stubborn shooters
 

this last weekend i made it out to do some spot lighting on some hogs. there were four hunters i had a .308, my dad a .308, friend a .3006, buddy .243. people say that shot placement is 75% of the battle on all game. we got 3 hogs bagged and 2 that got away. the 2 that got away were shot by the .243. why do people have to be so hard headed? if a person knows that a .30 cal bullet is better, why not use it?

RE: stubborn shooters
 

someone else can take this.....im not touching it with a 50foot stick.....sounds like poor shot placement/poor bullet choice to me...

RE: stubborn shooters
 

good move and

ditto!!!!!

RE: stubborn shooters
 

well i shoot a 243 and i kill several hogs a year and drop them in there tracks. i live in texas and mostly deer hunt .my first gun i bought was a 3006 and man i mean to tell you it would drop a deer/hogs at any distance with any shot placement. as i matured as a hunter i found out that i did not need that big of a gun for the 60 to 120 pound deer and i finally bought a 243. i shoot coyotes to hogs and can kill all of them effectivly. mostly if you take ur time, do not rush, and make good shots you dont have the lost game. on all of my hogs i shoot for the head on deer i shoot at the neck that way i dont loose much meat. what really pisses me off is when someone you have hunting with you takes "pop shots" and dosent take time to aim but that is just me

RE: stubborn shooters
 

Not knowing were you llive or hunt,its illegal to hunt at night were i live for wild hogs,deer,bear,and most animals. There was an article not to long ago about hog hunting,and this person stated that one need a 375 H&H to hunt hogs. This one he shot was already shot 3 times with a 270 and was still alive so he shot it with the 375H&H,and killed the pig on the 3rd shot from the H&H. So Go figure. Some people have said they are hard to kill and so on. Maybe im just lucky,or the wild hogs i have shot,never had one go more than 20yds. The majjority of them dropped dead or withing 10ft. from were they were shot. I only shot 23 last yr,and 3 so far thhis year. Shots from 15yds to 228yds. Now gentlemen hold on to our seats.I am an ethical hunter,hunter safety instructor, ccw instructor,and a state certified gunsmith of 39 yrs. I SHOT ALL of them with my 223,with 70 gr. speer ssp bullets. And they weren,t blood shot either,so go figure,don,t know what to say. but better luck in the future . vangunsmith

RE: stubborn shooters
 

What is the rate of twist of your 223.? Mine won't shoot the 70 grainers

RE: stubborn shooters
 

In my opinion it sounds more like a lousy shot than just the size of the gun .

RE: stubborn shooters
 

same here i got 1 and have no complaints

RE: stubborn shooters
 

No Hog is going to get away if hit in a vital area with a 243. It may run a few yards but that is it.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

i agree 100%

dkhamner, if this guy cant shoot very good with a 243 do you think he will shoot any better with a bigger gun? i think this guy needs to practice shooting to become a good enough shot to hit the kill zone or stay home. dont blame the gun. i think the problem is some where else.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

Shot placement is 100% of the battle. Doesn't matter if you use a 243 or 308 as you just found out.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

Yeah, the .243 is much more then necessary for hogs. I mean, this year I dropped an 8 point in his tracks with a 100 grain power point. As others have said, no hog's gonna live long with a well placed bullet in his vitals.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

Here's what you need to do. Next time out give the .243 to you or your dad. Give your .308 to the guy shooting the .243. Let us know the results, as well as bullet selection. If its the caliber, that test should prove your point.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

