How bad do they spook with suppressed sub-sonic rounds??
And, how well does a subsonic round, like the .300 Whisper, anchor them?
Guess you'd need a head, shoulder/spine hit.
DF
I'm in the "sit and wait" stage of obtaining a suppressor, so to the first question, I don't know yet. I hope to receive it by mid summer. I'm using subsonic rounds because my plan is to go 100% subsonic once my suppressor is released from federal prison and want to test effectiveness as often as possible before then.
From what I gather from those who've pig hunted with suppressed subsonics, they still spook, if nothing else, from the reaction of the pig who was shot and the sound of bullet impact. I've heard some reports that the main advantage of the suppressor is that they supposedly don't always spook (depending on shot distance), and when they do, they sometimes don't immediately run off and/or don't know from which direction the noise came from. I've had hogs spook from the sound of me shooting arrows from a compound bow, and I'm pretty sure the suppressed subsonic round will make more noise than that.
As for effectiveness of .300 Whisper/ BLK subsonic, I can only speak to the .300 BLK subsonic 208 Amax at around 1000 fps MV. So far, I've killed 5 hogs with this load, and they all died. The only one that was anchored on the spot was one I shot in the head. The rest, I shot in the shoulder to intentionally test expansion through the thickest, toughest part of the hogs. I figure if the subsonic round works on shoulder shots on larger, tougher pigs, it's good to go. Unfortunately, I've only killed one pig that could be considered "large," a boar that I estimate weighed around 200 lbs. I shot him at 80 yards, the bullet entered just behind his shoulder, completely penetrated and exited, and that pig traveled around 50 yards before toppling over. The exit hole wasn't very large. The remaining 4 hogs were in the 50 - 100 lb range and were all between 50 - 80 yds away at the shots. Of those 4, the 3 shot in the shoulder ran a short distance before dying, as I managed to barely miss breaking the shoulder bones on each. About the best I can say to this point is the subsonic 208 Amax .300 BLK works, but not to devastating effect. Whether I stay with subsonic or go with supersonic loads depends on both more kill results and suppressor effectiveness. If the suppressor allows me to get in more shots at groups of pigs before they run off and the subsonic load continues to get the job done well enough within the short effective range, I'll stick with subsonics. If not, I'll reluctantly trade off a little noise, switch to supersonic loads and still appreciate the noise reduction the suppressor provides.
