How to pig hunt?

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lightningkylej

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I know a lot of people say not to use an AR to hunt hogs but if you were to use an AR, what type of bullet would you recommend?

I have 1:8 twist 18" bbl, so I can shoot 75g bullets without any problems. Hornady's website says not to use their Amax bullets on large game, so what would you guys use?

A soft point in the 55 and up grain should work fine. If you want to spend a little more money, the Nosler Partitions will help punch through shoulders or the heavy gristle like armor on the front portion on the big boars.

Any bullet that you would use on a deer will be fine on most of the hogs out there, at least any one that I would want to eat.

Just aim for an ear shot or just below the ear in the neck area.

I use a .270 130gr soft points at ranges from 15 yards to 150 yards and have yet to not drop a single piggy where they stood. Most of my shots are in the ear to neck area. A chest shot will take them down but some will run and you will need to track, most of the time in heavy brush.

I had a guy come out to get a pig a couple months back. He brought a 375 H&H that he used to take a Cape Buffalo on an African safari. I advised to take the neck shot but he decided the chest/shoulder shot would be the best for the circumstance.

After my friend and I got the text that he took a shot, we went to help him bring in the pig. We found the bullet in a tree (about 4 inches deep) and a chunk of bone beside the dent in the tree but no pig in sight. We started tracking it. Blood trail was next to none so I though he must have just caught the leg low by the hoof. We would see a spot about every 6 feet and little chunks of bone every once in a while but still very little blood. Tracking was very slow and painful. Most of the time I was on all fours crawling through briers that surrounded the well used hog paths. The hog made three or four 90* turns and then went down a fence line to a rooted out hole that the pigs frequently use to cross the fence line. We were about 100-150 yards from where the shot was taken. After crossing the fence line, the hog turned again and went about 15 yards and stopped. We had found it, but it wasn't dead yet. A quick shot to the head set it to quivering.
Upon close inspection, the guy had hit the hog right where he was aiming midway up on the right shoulder. I blew out the shoulder completely spreading bone shrapnel though the entire chest cavity then exited the chest area (about a 4" diameter hole was left behind) between the legs before striking and completely breaking the other front leg.
Moral of the story, shoulder shots don't always drop the pig where they stand. This pig was able to get it weight up high enough that it could propel itself with nothing but its back legs for a couple hundred yards through very dense cover while leaving very little trail to follow.
 

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