Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Question for the pig hunters

LOL, I've never seen a pig at Round Mountain ever. OTOH when we hunted CR308 south of Llano we had a fair number. Never 40 at a time though. Sometimes 5-10 or so. Llano we probably could have trapped em but we bowhunted only on that place for years, other than using guns now and then to send a message to the pigs. Most I've ever shot at once was 6 with a shotgun.

Hanco, don't your pigs get trap shy after a while? I was talking to the guy in Florida who trapped them out of the Disney wildlife preserve and he said that at one time they were getting about 300 a year. Now they don't even bait the traps because the pigs won't go into them anymore. True or is the guy just too lazy to do the work?

They are going to the feeder all the time. We set gates when he go up to put corn in the feeders, about every three months, but during deer season every other weekend. They don’t seem to get shy. I’ve caught some several times, because they can jump out. If it is really dry, they are hungry, they come in feeder pen.

I know in Llano and down the road from me here about 15 miles they can take a LONG time to come back after being trapped. But thats not in a hanco trap.. ours have all been small traps...

I'd think they'd come back to pen traps quite often IMHO

The commercial pig trappers around central TX use big traps; some as big as 1000 ft2. They are made of bull panels and t-posts. The point is to catch a whole sounder and ship them all off to slaughter. The buggers learn quickly and small traps that only catch a few or onzes educate, not eradicate.

I have this pen in east Texas. It’s about 20 feet in diameter. I some times catch the whole sounder. A lot of times a male pig will take over a trap. He won’t let any others eat. Seems like we catch a lot of male pigs.

Shot placement is key.

Hogs, unlike WT's, generally run when chest shot. I once chest shot a good sized hog with a .257 Wby, knocked him flat. After a bit, he let out a loud roar, jumped up and ran off into the woods. I know he eventually died, but what a deal. That's a lot of power and wallop for a runner.

A good bud who's killed a bunch, says a high shoulder, neck or head shot is the way to go. He comes up the front leg, 2/3rds up the body and hits that spot, which gets the spine. Works for him. I've chest shot hogs with Cutting Edge Raptors, DRT. The petals tear up the spine, which guarantees a DRT hog. Just a powerful expanding bullet, not always producing the DRT trick. Need to wipe out the CNS. Hogs are easy to kill, can be hard to kill.

It's not the head stamp, not even the bullet. It's placement. How many times have we heard that...

DF

I try to shoulder shoot them. It’s best to blow them down, break some bones. A 62 Barnes out of an AR will work a 200 lb pig over.

That’s my go to bullet as well, when killing hogs here at the Ranch with one of my AR-15’s. It has worked very well for me.

I don't know how many I have killed but I have used most calibers and a lot of cartridges between the .223 Remington with the 55gn soft point up to the .460 Weatherby handloaded with 500gn Hornady's with the bottom line being, they all worked. Most are shot at lever action distances or closer, so as long as any bullet and load that will suffice on deer his used, you will be fine. Any other choices are fetish only.
John

Pigs have a reputation of being tough, but they aren’t, I’ve killed a couple dozen with a bow.

Core-Lokt is a cheap bullet but a very good one in my experience. That is if your rifle will shoot them accurately. I was shooting 165 Core-Lokts at hogs out of a .30-06 with very good results before I learned to reload. I found other bullets to be more accurate in my rifles and started loading them. I've shot a lot of hogs with a .223 AR while night hunting, using that choice for the rapid acquisition of multiple targets as is common at night. The low recoil and fast reloading help a lot, but they don't usually go down as fast or bleed much. I've used Hornady SST, Hornady 178 BTHP Match, 150 Flat based Hornady IL with good results and 155 Scenar with somewhat unsatisfactory results. When I use a .270 I've loaded with 130 SST and 150 Win. Power Points and they work fine. I've settled on a Speer 180 RN (.30-06) for the killing power and the blood spilling exit wound that you can count on with even big tough pigs. The Scenar was a disappointment in that it usually didn't expand and big hogs seemed prone to go hiking off long distances after being shot. I saw a deer shot with a Scenar a few years ago with a magnum rifle (either .257 or 240 Wby.) and the bullet demolished the front of that deer. I suppose velocity is the reason. My .30-06 velocity at 200+ yards is probably comparatively pretty tame. As Dirt Farmer said it is placement of the shot and I shoot for the middle of the ribs at night not wanting to miss so I use a big round nose bullet that will give me a little leeway on placement.

I bought a .458 win mag of off somebody who had bought it for hogs....he must have known something I didn't...

-jake

I liked the 30-06 with the old Red Box Federal (that came out in late 70's) with the Sierra 165 SBT on deer/hogs ( about 50 miles SE of Hanco (:)) as a young man. It held up fine and really chilled their doo-doo with even a shoulder shot. But honestly, so did the 150gr 30-30 Corlokt we used. I always 'tried" to shoot them behind the ear, upper neck with anything. The little Mod 9422 magnum was my BILs favorite hog gun. I piled up three hogs with it ( fmjs) in less time than it takes to tell it. None weighed over 150 pounds though. He did have to do "The Rifleman" on a peed off huge sow one time though!

I really enjoy catching pigs( shooting cshit out of them), but it seems we will never catch or kill them all.

Hanco-this is what I was thinking, thus wondering why the big explosion of "Big Boar" bullets.

Hastings-I agree. I suspect that there have been more killed with CL's and Winchester PP's than all the rest of the bullets (maybe not...but it sounds good...lol).

lol...that's funny! Thanks for the chuckle!

A 458 might kill a pig!

The notion of bringing my 338 mag out of retirement to whomp a hog bubbles up now and then.

the 458 will kill pigs I have killed some bullet testing with my 450 Howell, the 500 gr. soft nose with 73 gr of 3031 works real well. Rio 7