Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Best bullet for HOA hog hunting?

One of my duties after deer season is over is to sneak around at night in a high dollar Home Owners Association near Richland Chambers lake and take out feral hogs that are destroying lawns and right of ways. What I am looking for in a bullet is adequate penetration, massive destruction and with little or nothing making an exit. I have rifles in 224 to .358 diameter cartridges with my preference being in the .243 to 270 range. Noise can be a factor also so I like to keep velocity down around 2700 fps. Any suggestions? I got some Lehigh Dense .257 85 gr. HP's to try but in testing this bullet turned out to be a heck of a penetrator not unlike the Partition. I have used the 6MM 100 gr. Prohunter but I had more pigs running off than those that decided to lay down. Thinking maybe a varmint bullet of some kind, possibly a VMax or Sierra HP. I try to make CNS hits but night hunting doesn't always give enough time to make the perfect shot.

Check the Leheigh Defense site they have two types of fragmenting bullets that could work. The controlled Chaos is a little bit like the Raptor and the base will exit on most side on shots. The barrier bullet is an aluminum cored bullet that will fragment and not exit on larger hogs. These were 15% off at Midway and Leheigh usually has a Black Friday sale and veterans discount.

I tested the Lehigh bullets on water jugs, front of bullet did fragment the rear sailed through the fourth jug no sweat. I will hunt with this bullet but for what I want in a control bullet it is too tough. I will look into other Lehigh designs.

Yep a varmint bullet......Id try 50-55 Grain Vmax in a .223 and take brain shots only. Ive shot a ton of hogs with a 60 grain NBT going a little faster and never got an exit on brain shots. I say the Vmax because its softer than the NBT...likewise the lighter ones should slow up quicker...

Generally the shots I get are not always right for head shots. One of the rifles I use a lot is a 243. I have loaded for it now the 95 gr. Ballistic Tips at 2700 fps and it's a tackdriver. Other than most of the body hit pigs getting into the brush or running into peoples back yards where I have to recover them it really does fine with head shots. Exit virtually guaranteed. Maybe an 80 grain Ballistic Tip? 85 grain Sierra BTHP? Seems like I'm not going to bridge the gap between solid chest hit hogs running a ways and no exit holes. What about the 257 using one of the varmint style 100 grain bullets? I have a 6.5 Grendel and it is a good hog killer, I'm thinking about trying the Eld-M 123 grain bullet as I hear it breaks up yet still makes a good wound.

70gr Ballistic tips in your 243

I looked and I have some on the shelf, not many need to order some.

These hogs can weigh 10 pounds or over 300 pounds and darned if they aren't the most nervous hogs I have ever hunted. From the homeowners plinking at them and trying to trap them these hogs are way up there on the difficult list! Add that if a deer gets in a hog trap it can be a pain to release it and the homeowners bitch about everything, even being able to see my hog traps. Ungrateful rich people! Not fooling with rimfires on this project.

I like shooting them

Yeah I would go with a varmit bullet at high velocity. Minimize the richcet, an pick your shots carfully. I don't know if I would want the liability.

After looking around a bit I might try the 120 gr. Hornady SST made for the 6.8 SPC. Hornady says max velocity is 3000fps but the bullet is expressly designed for a cartridge that tops out at 2400 fps. So I figure if I add just the right amount of speed over 2400 fps, say another 400 fps then I might have a bullet that will get inside, break up and do a lot of damage yet not have much left to spew out the other side. Sure I could use a 22 if I were to only take the shots the rimfire is effective on but then I would miss out on the other 100 shot opportunities. There is no daytime hunting in this residential area. There are rich greenies living there. I have been scheming on turning my Contender into a rifle for a while but my Super 14 in 22 long rifle is such a tackdriver!

22lr subsonic with a can and HP pre fragmented bullets. Kills up to 300 pounders pretty easy shot in the ear socket.

Just be picky with the shots and pass what you have to pass. Patience. This Mc Donalds society chit gets on my nerves at times.

Its either that or a CF fragile fast bullet and hit the head, lots louder. And forget body shots with that type of bullet IMHO.

. Bullet?

^^^ This^^^

Tempted to put that picture on my desktop!

Hanco:

That looks more like the St. Valentine's Massacre!

Whats your range? High brass Birdshot to the head willl kill one and not go too far past that...

Be real careful with 22 rimfire ammo.
Many like it better than a center fire for around buildings.
I think it can be the most ricochet prone thing there is.

Those were killed with a 308. Bullet was 170 partition flat nose 30 30 bullet. Subsonic suppressed load.




Here’s another good day

Berger VLD. Muledeer wrote about how they work. He was right on. The ones I shot in TX performed as you requested.

I loaded 140 Bergers for my 264 Win mags, accurate as hell. I wasn’t too impressed with them shooting 🐷 pigs.

I may have missed this, but how close are you to the residences? In my experience, most folks who live in places with a HOA don't like to hear gunfire.

Well that is true to an extent, you see keeping up with the Jones's (informal competition on whose yard looks the nicest) and hogs absolutely ruining yards that a lot of money has been spent on changes the rules a bit. Plus the ongoing plinking at the hogs that the homeowners do themselves, which I wish they wouldn't do makes gunfire rather common in this HOA. I personally don't like to shoot near other peoples houses but the money makes it worth it.

You got to pick your shots.

I'd be real tempted to experiment with a 300 Blackout, suppressed. Lots of bullet choices then, including the 170 gr 30-30 bullet that hanco apparently uses to great effect.

