Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints 87 Vmax for pigs ??

Is the 87 grain .243 Vmax tough enough for hunting pigs or should I go with something else ??

kwg

There will be responses soon telling you how tough it’s are and that it’ll never work. But my experience says that 99 percent of the time you’ll be fine. Just shoot them in the front half.

I concur. You may not get exits, but you’ll get kills.

Hornady still makes the 87 grain SP, and the 87 grain HP/BT.. both of those would probably do even better.

Doing penetration testing ( just in water filled milk jugs and manzanita wood logs ), they perform better than the 87 V Max did. But I have no doubt the 87 V Max would do the job.

And this is out of a 6 x 45 barrel. ( 1 in 7 twist )

Took a good sized blacktail this season, with a 100 gr SP out of a 6 x 45.

Between that and my Grendal bolt action...about all I need anymore..

and both are pretty easy on a pound of powder to boot.

I'm not sure...I've shot a literal ton of them with a 75 gr Vmax, and they all succumbed immediately. However I confine myself to head shots, where virtually anything works.If tracking isn't too hard where you are hunting then I'd think a body shot ( front half) with the 87 gr Vmax would be just fine.

I've got some 87 gr Hornadys I loaded for coyotes but never used them. I firmly believe that as important as what bullet you use is how you place the bullet compared to it's intended use. A V-max bullet comes apart pretty easy, ground behind a 200 yd target years ago told me so. So in my mind it really makes no difference at all what bullet you use depending on how well you place it. Then of course the group size when you get off the bench rest goes up and also goes up as range increases. And that is advantage better game hunting bullet depending on how well you actually shoot!

They work ok on deer, I can't imagine they wouldn't be fine on a pig

I saw one of Hornady's videos and the bullet broke up pretty fast with virtually no penetration. They never specifically said it was the 87 grain Vmax but it didn't get 4" into the gel before it disintegrated. I'm thinking this might be the place for a soft point. Considering now I have several boxes of the Vmax's in my locker.

It's only money.

kwg

I’m not telling you to use them or not. But think about this. If they will penetrate 4-5” and then violently disintegrate you are basically poking a hole in the side of the animal, inserting a shotgun, and pulling the trigger. If they will breach the chest wall before coming completely apart you will get that inverted cone of ground up and unrecognizable goo right through the vitals and nothing survives that. IME on chest shots that don’t clip the spine nothing puts them down faster than a bullet that blows up once it makes it inside.

This pretty good sized pig I killed with a single 40gr Varmeggedon Tipped started at nearly 3700fps. 40 yards at impact. I have killed probably 30 or more with this load and never had an issue. You could have poured the lungs out the snout.

Good information.

kwg

Oh dammit! First you convince me to shoot pigs with the .17 Rem...now I'm gonna hafta try some body shots with the various guns and loads.

I had an 87 V-max zook on me last year on a deer’s shoulder out of a 6ARC somewhere around 150 yards out. Broke the bone all to hell but no penetration into the chest cavity.

55 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips on this one. Running pigs are harder to get a good first shot but when you do hit where you’re supposed to, they don’t bounce off.

The 87 grain Vmax will do just fine.