic lighter. Once it starts to cook you can back off the flame and smell the sizzling piece. If it has any "off" odor to it, just walk away. You will regret it in your kitchen, after spending the time and effort of dressing and butchering them, just to smell up the whole house. One other thing in this area. We have found by experience, that you can generally figure on 30 - 45 minutes per hundered pounds to dress, skin and quarter one depending on how your set up to handle this. There are generally two of us working on them and we are VERY experienced in this proceedure. When we keep one we keep just about everything but the squeel. Some folks may get through quicker depending on damaged areas being left out of this. We also always try for a head or neck shot on the better ones we want to try to keep. This leaves the rest for steaks and clean sausage meat.
As for the firearms mentioned. Well as it has been stated, "they CAN be killed with a hammer between the eyes". Personally however I prefer something in a bottle necked version or with MAG as part of the equation. We have taken some of them cleanly out to 200 yds with a 17 Rem. and some have toted off a solid hit from a 7 mag with 162 gr Hornady bullets at top velocities. Generally speaking however we use nothing short of the 7.62x39 on the slower end, and .243 up through the 7 mag on the high speed end. With the 243, time and experience has shown that good 100gr factory loads will take them out reliably with WELL placed steady shots. With the mid ranged stuf we use 270's more than not and the 25/06 and 7 mag are for long range work. With handloads in the 243 we found that something like the 95gr Partition or 90gr Barnes X will do wonders. The 270 we use a mix of factory and handloads in 130gr. With the Sierra and Nosler bullets being used almost exclusively in both. However the Hornady 130SST was tried out a few weeks back with great results.
With the 25/06 we have found that the 115 gr bullets are about the best ticket for velocity and penetration. I handload the 115 partitions almost exclusively and have gotten amazing results from them, out to ranges exceeding 400 yds. They do what they are supposed to every time period, if I do my part. With the 7 mag, I worked up a load with the Hornady 162 gr BTSP almost exclusively for the hogs. It is sighted in for 300 yds and shoots flat enough for about as far as we can see them reliably. This was set up specifically for hunting them over cotton fields and crops where you might have a vast area to cover from one location. Up close it is devistating on them.
Nosler Ballistic Tips or their counter parts from Winchester have been found to NOT be a reliable bullet on hogs in calibers under 30. Sorry but we shoot enough to test just about all of them. They will take a deer just fine in the smaller calibers but the thick hide on the hogs is a different ball game on the fragil tips.
In the pistols we use the 200 gr and up bullets in the 41 and 44. I have been using the 210 JHP's in my 41 and have decided, after having several mid sized hogs leave after being hit well, I will go back to the JSP's or up to the 220 gr Sierra's. In the 44 the 210 gr is great, as are just about anything on up. The Remington 240 JHP bulk bullets available for handloading over a copious amount of 296 will stop just about anything you will encounter. As will the JSP's and an assortment of cast bullets. We haven't used many cast bullets, but the Oregon Trail brand is the best going for top velocity and ease of reloading. I have to admit what they claim is gospel on the no leading issue. I shot between 300 and 500 of them without cleaning and had no problems what so ever from leading.
Well I know that I have rambled on and I hope this was OK. I just wantd to let some of the newer folks to this sport know of some of the risk involved as well as cut out a lot of trial and error that has already been done.
Bottom line is, that if your in any way uncomfortable about the firearm, or situation you might find yourself in, don't do it. Better to learn slow, than recover slow. Also in tight cover one of the short barreled shotguns loaded with 7/8 - 1oz slugs will stop a hog NOW. Of course you will have to deal with the mess on your own.
God Bless and good luck, above all be careful.
LAter,
Mike / Tx
I thought I would toss out a few observations based on my new readings. Not to start up a flaming controversy, but just to summerize some of what has already been mentioned, for some other new feller who wanders in.
I have been hunting since I was able to walk and took my first deer at 6. Through the years, I have hunted the better part of Texas, some of Colorado, and made a trip up north to Wisconson. I have to admit that 98% of my hunting has been for whitetail deer. However, as the years came and went, I found myself more and more involved with the hogs. More as a control measure than anything else. The areas I hunt limit themselves to farm land and coastal fields for hay production. As anyone who has been into an area with an abundant hog population knows, these things can ruin a coastal field in a matter of hours or days.
As such, folks who know me, have asked that I help out here and there along the way to lessen the property damage and also to take in some extra meat. Well this being the case I have hunted these critters in many manners.
A pack of hogs has a pecking order. In this if you can pick out the dominant sow and take it first the rest will generally not haul it off to far at first. They will wait to see what the monarch is going to do. IF you make a clean shot and it drops with no commotion sometimes the rest will just go back to whatever they were doin in a matter of seconds to minutes. I have seen this happen a several occaisions. However by the same token if you bust one of the lower classed ones, then the rest are out of there in pursuit of the leader.
Most of the hunting I personally do is stalking. We know the lay of the land and where most of the hogs lay up. The hard part isn't shooting them it's getting into the stuff they live in, to get a shot. For this reason most of the time we hunt with pistols. My friend uses a 44mag and I a 41mag. I have also used a 10mm auto with a 7" barrrel and on down thru the calibers to a 30 carbine in a Blackhawk. By and far anything from a 357 mag with 158gr loads and up through the biggest thing your comfortable with is better. A wounded boar will hurt you beyond your wildest imagination in a matter of seconds. The boars aren't the only killers you will face either. A large saw with a litter is at least or more dangerous. She is defending her litter to the bitter end, either your or hers.