I would definitely consider Berger Hunting VLD's, especially started at not more than 2800 fps. Unlike most bullets, they penetrate 2-3" before expanding, then pretty much come apart, killing quickly but not ricocheting even if they do exit.

Hanco's mixed experiences with VLD's us due to what too many hunters (especially more "mature" hunters) do with relatively easy-expanding, long-range bullets. They think that any long-range bullet should be started at high velocity, then are disappointed (or worse) when the bullets fail to penetrate enough at close range. But one of the major advantages of such bullets is they DON'T need to be started at 3000+ fps to work at long range, and at more moderate muzzle velocities work well at short ranges too.

30 carbine with 110gr soft point Sierra pro hunter bullets.

An elevated stand is your best friend. The hIgher the better.
Now, pass through go into the dirt or even hitting a rock takes away from their energy.
Also, no one ever wants to take this to the biggest concern, misses. A mostly spent bullet
is not as bad as a miss. Going into the dirt, or a mostly square hit on a rock kills most of the energy.
Unfortunately, you have no idea where a ricochet is going.
A varmint bullet, hitting a rock, shouldn't go anywhere.

I'll ad this... 185 bergers, 308 Win, I doubt we hit 2600 FPS MV, expand right nicely out to about 725 yards so far... And don't blow up at 75 yards. Though they still make larger exits than I care for, but they do work.

You do have to have a bit of knowledge when you start messing with "non normal" bullets. Those that have issues with VLDs can often have issues with mono bullets too.

Berger VLD does just what you want.

On the Hunt I was able to make in TX we had a mix of terrain and were allowed to hunt 24/7. Nights were tree stands or elevated box houses. Most of that was in thick cover and was short range work. I took my 30-06 and had purposely loaded Bergers at 2500 fps for the night shots in close with green LED lights for fast follow up second shots. (This predated the thermal and night vision equipment coming down in price) My shots were close and my hogs were DRT. Example of 3.

For the day time we had long shots overlooking huge fields (Half mile if you wanted to take it) and those were conducted with 2850 fps standard loads. Again, very nice performance at longer ranges with the Bergers.

Plenty of the 65 pigs killed on that trip were shot with CoreLock ammo by the 7 other hunters. (Hogs are not bullet proof, a number were killed, when jumped in the tall grass sneaking, with auto shotguns and #4 buckshot)

One member of the party had sprung for a Night Vision optic and mounted it on a 243 bolt action rem 700. He used Rem Core Lock factory ammo and killed a pile with that combo in the dark.

Good luck getting the numbers down. Agree on the 300BOsub sonic supressed. Low noise is better if you have a large number of hogs to deal with.
The last ones are going to be pretty smart by the time you get to them.........

suppressed and hogs. I have not shot a hog in the last 2 years since I"ve had suppressors, without a suppressor in place.

That said I"ve never had the chance to take a second shot at night at the rest of the hogs....

FWIW.

OTOH we could move over a few hundred yards to another area and find them undisturbed in that area. VS a magnum boom having probably scattered any other groups that were fairly close.

This includes having shot quite a few up 200ish pounds range with a suppressed 10-22 and subs.. just figured somewhere in there the rest would have stood still for at least a second head shot...they never did

Looking at the VLD bullets it looks like the only rifles I have that are twisted fast enough to suit them are 270, 7MM and 308 diameter bullets. Is the "Classic Hunter" similar in effect as the VLD hunting bullets?

I think the op wants to be a little discrete. Not set off car alarms. Lol

Well I traded for some Hornady 120 gr. SST's made for the 6.8 and designed to be run around 2500 fps. After some hanging out on a couple of Texas hog hunting sites I found a character who shoots a 270AR which gives 2800 fps or so and his experience suggested that velocity would give me what I want, no exits in 150+ pound hogs and big exits on the smaller ones. Even the guys running the 6.8 say the SST often sheds it's jacket and breaks up at the velocities it is capable of. Working down to 2800 fps I am going to use IMR 3031 at 42.0 grains and see how that load shoots. Priming, powdering and seating bullets momentarily.

Success instantly. This Ruger is easy to make good ammo for and it shoots as well as could be expected. First two rounds less than 1/2 inch apart, 1/2 inch to the left of center and 1 1/2 inch high. Two clicks right and 4 clicks down and the next three went into less than an inch and landed just a bit high of center. Outstanding. 100 yard Water jug test, absolutely destroyed the first two jugs, made a hole through the third and the core and jacket were found laying between the third and fourth jug with the fourth jug unmarked. The core and jacket weigh 60.3 grains. The jacket was expanded to .580. Worth trying I say.

Good luck - sincerely.

257 weatherby 100 grain interlock

Yep that would work till some old lady has a heart attack hearing it go off in the middle of the night!

That would wake the entire neighborhood, my suppressor load sounds like a B.B. gun. You could shoot all night and not wake anyone.

I plan on getting a can for my Grendel someday, reduces flash also.

247 Dead Tough.......lets see if they will sell just the bullets.
Haven’t found them except in loaded ammo.

A 357 125gr jhp in a 358W loaded to 25-2700, likely won’t exit a hog’s chest, but put behind the plate or even just in front, it’ll probably make a serious internal mess. They make mist out of coyote heads pushed faster, and aren’t that loud, considering. Then again, some subsonic buckshot through a 12ga metro extension won’t wake the neighbors, but you gotta watch low power lines. LOL