hey gentleman, i'm not trying to get a bad rap here and start an arguement. in texas in hall county of the texas panhandle you can spotlight legally. several years back it was againts the law to spot light where deer are known to roam, if you got caught spotlighting whether you shot a deer or not you were guilty of spot lighting deer. times have changed here. then we didn't have wild hogs at all. now the hogs are a pest and a nuisance to the farmers and ranchers. my cousin for one and i know many farmers that have had to replant several peanut fields because the hogs destroy the feild after they have planted. peanuts are expensive and insurance doesnt cover crop destruction by hogs. it is now legal to spotlight even though there are deer! trust my i've seen many huge bucks with a spotlight but i have no desire to shoot one. i do have good hunting ethics and morals. but on the hogs we spotlight, when we see them out in a peanut field or cotton field or hay grazer field 9 out of 10 times there already at a dead run for the pasture or crp grass. once they get there you wont see them again. this is the reason for the poorly placed shots. we have stopped the pickup and tried the long shot with the hogs running, yes we have shot some that way. when we do shoot like that its usually a very long shot in the spotlight, up to 400 yards. ipersonnaly have never seen a shot farther than that with a spotlight. when a hog is at a dead run you cant take your time and pay attention to your breathing and shot placement. with this being said, i personnaly with all the experiance that i have believe that a .30 caliber bullet is better for this type of hunting. this guy that was shooting the .243 is an expert marksman when he can take his time to shoot. i have seen hogs go down with a .243 or 6 mm. i have taken them down with these weapons. but the shots were the well placed not in a hurry shots. i have known for a fact most of the time when a hog no matter how big it is will not move far when shot with a .30 caliber bullet. even shot in the ham. and a ham shot is good when the pickup is rolling and the hog is running. again this hunting is legal in my part of texas, a FMJ is legal to hunt hogs with. i hope this answers a lot of questions. thanks

RE: stubborn shooters
 

i agree with this 100%. but its not always possible to hit a running hog at long distnace in the vitals, when the pickup is still moving.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

and the truth comes out.........
Shooting at running hogs, at 400 yds and he blaims the caliber.
(Shakes his head and walks away...)

RE: stubborn shooters
 

From a moving truck no less.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

I think a .50 BMG mounted on a Humvee would be very appropo for those hunting applications. Just make sure you use tracers. Got to love those strafing shots

RE: stubborn shooters
 

lol, i guess you have to be there to understand. i guess i do blame the caliber. in my experience at hunting hogs at night, when the hogs are running, a poorly placed shot by a .30 caliber bullet is a lot more likely to halt (maybe not kill) a hog. more times than not a hog shot with a smaller caliber such as the .243 a hog will get a way if not a vital shot. 95% of the time when we are hunting with a spotlight we can chase the hogs down before they get out of a field. this will usually result in running the hogs over with the pickup, (yes we have) or getting a close to medium range shot. man this is a tough crowd. i'd hate to be at your hunting camp telling hunting stories! if you dont have it on video camera your just a liar!

RE: stubborn shooters
 

Perhaps we find you ethics a bit distasteful and your methods bordering on stupidity.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

lol! dont knock it till you tried it. its more action than you can find sitting in a stand waiting for them to come to ya. if you think this is bordering stupidity, tell all the hog hunters in this area and all the hunters that travel 100's of miles to hunt like this that were stupid. we may be stupid but there is no person that hasnt done stupid stuff. what might be stupid to you isnt to many others. i'll tell the sheriff of hall co that were stupid. he'll get a kick out of that.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

It's not neccessarily the bullet caliber or design as much as it is shot placement. If you can't hit the correct area, a larger bullet isn't going to do much better.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

Friz and others, I don't like it any more than you, but got me thinking, whats the difference in this and hunting in Tanzinia. You can't bring back the meat. Your doing it for a trophy. I don't like it. But its the way it is for some folks.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

well i also live in texas and know what hogs can do to crops and fences we like to trap the hogs that we are going to eat and then if we go spotlighting and see hogs we just shoot them if they run off oh well like you said they are varmints i know that sounds harsh and unethical but man they can really mess stuff up when we are out shooting them we allways take a scoped rifle usually my 243 and my freind has a mini 14 in 223 (great hog gun lots of bullets lol) and a sks (also a good close range hog gun) most of the time you get a couple standing shots first then they all start running that is when the autos come in to play

RE: stubborn shooters
 

Do the hog affect you personally?

