Conical for Hog

[Grantman]

We have 12 guys going on a TN hog hunt in November. Everybody will be shooting flinters. I have a TC with two barrels-1 in 48 and 1 in 28. I have never shot a hog, but I have heard they are difficult to kill. Anybody here care to recomend a conical bullet for the 1 in 28. The barrel (Green Mountain) must be slightly overize, since a 50 caliber, 370 Maxi-ball DROPS down the barrel.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

I don't have a 1-28 barrel but seems I read that is meant to shoot those 'sabot' type slugs?

 

[Mad Professor]

I've got the same barrel (1-28 GM) in a TC renegade.

385gr buffalo bullet over wonder wad and 80 gr GOEX FFg, 90gr shoots just as good but recoil is much sharper. The pic below is 5 shots at 50 yds, I've still got to get to a longer range on calm day to see what happens at 100/100+ yds. With the shots I've taken so far , the above load is just a little low at 100 sighted as is for 50.

P.S. wet patch, dry patch, lubed (bore butter) patch between shots

 

[paulvallandigham]

I have been on two different wild boar hunts, with several members in our hunting party. The longest shot was measured in feet, not Yards! If you are happy with that load at 50 yards, you are ready to hunt wild boar. Your biggest problem at any distance will be intervening brush. You might be able to see them, but getting a clear shot at their heart/lung area and not be shooting through brush is very difficult. I hunted on a Labor Day weekend in Tennessee, and years later, in January in Tennessee, with snow on the ground. You might think that winter hunting would be easier, but the boars stayed in the timber, and we still had trouble with small twigs and new trees sticking up out of the snow. It actually was more difficult to see the sticks and brush without the leaves on, in overcast skies, with the snow actually making it more difficult to focus our eyes. Totally unexpected to all of the hunters. I think the longest shot of the 2 hunts was at 20 yards, and that was done by a friend who joined us to kill a boar with a bow and arrow with one shot.

 

[Otter]

G-man,

This is not addressing your question exactly, but I am going on a hog hunt next week here in Arkansas. Bulk of hogs in this area (I am told) will be in the 150 to 250 pound range, or smaller. I am planning on using my .54 cal GPR (sorry, perc not flint) with roundball for projectile and keeping my personal effective range at about a 50 yard limit. I am far from being "the great hog hunter", but I have seen several hogs downed and it seems they need to be shot a bit forward and a bit higher than you would aim at a deer. The aim point needs to be in the neck or right behind the ear to drop them on the spot. The larger hogs have a protective "plate" on their front shoulders to help protect them from the tusks of another hog during a scuffle. If this hunt plays out as planned, I will let you know the results.

 

[boar]

My buddy shot a hog in TN with my TC Hawken 54 with 110 grs 2ff and max-ball. Shot him behind shoulder, drop on spot. Guide was happy as no dogs got tore up. Largest hog they got. He was not far away went he shot. Dilly

 

[paulvallandigham]

THe plate you talk about is the same as your shoulder blade. On a boar, it happens to be fairly thick, with both bone and cartelage. You .54 will punch right through it. I don't recommend high shots. The neck is a lot more difficult to hit than you think, and even when you hit it, unless you also hit the spinal cord, or break a vertebrae in such a way that bone is slammed into the spinal cord, the hog may just go on running. Aim behind the elbow of a foreleg for a low lung/heart shot, and you will have your boar in short order. Do not expect a boar to drop in its tracks. It happens, but not often enough to rely on it.

 

[silverfox]

Professor. Your 50 yds group looks a lot like mind did with Buffalo bullets 385 gr hollow base hollow point. And your right they do let you know you are shooting a heavy slug. But then they also are impressive when they impact a large animal. I got 100 groups just a little larger so you should expect about 2 to 3 inchs at 100 good enough for anything you would want to hunt.
Yes hog hunting is usually at very close rifle ranges be ready to shoot and shoot quickly and accurately.
Good luck: Fox :hatsoff:

 

[captaincaveman]

I happen to know where some hogs up to about 3-400lbs. Are here in Ohio. I have never hunted hogs before, but with no closed season on them it just might give me something to do until deer season. I have a .54 GPR but only have the roundball barrel. Will a .530 ball with 100gr 3f be enough?

