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Why hogs appear to be bulletproof...
bigoutside
Member Posts: 19,443 ✭
Most hunters know where to shoot an animal to produce a quick, efficient, humane kill.
Many hunters have spent decades or full lifetimes taking that "put down" shot at long distances.
It looks something like this:
[img][/img]
The problem is that a hog is built significantly differently.
[img][/img]
An accurate double lung shot for a deer is a gut shot for a pig. And due to the extensive fat layers, a through and through might not ever bleed. A gut shot hog is dead... Be certain, It might take a few days for it to lay down and die though.
A heart shot for a deer, again, is just hitting fat on a hog. Might catch a rib if you're lucky. But a small miss here is long term survivable.
Spine shot, neck shot, even a brain shot, they aren't where you think they are. If you only know deer, or in the heat of hunting, you revert back to what's always worked for you before, on deer. Take a moment to compare what percentage of all possible hits would kill a deer. And then compare that to a similar sized but shorter legged pig. Less vital areas, presented poorly.
I shot a small boar with a .223. 5 steps and done. I think it was walking from memory, cause it's heart was jelly.
My BIL shot a sow with a 30-06 and she ran a hundred yards or more and then chased a fella up a tree. If it had been a deer, it would have been dead. It required an additional shot to make it lay down.
And it's that different anatomy that makes me question bullets ricocheting off of armor plate boars. I think bullets that are found imbedded in gristle most likely entered from the other side, almost passed through, and hit nothing of consequence.
In the video we all viewed, several shots were made into the jowls of the pig. Sure, seems like a likely enough spot to aim for. But there really isn't anything of consequence in a large part of that space. I think that hunter was presented with a quartering forward shot with the pig's left shoulder closest. From the streak on the chest, he missed a heart shot by a smidgen, and broke the back leg. Maybe he was sighted in for 100 yds and took it at 200? He didn't miss by much. If he'd been standing on a milk crate, it would have been one boring video. [:D]
As others said, I would have stayed with the rifle for another 29 rounds before switching to a handgun.
If given the opportunity again, I will hunt pigs with an AR in .223 if game laws and circumstances allow. And I won't use depleted uranium bullets either.
- but just in case, I might load every fifth round with one of my special kryptonite hand loads. [;)]
Many hunters have spent decades or full lifetimes taking that "put down" shot at long distances.
It looks something like this:
[img][/img]
The problem is that a hog is built significantly differently.
[img][/img]
An accurate double lung shot for a deer is a gut shot for a pig. And due to the extensive fat layers, a through and through might not ever bleed. A gut shot hog is dead... Be certain, It might take a few days for it to lay down and die though.
A heart shot for a deer, again, is just hitting fat on a hog. Might catch a rib if you're lucky. But a small miss here is long term survivable.
Spine shot, neck shot, even a brain shot, they aren't where you think they are. If you only know deer, or in the heat of hunting, you revert back to what's always worked for you before, on deer. Take a moment to compare what percentage of all possible hits would kill a deer. And then compare that to a similar sized but shorter legged pig. Less vital areas, presented poorly.
I shot a small boar with a .223. 5 steps and done. I think it was walking from memory, cause it's heart was jelly.
My BIL shot a sow with a 30-06 and she ran a hundred yards or more and then chased a fella up a tree. If it had been a deer, it would have been dead. It required an additional shot to make it lay down.
And it's that different anatomy that makes me question bullets ricocheting off of armor plate boars. I think bullets that are found imbedded in gristle most likely entered from the other side, almost passed through, and hit nothing of consequence.
In the video we all viewed, several shots were made into the jowls of the pig. Sure, seems like a likely enough spot to aim for. But there really isn't anything of consequence in a large part of that space. I think that hunter was presented with a quartering forward shot with the pig's left shoulder closest. From the streak on the chest, he missed a heart shot by a smidgen, and broke the back leg. Maybe he was sighted in for 100 yds and took it at 200? He didn't miss by much. If he'd been standing on a milk crate, it would have been one boring video. [:D]
As others said, I would have stayed with the rifle for another 29 rounds before switching to a handgun.
If given the opportunity again, I will hunt pigs with an AR in .223 if game laws and circumstances allow. And I won't use depleted uranium bullets either.
- but just in case, I might load every fifth round with one of my special kryptonite hand loads. [;)]
Comments
For a decent stop with a handgun caliber you have to either be really familiar with their oddball internal layout or get really lucky.
This was down on the Oconee River swamps in Wilkinson County, Georgia.
I have shot lots and lots more deer than that.
I didn't find the hog particularly tough to kill. I shot them just the way I shot the deer, put it right behind the front leg and never had a hog go over 50 yards.
The one boar I shot with the pistol, I was using military hardball ammo [legal in Georgia] and I was 30 yards away. Just walking through the swamps with the pistol in my holster, walked right up on the 120 pound boar. You could never walk up on a deer like that, hogs are easy to hunt.
I hit high, got him in the spine. He went down and his hind legs were paralyzed. I ran right up and shot him twice right behind the shoulder, he folded up. Good eating, that pig was. Female pigs are even better eating. The ham from a 120 pound wild sow, smoked for 10 hours on mesquite wood, is the best meat I have ever had.
My buddy shot a monster. He shot a 420 pound boar, got him in the neck from 100 yards with a 30-06. This hog looked like a dinosaur. The hog dropped in his tracks, Dead Right There.
We made some sausage from that giant and fried it up in the kitchen, it smelled so bad we had to leave the room while it cooked. Took one bite and spit it out.
We gave the sausage to the dog and he ran outside and started howling at the moon. Meat from a giant boar is no good.
Explodes the heart every time....
If U miss a bit low,bone shards still get the heart BAD!!! A bit high and you still cut off all the piping in his pump house.
Hit it dead on the point of the shoulder,U have a broke leg devil,coming to get you!!!!
That's where my buddy Chris' dog "Chewie" comes in...
That is one badass dog. As soon as U put his Kevlar vest and neck guards on,he turns into SUPERDOG....
Chewie has saved more than one of us,more than a few times...
I mean, for a deer, if you have to blow up the shoulder with the 30-06 in order to get to the boiler room, who cares? The shoulder on a deer only has about 3 lbs of hamburger in it anyway.
But the shoulder on the hog has many pounds of good meat.
I was a paramedic in central Georgia when I did my hog hunting, there was many, many a Saturday when 3 or 4 of my paramedic buddies and I would put a hog shoulder or ham on the smoker at 10 am, and sit around all day, listening to the Ga Bulldogs on the radio, drinking beer and smelling that delicious pork cooking.
About 5 pm several nurses from the hospital would show up and it was party time.
Damn, those were the good old days. I miss those times very much.