At closer range the 30-30 w/ a 170 grain bullet is excellent. Hogs are tough animals and if you don't hit them right they will go into the thickest cover they can find. It can get pretty exciting to go chasing a wounded hog into thick cover. We hunt them at night alot and you have to shoot fast when the light comes on. If you shoot them in the lungs on a big boar they have a shield that will can be up to 2" thick and it will seal up the wound so it makes them hard to track because it will stop the blood trail a lot of times. That is why we like to use we use a large caliber gun when we hunt them so we can get a good blood trail or better yet drop them in their tracks. We've had to crawl on our hands and knees into brush after them and had ones we thought were dead get up us. Whenever we hunt them at night when somebody shoots one we always bring at least one extra person along if we need to go into the brush after them. Down here they are so plentiful that the game warden told us to thin thewm out anyway we can. There is no limit or season on them. We like to hunt them in the summer time when all the other seasons are closed. We always have them cleaned and on ice within an hour of shooting them and the meat is excellent.