Interesting comment Kevin.
On all the forums I've found so far dedicated to hog hunting a common thread seems to be that bigger isn't necessarily better.
It seems that rifle and revolver/pistol rounds at the low end of the power curve seem to kill more hogs quicker than the rifles and revolvers/pistol at the high end of the power curve.
I've talked to government hunters and many of them use a .220 Swift or .22-250 to kill big bears and even buffalo. They say that the bullets dump all their energy inside the animal rather than go through the animal dumping the energy outside the animal.
A friend of mine killed a big black bear with a .223 Ruger Mini-14 at about 75 yards with one shot in the sternum. The round broke the sternum and blew up the heart. The bear was standing on it's hind legs, woofed and fell over backwards dead right there. No exit hole, all energy expanded in the bear.
I think it maybe possible to have to much gun for the animal just as it's possible to have to little gun for the animal.
My OPINION* on the matter is…rarely is it a case of too much or too little gun. Sure, it happens, but for every 1 case of too much or too little gun, I’m betting there’s a few dozen of…had you placed your shot better, all would have turned out okay.
When I was young I thought it was irresponsible to use the .223 for deer sized game. But I’ve learned that the .223’s almost complete lack of recoil allows the shooter to place his shot considerably better than had he been armed with a .30-06. I’ve also learned that even with lung shots on deer, the .223 isn’t nearly the pip-squeak I used to think it was. I’ve seen chest and lung shots with 55 grain soft points result in very clean kills. Now those clean kills are not produced in a way that gives ME a warm & fuzzy. Often that little bullet just barely penetrates enough to reach the vitals…but to my astonishment, I’ve yet to see a well hit animal from a .223 just walk away.
When people say the .223, .22-250 or .220 Swift do what they do because they “dump all their energy into the target”, I say BS. They work because the shooter was able to place his/her shot with surgical precision. Pop a deer in the spine with a .220 swift and chances are a bullet that completely blew up and only penetrated 1 inch still works; again, it’s all about the shot.
It’s almost ALWAYS about the shot; place it well and most cartridges will do most reasonable jobs just fine. You don’t need a .475 Linebaugh to take down a black bear or wild pig. But if you can shoot one well, why not? I would say most every time that a .475 Linebaugh is too much gun for deer, hogs and black bear. But if you load it right, that’s not always the case. Light .480 loads will turn the .475 into something more akin to a .44 magnum. But sometimes we choose something like a .475 Linebaugh for hogs not because we NEED it, but because we’re enamored with the .475 Linebaugh (or whatever other cartridge), and we just want to see it do its thing through thick, dense muscle tissue. There’s nothing wrong with that.
But a guy has no business hunting with a handgun he can’t hit with. I’d say we as American’s run into situations of too much gun far more often than we run into issues of too little gun. A good handgunner like JWP or Whitworth can take a cannon like a .454 or .475 Linebaugh and through bullet selection and their choice in handloads, use that one handgun to kill most anything that walks on planet Earth, with game killed quick, clean and appropriately. Give that same gun to someone who can’t REALLY handle the recoil, and you can see videos like the one at the beginning of this thread all day long. Think back to the video…Even when the guy walked up to the classic Hollywood “point blank” range, his fear of his .454 caused him to jerk the trigger so bad he still couldn’t produce a quick kill on the animal, causing that poor hog to continue to writhe in pain until he finally bled out. I’m betting if the guy behind the trigger was the afore mentioned JWP or Whitworth, that hog would have died 10x as fast if they were shooting a .357 magnum, than that idiot with the .454; it’s all about the shot.
*Stressing the word OPINION. This is just my OPINION on the matter and I'm not stating this is fact, just my view of the issue of too much or too little gun.
