Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game A fair bit of ugly

Fat sow, dogleg Remington, and a "bubba buddy" stock pack.....



Only saw 2 deer last night but had a good group of 6-7 mid-sized pigs come in about half an hour before dark. This one flopped in her tracks, right in the rice bran. They had already whittled the pile of bran down to nothing and trampled a 20'x20' area of food plot down to bare dirt. Medium speed cup/cores through the shoulders always seem to work well on hogs. (145 Speer BT in my 7mm-08 truck gun)

Shot the fattest sow out of the bunch, as I saw that big, saggy belly and figured I was probably taking out a handful of piglets at the same time. For those who fight hogs, is it generally best to try to weed out the productive sows as opposed to the boars?

Looks good to me!



Yep; that combo work well on a lot of critters.



For control purposes, I think killing sows is the way to go.

Do you prefer to eat tenderloin or wiener?

Is that a trick question??

(grin)

I keep hearing about how these sows can be ready to breed inside of 1 year of age and can put 15-20 piglets on the ground each year. We're seeing more pig activity than ever before, so I figured it might make more sense to take out the baby factories.

Good eats there. Shot my first pigs this year and even the wife likes to eat 'em! I think she'd rather I shoot those than deer.

Hope you can keep them at a tolerable level.

Nice work. You're really risking wounding with such archaic loads !

Seriously though; nice shootin & cool rifle!

You need to kill a lot of sows. The kill needs to be 40% of the population per year to stay even with population growth.

nice work there. In our neck of the woods over in MS, you pretty much can't kill enough hogs. also, whether the rifle is ugly or not (I think it looks cool), it would be about ideal for the kind of hunting I do.

I don't know that we'd ever be able to kill or trap 40% of the local hog population, but we try to make a dent in it. Trailcams are helping us to figure out when they are coming to the food plots and trapping areas.

I joke about the little rifle being ugly but I love those old 600/660 series actions. With a 20" 700 sporter barrel and an Edge M7KS stock, it is quite handy and balanced.

I envy your Rifle and what it shoots!

20" is the way to go, for me at least. I periodically think about getting a 700 youth with the 20" spout and dropping it in a different stock.

I bought my oldest daughter a stainless SPS 7mm-08 that a guy had already chopped down to 20". In a youth ADL stock, it is a neat little gun at 7lbs scoped. When she gets older I will order her a McMillan of her choosing and she'll be set from now on out. If I hadn't done the 660 rebuild, I'd likely have chopped down another SS SPS 7mm-08 for myself.

while we're talkin about 20" barrels, I've been using a .308 and a .223 in that barrel length and it seems to work great. I really want to try it in a .243, though, and it seems to be a little more "taboo" in that cartridge to have something less than 22". Have a 24" salvage that I'm thinking about getting chopped to 20 to prove it for myself.

I've got a 20" 243, and it's working well. I'm using a 95 gr. Ballistic Tip on top of H4350, and +3.5 MOA relative to a 100 yard zero puts me right on at 300.

This 660 that I built was originally a 20 magnum-weight .243win. If hadn't gotten to where it copper fouled so badly, I'd probably not have rebarreled it. My uncle hunts a good bit with an 18.5" M7 in that chambering and gets 3,200fps+ with IMR3031 and 85gr bullets. I sincerely doubt many whitetails or hogs would shrug off a TSX/GMX/Partition at that kind of speed. Blood trails may not be as large as with a bigger caliber, but there's no free lunch.....

that settles it, I'm gettin the salvage chopped.

Nice pig. About 135# or so? That's eatin' size, for sure. Nice rifle too. I'm about to restock my Savage .260 in a youth stock and introduce my nine-year old daughter to hogs over feeders. She's all for it.

My 8yr old really wants a hog, but I always seem to see them when she's not with me. I've been all of twice this season without her in tow, and I've shot hogs both times....

This one was actually about 170-180lbs. Heavy enough to need an extra set of hands to flop it up on the tailgate. I weighed a sow recently that was a touch larger and it just broke 200lbs.

Nice. I know about the extra hands. For some reason a 150# dead pig seems heavier than a 150# dead deer. I'm going to buy, make, or borrow a game hoist. The guys are always a mile away when I shoot a pig bigger than I can get in the truck by myself.

Your daughter will get her chance.

I think a NP would do twice as good if you let two get lined up, JP.