The biggest problem with hunting these critters is logistics. Most of the time, it is done in areas non conducive with emergency care. If you get got, it will most likely follow this senerio. First you will find the hogs, then you might not see the sow with the litter or the boar laying off to the edge of the rest of the pack. When these things charge, the first, if uninjured is generally a bluff, "generally" being very lightly taken here. If they are not bluffing you can count on them to knock you down as they will go for your legs first. Even if this is all they get if they hit an aurtery well you up the proverbal @$%% creek due to where your already at. Now if they only manage to slice you you still have more fun in store. Now you have been hit from the blindside in all of the excitment of pigs going evrywhere at the first shot. Your totally taken by surprise, and now your in serious pain. IF you haven't dropped your gun, you better have it up and ready, to take down the returning charging pig cause it is on it's way. IF you fail it will hit you with a mouth full of razors that will cut you to pieces in seconds. Ok, we're havin fun now. All we have to do is walk, crawl, or drag ourselves back to our mode of transportation and go to the hospital an hour away. Which if you have never tried to drive with a leg sticking up in the air is no easy thing to do.
The above I hope never happens to anyone. It is just a "what if" to let you know that it CAN and has probably already happened to some degree to folks out there chasing these critters. From a deer stand, your realitively safe. Throw a pack of hounds in on them to get them fired up and your looking at a good start. Hunting them out there by yourself, well your just asking for trouble. Always take a bud along if for nothing else to help make noise and get them up and going.
We shoot these things ranging in size from 3# on up to the last one I got which we had to haul in with a back hoe. Most are given away if folks want them, however we do leave the worst stinking ones, no matter what. We have tried them and 99% of the time if you can smell them when you walk up on them, keep on walking. A quick test is to cut off a small piece of the meat and burn it with a bic lighter. Once it starts to cook you can back off the flame and smell the sizzling piece. If it has any "off" odor to it, just walk away. You will regret it in your kitchen, after spending the time and effort of dressing and butchering them, just to smell up the whole house. One other thing in this area. We have found by experience, that you can generally figure on 30 - 45 minutes per hundered pounds to dress, skin and quarter one depending on how your set up to handle this. There are generally two of us working on them and we are VERY experienced in this proceedure. When we keep one we keep just about everything but the squeel. Some folks may get through quicker depending on damaged areas being left out of this. We also always try for a head or neck shot on the better ones we want to try to keep. This leaves the rest for steaks and clean sausage meat.
As for the firearms mentioned. Well as it has been stated, "they CAN be killed with a hammer between the eyes". Personally however I prefer something in a bottle necked version or with MAG as part of the equation. We have taken some of them cleanly out to 200 yds with a 17 Rem. and some have toted off a solid hit from a 7 mag with 162 gr Hornady bullets at top velocities. Generally speaking however we use nothing short of the 7.62x39 on the slower end, and .243 up through the 7 mag on the high speed end. With the 243, time and experience has shown that good 100gr factory loads will take them out reliably with WELL placed steady shots. With the mid ranged stuf we use 270's more than not and the 25/06 and 7 mag are for long range work. With handloads in the 243 we found that something like the 95gr Partition or 90gr Barnes X will do wonders. The 270 we use a mix of factory and handloads in 130gr. With the Sierra and Nosler bullets being used almost exclusively in both. However the Hornady 130SST was tried out a few weeks back with great results.
With the 25/06 we have found that the 115 gr bullets are about the best ticket for velocity and penetration. I handload the 115 partitions almost exclusively and have gotten amazing results from them, out to ranges exceeding 400 yds. They do what they are supposed to every time period, if I do my part. With the 7 mag, I worked up a load with the Hornady 162 gr BTSP almost exclusively for the hogs. It is sighted in for 300 yds and shoots flat enough for about as far as we can see them reliably. This was set up specifically for hunting them over cotton fields and crops where you might have a vast area to cover from one location. Up close it is devistating on them.
Nosler Ballistic Tips or their counter parts from Winchester have been found to NOT be a reliable bullet on hogs in calibers under 30. Sorry but we shoot enough to test just about all of them. They will take a deer just fine in the smaller calibers but the thick hide on the hogs is a different ball game on the fragil tips.
In the pistols we use the 200 gr and up bullets in the 41 and 44. I have been using the 210 JHP's in my 41 and have decided, after having several mid sized hogs leave after being hit well, I will go back to the JSP's or up to the 220 gr Sierra's. In the 44 the 210 gr is great, as are just about anything on up. The Remington 240 JHP bulk bullets available for handloading over a copious amount of 296 will stop just about anything you will encounter. As will the JSP's and an assortment of cast bullets. We haven't used many cast bullets, but the Oregon Trail brand is the best going for top velocity and ease of reloading. I have to admit what they claim is gospel on the no leading issue. I shot between 300 and 500 of them without cleaning and had no problems what so ever from leading.
Well I know that I have rambled on and I hope this was OK. I just wantd to let some of the newer folks to this sport know of some of the risk involved as well as cut out a lot of trial and error that has already been done.
Bottom line is, that if your in any way uncomfortable about the firearm, or situation you might find yourself in, don't do it. Better to learn slow, than recover slow. Also in tight cover one of the short barreled shotguns loaded with 7/8 - 1oz slugs will stop a hog NOW. Of course you will have to deal with the mess on your own.
God Bless and good luck, above all be careful.
LAter,
Mike / Tx
