Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Pig shoulder shots?

I am a huge fan of shooting pigs through at least one shoulder, with enough gun. I believe 22 calibers are generally too small and the 24s are marginal. Using the right bullet, in the hands of an experienced shot, they can work, but as I said are marginal in my opinion. I think the best hog calibers start with the 6.5s and go up from there. Almost all off the hogs I've seen have killed have been killed with these calibers. 99% of the hogs I've killed using a 7x57, 280, and 30.06. I have head shot a few pigs. A few I've missed. I don't recommend this as pigs are constantly moving, both forward and backward and the brain is smaller than a tangerine. The pigs kill zone is much more forward than a deer's. Most shots behind the shoulder, except high ones, will miss the lungs. My friends and i started shooting, where we tried to take out at least one shoulder, whether entrance or exit, it didn't matter. That shot is about the size of a volleyball. Which is easier to hit, a tangerine or a volleyball? Since then, we have never had a pig move more than a couple of feet. Most have fallen and done the piggy break dance.
Sorry I'm so long winded. Here is the question.
Have you ever taken out a pigs shoulder, penetrate, the area between, and had one run? Captdavid

Nope

I hit one broadside double lung shot, he took two steps and flopped. 270 Winchester with 130 grain Hornaday interlock bullet. I did not hit the shoulder.

I almost always shoot them in the head, unless I am shooting one for a Mexican family, then I use neck shots. It you shoot them in the head, you ruin all the tamale meat.

I always go for the shoulder. As you said, the hogs vitals are further forward so you have a choice of head, neck or shoulder.

No. I try to avoid that shot, because it does this:





... and I really like to eat shoulders.


The only "behind the shoulder" shot I've taken on a hog was with a .223, and the 64 grain soft point dropped him right there. The same bullet in the ear is deadly, too.

I hunt hogs for meat, however. If I were trying to cull them from an area, I'd have no problem with shoulder shots.

FC

What were u using? We call it PSI! Pig Scene Investigation. We use non-magnums with c&cs bondeds and Partitions and I've never seen that. Captdavid

120 NBT from a 7-08 at < 15 yards. Yeah... I shoulda gone for the head...

I took another at 80-ish yards with that same setup a couple years later, and had about the same results.

FC

120 TTSX, 26 Nosler at a hundred yds or so.

DF

Yep. I was planning to shoot it in the head. But it saw me and started to turn. I quickly aimed at the far shoulder and let fly. The Barnes LRX 127 grainer was launched at 3,350 feet per second. The pig was maybe twenty yards away. After the shot it made about thirty feet before collapsing. The off shoulder was fine.

The one pictured above was DRT.

DF

We take the shots that are offered. That said, I'd say it's not the placement, but the bullet and velocity. I also almost exclusively use my 7x57, 150 Partitions @ 2700fps. I'll have some meat damage, but they always fall. I'm considering using 175RNs @2400fps. Two I've killed with that load, one could almost eat up to the hole. Captdavid

.444 Marlin

Yuck.

DF

SHOOT THEM IN THE NECK,half way between back of jowl to shoulder.half way from top of neck to bottom.Bigger target and absolutely no tracking needed if done right.

1st pig I killed some years ago was a lesson in bullet placement.

I was sitting a ground box blind at the T in the jeep track & backed up to a fence line, facing our lease, with a thick heavy shin oak thicket behind me. Heard some crunching behind & left of me and out popped the lil porker about 50-60 yards away and headed towards the dozer cut to my left. Eased the 257Rbts M70 out the window, and he stopped for a second catching my motion, put the crosshairs just below his right ear & at the safety's click noise going into battery he wheeled and scooted as I pulled the trigger. The bullet caught him on the point of his right shoulder and rolled him over.

He scrambled up and 3 legged hauled butt into the brush line by the dozer track inside our lease and out of sight to my open mouthed amazement, faster than I can type this.

Reloaded, sat back and studied on what I had not just accomplished , my 1st hog kill...when lo & behold he popped out again from the same original place, going the same route as before dragging the right front leg...and I popped him again a little further back in the usual WTail KZ of the crease, rolled him over again, waited a few minutes to see if he was staying down, and started getting put of the blind...when he got up and crawled down a game trail into the 30' high wall of finger thick briar in front of him.

I waited by my watch a full 15 minutes past when I could no longer hear him thrashing around in the wall of briar...and got down on my hands and knees or belly to crawl down the same game trail & quickly shed as much clothing and back pack that was hanging up on the briar as I could.