Josh

 

[Grantman]

No Excuses makes a 495 grain 50 caliber conical. I suspect with 80-90 grains of FFFg the rifle would kill on one end and wound on the other!

 

[Wehrmacht]

Suggestion.....just as Paul says, aim just behind the elbow anywhere from one to five inches and about half way up-down on the hog's[url] body.Broadside[/url] is best. This will punch a hole through both lungs and it doesn't matter if you use a .32cal squirrel rifle or a .62cal rifle the hog won't go but 60-70 yards. You can't run any farther than that holding your breath, and neither can a hog! When blood starts pouring into the lungs he's going down! I recently killed a little 100-110 lb boar with just such a shot at 37 yards, .32cal H.House squirrel rifle,28gr 3f, 41gr cast PRB. He ran about 70 yards and piled up.

If the hog is really up close, then a ball through the hole in the ear will drop it pretty quick. Again, a broadside shot is best. This isn't an easy shot unless you're close, though!

 

[paulvallandigham]

Josh; That load is more than adequate. In fact, that .54 will kill just about anything that walks or crawls on this continent. It will also bust through that thick shoulderblade on the boar, if you hit too far forward. I still recommend a low lung shot, as it will drop them quick, and destroy a minimum of meet.

 

[windwalker_au]

Grantman here in west australia i use a pedersolie tryon .54 with a 420 grn mini, my tryon is an old one with a 1in 47 twist my load is 110 grn of wano fff, the mini has had the base plug turned down to give a thicker skirt it stops hogs in there tracks. no folowing a blood trail. in the winter i use a round ball there is no chance of the bush catching fire. the round ball kills them but not as good as the mini.any of the big mini's or sabots will do the job on hogs.
bernie :thumbsup:

 

[windwalker_au]

meat i dont care if i wreck a bit of meat i dont want hooks like these riping in to me.these where taken from a 495lb boar.thats a 45/70 round to show the size of the tusks.
bernie. :thumbsup:

 

[PreglerD]

Here in Germany we are really in pigland. The best aiming point is in the middle of the body than you can be sure to hit the loungs. Don't follow the tipp to aim behind the ears, there is not really a killing area. Hogs react completely difficult than deers.

 

[PreglerD]

Hogs are very tough, so you need a heavy bullet which makes a big hole. The minie is such a bullet.I wouldn't recommend a PRB. It has to less deep penetration which is very necessary for hog hunting. So a conical, best with hollow point, is the most deerlike bullet for clean kills.

 

[paulvallandigham]

On my first wild boar hunt, three hunters killed boars shooting .50, .54, and .75 PRB. All of us had to shoot them a second time to anchor them. We spent a lot of time doing post mortem examinations of the carcasses and wound channels, and came to the conclusion that a round ball, no matter how much it weighs, is just not going to deliver enough shock to put the boar down quickly. We recommended using only conicals to the other members of the club. However, I do believe that any PRB that is .54 caliber or bigger will punch through that shoulderblade, and kill the hog. I would not recommend any hollow point for hog hunting in any caliber. Use a good flat nosed conical bullet, so that you deliver some shocking punch when the bullet hits. That is the best chance for knocking the wind out of the boar and putting him down fast. BTW, all the first hits on those three boar we shot were good hits, that would have killed the boars eventually.

As to the boar's tusks, about 75% of those tusks are below the gum line, but the remaining 25 % are very capable of slicing you up. The upper and lower tusks rub together, leaving a sharp edge on those bottom tusks that tilt out away from the jaw line.

Always have a good tree spotted before you shoot, so you can get it between you and the boar if it should charge you. A tree you can climb is an added bonus.

