Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game First hog hunt-what to take/

I would take some shooting sticks and binoculars.

Take your favorite deer rifle using your favorite deer load. Learn where to locate the vitals, because compared to a deer, it's easy to shoot too far back on a hog. If these are captured hogs with castrated boar, you don't need to worry about wild boar taint. But, if they are wild and you want meat on the table, avoid the larger boar that smell awful bad 'cause they'll probably have foul meat beyond what any human could stand to eat. I've cleanly killed some pretty big gnarly boars with nothing more than a single wooden arrow loosed from a homemade stickbow. On the other hand, I've seen medium sized hogs that were wounded by hunters using big bore rifles that required a bunch of chasing and follow ups to bring down. So my opinion, shot placement into and through the vitals are the ticket and any deer gun would do the trick with such a shot.

Have Fun

Thanks GARY,
STX-that is how my son and his GF are hunting them.

Just took my biggest hog ever with my 30-06 and some old Winchester fail safes, I took my first hog with my bow so any of your guns will work.

in my experience darn near any center fire rifle will work on hogs if you place the shots well, my brother-in laws used a marlin 357 mag loaded with 158 grain soft point ammo for decades, I generally grab my marlin 44 mag lever action loaded with 300 grain lee cast bullets over 20 grains of H110, its never failed to provide clean kills even out at 130 yards, but most of the hogs we shoot are shot at under 50 yards

A wise man.
Fact is, it is harder to dream up somethng that won't work.
I shot my 2 largest pigs with a .460 Weatherby and 500gn Hornady RN a .223 Remington single shot on an old Martini Action loaded very mild with 55gn Sierra's.

I guess anything in between would have also worked.

Lord willin' I plan to take my Zane Grey Commemerative .30 WCF this March to the Campfire hog hunt. Well, that and one of my 10mm's.

While tasty, these dang things are varmints who are destroying the woods and fields.

Semi-auto shotgun with extended mag and lots of buckshot. Eat the smaller ones.

............Take any one of them. About three years ago, I converted over to the 30 cal 168-175 gr Berger hunting VLDs to avoid tracking after the shots as much as possible.

So far, from 52 yards out to 242, none of the 60+ hogs impacted with the VLDs have scampered more than 10 yards. Most dropped right where they stood.

I have no doubts that the "hunting" VLDs used with either of your caliber choices (243, 270 or a 30-06),,,,are superb hog killers.

Shoot whatever you're comfortable with. I generally shoot over feeders and the shots are rarely over 60 yards, all neck shots if possible. I use a .260 Remington with 140 gr. factory Managed Recoil loads. I have yet to use more than one round on a pig and the neck shot anchors them solidly. Shot placement is the key, not so much the caliber, IMO.

The .243 it is going to be.

Thanks to all.

'06 with 165s or 180s. More important is that a pigs heart and lungs are a lot more forward than a deer's. Aim at the front of the shoulder, not the back.

thanks to all . too

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