RE: stubborn shooters
 

finally some one that understands what i'm talking about. thanks timgrant_75. maybe we can get together sometime and we can go have us some "stupid inethical" fun hog hunting. talking about the semi automatic rifles, i use an AK47 .308. its a blast. we have more fun accidentally spotlighting hogs than we do deer hunting on purpose. take care

RE: stubborn shooters
 

From what I understand the locals get the meat so it doesn't lay there and rot. True? Big difference.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

If you call that hunting then please keep the hell out of my state.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

i call it hog hunting, hall county style. there is a difference like night and day between hog hunting and any other type of hunting for me. i accept your feelings on the matter and respect them. this is just the way everyone in this area hunts them. there are leases here that have deer, hog, quail, etc..., they will take you hog hunting the way i described. i guess if you disagree with it then you dont have to hunt them.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

for some animals. Some are uneatable. Most hunters there for fun shoot the baboons. I don't know. I got a friend who won't eat deer. I never encourage him cause I get all his tenderloins and prime cuts. I just couldn't hunt anything I ain't going to eat.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

, thats why i don't squirrel hunt anymore

i agree that hogs are destructive, when i lived in texas one place paid to have hogs brought in and turned loose, a few years later they paid the same guy to trap them out. as far as hunting them at night with a spotlight, a hog will go nocturnal on you quicker than a deer from what i've seen, if i didn't want them there i would trap them out, they are good eating but i'd rather not see another one on any piece of property i'm hunting.

now on the shooting out of a moving vehichle, is there any beer involved in these hunts[:-]

RE: stubborn shooters
 

Sounds to me like the stubborn one is he who can't believe the .243 can kill a hog. :D

RE: stubborn shooters
 

the only problem with trapping only is that hogs get "trap smart" and then you have a problem trapping them. if i see a hog on our place and i have a gun i am going to do my best to kill it. would rather wast a 20 cent bullet then fix fence all summer. hogs here are getting completly out of hand i was sitting on the deer stand a few months ago and 33 hogs came to the oat patch i was hunting and at the way those thangs multiply that is a lot of money in damages. they couldnt harvest some parts of our wheat the last 2 years cause the hogs have wallowed around so much

RE: stubborn shooters
 

he either choose bullets that weren't right for the job or he made 2 bad shots. not the guns fault

RE: stubborn shooters
 

yea that is true, the guy we had trap the ones i mentioned missed a few, we eventually got shed of them hunting feeders, but they do get slick, and it surprised me how quickly they'll go nocturnal, most people i know that have wild hogs on their place want them gone, and i don't blame anybody for killin' em, but i'd still try to do something with the meat. there has got to be somebody around that would be glad to have it. like i said i'd rather buy my ham from a farmer, than have hogs running wild on any property i hunt[:@], they just flat tear up to much real-estate

RE: stubborn shooters
 

Pigs can run fast. Book on hunting California hogs mentions that they might hit 25 mph.

1 mile = 5,280 feet
a pig running at 20 mph is going 105,600 feet per hour
3,600 seconds in an hour
a pig running at 20 mph is going around 30 feet per second

Muzzle velocity = 2900 feet per second
at 200 yards = 2500 feet per second
at 400 yards = 2100 feet per second

shot at 400 yards (1200 feet)
figure 1200 feet traveled divided by 2500 feet per second avg velocity
bullet travels roughly 1/2 second to target

a pig going 30 feet per second, 1/2 of a second travels 15 feet

A hog is maybe 3 feet long, probably shorter. I don't know, lead the shot five pig lengths? At night? And hitting a running hog from a moving pickup on an unpaved surface is something I'd have to see to believe.

Anybody see a problem with the math and/or assumptions?

RE: stubborn shooters
 

well i know what the book says but a hog might be able to run that fast but at very short distances. i know one time we had killed 10 hogs by circling them in a feild with a f wheeler. there was a big group of bees brush in the middle and we flushed them out the only cover was about 300 yards away after about 100 yards they began to slow down to a slow trot would just ride up and shoot them in the head with a 22. a hogs best bet is to hit the cover that is why they hardly ever seen in the feilds in the day time.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

As far as I know it is illegal in Texas to shoot from a vehicle.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

Lad, you need to take yore profit from that beach front home and move up to Sunland/Tujunga. You've way too much time on your hands right now.

RE: stubborn shooters
 

It's legal and a common way here in texas, as long as it's on private land. It is only ilegal on migratory birds.