Found him about 100 feet deep in the briar, put another couple bullets in him to the center and left of the cowlick on his chest at about 50-60 feet when he stood up to challenge me and he laid back down still clicking his cutters.

Waited another 7-8 minutes and moved forward again, and he stood up, when I got closer, still wanting to fight and I hit him just under his right eye sighting down the side of the barrel and finally AC'd the back side of his skull with my last bullet.

He'd almost made it back out of the wall of briar to the dozer track. If he hadn't I'd left him lay as I was wore out from fighting the briar...and still took me a half hour to drag him about 20' to where I could stand up.

After that experience with the lil 125/130lb porker in 1982, I changed 2 things about shooting hogs whenever possible ...I switched from the hyper accurate now discontinued WW 100gr Silvertip 257 Rbt's ammo into harder and faster 130 or 150 grain 270's, and stopped using the classic WT shoulder crease shot Period. If I can't hit a shoulder and break a hog down, I only take base of the skull from behind or q'tred away to behind the eye shots centered on & just below the ear hole from any angle on a side shot. Those bullet placement locations are always bang flop shots.

Had a 150/160lb'er take a RP CL 165gr '06 bullet at 50-60 feet in a driving rain storm right before full dark, impact was just behind the last rib on the left side when we spooked each other meeting on a game trail, and he wheeled to gewt away. Took out lots of vitals and his right shoulder from inside & recovered the bullet just under the skin on the outside of his right shoulder...and still needed a final Kill Shot. Just 'cause a hog's down don't mean he's a DRT and safe to walk up on.

FWIW I'll never crawl into another briar patch on a hog's natural ground again...some kinda scary Schit for sure listening to him grind his cutters at you and you can't even stand up for the all the briar pulling at you...much less try and move away from him...is the stuff of late nite sweaty wakeups.

Elmer Keith said..." Use Enough Gun " as I recall.
Ron

I shoot them in the shoulders too. I use 25 06 and up. I have shot quite a few with an AR. The 52 grain Barnes will go through both shoulders. I have trap gates on 3 feeder pens, so I catch quite a few. Pigs are good shooting practice and good to test bullets on. Shooting pigs convinced me Berger VLD bullets weren't all that great, but that's just my opinion.

hanco, you mentiond pens, a good bud has perfected killing hogs in a pen. I've seen it done a bunch of different ways, this is the slickest.

He walks up on a pen, stops before the hogs get nervous and start running around, probably 15 yds or so.

He uses a cheap .17 HMR with FMJ ammo. While the hogs are staring at him, he lines up on their heads, draws an imaginary line between their eyes, goes 1" above that line at midpoint. He waits until the target is well within an opening in the wire and fires. The hog drops, eyes poked out on stems, weird looking. Little or no bleeding.

He waits until they settle down, does it again. He can kill a whole pen of hogs without blood, squeeling or chaos.

DF

I only shoot shoulders, when possible. Puts them down - usually "right now". In my .44 mag I use heavy for caliber hard cast, flat-nose bullets. Don't expand, don't need to, don't tear up as much meat. 300 gr Barnes Busters in .44 are good, also, as well as TTSX in other calibers. Shot a big sow through the shoulders at 120 yards with a 130 TTSX out of a .300 Win Mag once, and it put her lights out immediately, with minimal meat destruction.

If you aren't worried about meat, shoulder or neck is the place to shoot with just about any caliber. Even when shooting for meat, consider whether a bit of blood shot meat is worse than having to chase a wounded, animal - which will probably taste worse.

We do eat shoulders as pulled pork, roasts, or in sausage, but mainly prefer back straps and hams - ribs are good, also.

Mike

My latest hog medicine, a .45 Colt Marlin Cowboy shooting 300 gr. cast and jacketed bullets over 22 gr. 4227. Haven't clocked it yet, but out of a 24" barrel, should be close to 1,700 fps.

I got this gun used back when I was in the cowboy action game. It had been slicked up by "Rusty Marlin" a CAS from N.H. His name is Rob Zimmerman, a production engineer for Ruger at the time. IIRC, he later moved to MD to work for Beretta.

Gun is super slick with a great trigger. It now wears a VX-3i 2.5-8x36. The comb was for a Bushnell Holosight. I left it in place, used higher rings and can operate the hammer without an extension. About 8#'s as shown.

DF