 

[Wehrmacht]

Paul, I am a little reluctant to say very much about this since no good will come out of it and, too, usually, most of the time I agree 100% with what you say about various subjects. But....IMO you are off a little with what you say about this. Agree or disagree,naturally, but my experiences are based on many years in forest/wildlife management work where feral hogs are eradicated at every opportunity. In the past 10 years I've probably killed enough to fill an 18 wheeler, and many of them were dispatched with a .50cal PRB and it will work 100% of the time if you'll double lung shoot them. A PRB produces an awesome wound channel, and double lunged with a .32cal or a .54cal doesn't matter.Do this and the hog will pile up 60-75 yards from where its shot. Every time. Nothing can go very far with both lungs punched through with even a small cal round ball with blood pumping into the lungs.

The thick armour that you mentioned on big boars is actually a cartlidge type of deposit just under the hide in the back neck shoulder bone area. It has the consistancy of the sidewall on a Michelin tire and is every bit as tough as the tire! A knife will not penetrate it, and it's necessary to split the boar's hide along the backbone and pull the hide down over this armour....and it's difficult to do. Every big wild boar will not have this armour to any degree, but most do.

Much of our hog eradication work is with dogs. Airedales, Currs, Plotts, Pitt and American Bulldogs and crossess of these.(Trail dogs and catch dogs,and they differ in action as well as job description :winking: ). I will shoot hogs when I run across them at every opportunity, and I'm not dragging one out of the woods. I'll take the tenderloin and hams if it's a young shoatie kind of pig, but that's all. I'll also mention that it's the 200 pound boar with maybe 1 inch cutters sticking out its mouth that will kill your dogs and cut you to pieces, too, and not the 375-400 pound (rarely found) boars with 3 inch cutters.

And Kirrmeister!....You fellows over there in Deutschland have bred up a little dog called a Jaghterrier. Familiar with the breed? These little doggies-15 to 18 pounds-are unbelieveable!!! We're starting to use these to catch hogs! I've never seen any four footed animal that is as vicious as a Jaghterrier! I honestly think that four of these could catch and kill a Cape Buffalo or a Rhino :shocked2: I know for a fact that three can kill a 200 pound black bear....... :shake:

 

[paulvallandigham]

My brother now lives in Tallahassee, and would love to help eradicate some of those Florida hogs. He has been hunting in a State forest near Tallahassee, but so far has only found tracks and no boars.

If I suggested that a round ball will not kill a wild board, I apologize. That was not what i meant to say. In fact, the year before, my friend killed a boar with a frontal chest shot that sent a rifled .62 cal ball the entire length of the body, to come to rest under the skin on the outside of the right rear leg. The boar stood in its spot, while he reloaded, and shook before sinking to the ground and dying just as Don finished reloading and raised his gun to take a second shot.

I believe that the .50 RB is also adequate to kill a boar. What many shooters want to know is what do they use to " Stop " a moving wild boar. That is why I recommended a conical with a flat nose. A RB will kill them, but it may not necessarily stop them. In the second boar hunt I participated in, we had 7 hunters, and 3 charges. We talked to the participants at length about the charges, and one or two of the hogs may just have accidentally chosen the same path the man was standing on for an escape, and was not charging. The third case was one where the hog was chasing the hunter around a tree, and he finally stopped it with a 12 gauge shotgun shooting slugs. He said he shot behind himself as he was running around the tree.

I took the lungs of a sow with my first shot, and she ran away from me, squealing. My second shot was to her neck to bring her down. That did it.

I am equally sure that hundreds of hogs have been killed with .22 rimfire cartridges, but I would not recommend using a .22 to hunt wild boar.

 

[PreglerD]

Hi Förster,

until now I have no expirience with RP on hogs. I think it is possible to get a clean kill when you hold distance disciplin, when you know what I mean. Using a adequate caliber and a stout load. In GE most hogs are shooten at drive hunts with slugs. They show good results.I think a ML shot is similar.

The Jagdterriers are very helpful dogs at the drivehunts. When they saw a hog you can't hold them anymore. Thats good for the hunter, because the hog has to concentrate at the dogs and the hunter has time for a cleankill shot.