Exactly one year ago, I was at the All About U hunting ranch in search for a big boar trophy. Until this hunt, I'd only ever hunted hogs from a blind. After a day sitting in a ground blind staring at nothing, our little hunting party came to the conclusion that these hogs were too spooked to come out of the woods. We talked to the guide about our dilemma and he recommended that we stalk the woods. Had there been a big group of hunters, of course, they never would have allowed that. But, my party of three was the only group in the preserve that day. So, we mapped out our plan and I stepped into some very eerie, smelly, hoggie woods.
This revealed the weakness in my hunting plan. The owner had told us about three very large boars in the preserve--two 200 pounders and one probably near 300. I had two firearms on me. My primary gun was a scoped Contender chambered for 7-30 Waters (a dandy gun in a blind). My other gun was a tiny 9mm Beretta Nano in my backpack. In those spooky woods, I realized that any shot I took would be at 10 to 30 yards max. A scoped Contender was not the best gun for that fight and using the Nano was just silly. I followed a little creek bed downhill with the stench of decomp all around me. The creek led me to a deep washout and I just knew a hog or two would be in there. I tip-toed up to that gully and peeked down around 6 or 7 feet. Sure enough, as I was sneaking around the rim of that big hole, a big black boar charged out of a wallow under the bank and (luckily) ran the other way. He was huge. All I could see was a scope waving around in front of my face and I never got off a shot. Grrrrrr. He'd have gone onto my den's wall. I never saw him again.
So, I decided that I need something on my hip with iron sights for situations like that. Well, there's no budget for a new Model 629 so I need to make my trusty old 686 work on future hunts. I don't yet reload for .357, so I went hunting for the best factory hog load that I could find. I started a dialog with Tim Sundles at Buffalo Bore. He immediately told me that .357 wasn't ideal for hunting big hogs, but indicated that their biggest, heaviest .357 round would do in a pinch. They have a 180 grain hard-cast round that should leave the barrel at around 1,400fps and get good penetration on a big boar. Here's what it looks like:
This should hit with the force of a .41 magnum. It might also make quite an impression on an uninvited intruder in my home.
This revealed the weakness in my hunting plan. The owner had told us about three very large boars in the preserve--two 200 pounders and one probably near 300. I had two firearms on me. My primary gun was a scoped Contender chambered for 7-30 Waters (a dandy gun in a blind). My other gun was a tiny 9mm Beretta Nano in my backpack. In those spooky woods, I realized that any shot I took would be at 10 to 30 yards max. A scoped Contender was not the best gun for that fight and using the Nano was just silly. I followed a little creek bed downhill with the stench of decomp all around me. The creek led me to a deep washout and I just knew a hog or two would be in there. I tip-toed up to that gully and peeked down around 6 or 7 feet. Sure enough, as I was sneaking around the rim of that big hole, a big black boar charged out of a wallow under the bank and (luckily) ran the other way. He was huge. All I could see was a scope waving around in front of my face and I never got off a shot. Grrrrrr. He'd have gone onto my den's wall. I never saw him again.
So, I decided that I need something on my hip with iron sights for situations like that. Well, there's no budget for a new Model 629 so I need to make my trusty old 686 work on future hunts. I don't yet reload for .357, so I went hunting for the best factory hog load that I could find. I started a dialog with Tim Sundles at Buffalo Bore. He immediately told me that .357 wasn't ideal for hunting big hogs, but indicated that their biggest, heaviest .357 round would do in a pinch. They have a 180 grain hard-cast round that should leave the barrel at around 1,400fps and get good penetration on a big boar. Here's what it looks like:
This should hit with the force of a .41 magnum. It might also make quite an impression on an uninvited intruder in my home.
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