How to kill a beast using cast?

[35remington]

The "shoulder shield body armor" bit is mostly overrated. As long as you are not using a varmint blow up type bullet, ordinary softpoints punch through easily. It's only a gristle plate, not heat treated steel.

Armor piercing not needed.

[Hickory]

Pigs are not all equal are they?

As the saying goes;

All pigs are equal, some just eat more then others.

[Doc_Stihl]

On the russian boars I've hunted, and seen hunted, I've found that their shoulders are tough but nothing to fear. The ferals should have considerably less shoulder plate (gristle/bone) from everything I've read and been told.

I've seen someone put 4x 50 action express 325gr JHP's on a shoulder at less than 20 yards with no effect on a 250lb boar other than make it loud and mad. That's a big bullet without enough gusto behind it to be effective in my opinion, doesn't make the pig armored.
The last hunt we saw some city fellas slamming ballistic tip loaded factory 30/06 against shoulders and the damage was incredible....on the outside, but bone was clearly not penetrated. 6 shots on 1 pig all failed to reach it's vitals. Gut shot and running the guide had to finish it.

BUT, I've seen a 160 gr SWC cast boolit at 1700 fps sail clean through a shoulder without over expansion on the same size animal. Those were cast with WW + 10% Pewter and water quenched and I think were too hard.
With a 500gr .458 boolit at 1625 fps we saw little expansion and WAY overkill penetration. Broadside at 35 yards on a double shoulder shot and the pig dropped D.E.A.D. dead. Half inch in and 1" out.

When I head out again for boar, I'll be shooting straight WW's WQ'd at ~1550 fps for 45 cal rifles and ~1650 fps for 35 caliber rifles. Wide flat nose boolits in both. I'd use the same logic on a 30 caliber, and ~1850 fps (an accurate sweet spot around there) would be my choice.

Mind you, that's for pure russian boar's on a reserve. They've taken 600+lb animals out of there so I plan to bring too much gun.

Long of the short of it is; I'd feel comfortable with your swaged boolit at ~1850 on a 300lb feral pig. It looks like a heavy Lyman 311041 to me. And that's a pretty proven killer.


And as always, the .30 caliber that finds it's mark is better than the .50 that misses.

[303Guy]

Thanks, Doc_Stihl. As you see, I'm a pig newbie! And as much as I like to push the envelope, I also like doing it with a bit of wisdom and caution. Angry boar hogs don't sound like critters one wants to meet in the dark or dense bush or anywhere else for that matter! We do have feral cattle in parts of NZ ... Not sure I want to make one of them mad either! One even hears of red deer stag attacks!

600lb boars! No wonder shoulder cannons get invented.

[arcticbreeze]

Have no fear with cast. Under 100yds or so I believe a decent cast boolit will out perform J-word bullets. The largest I have taken with cast is right at 240lbs but would not hesitate to take larger. I have clean alot of hogs, I have cleaned 5 in the last 2 weeks and the plate is not that bad. A 200gr boolit of 50/50 ww/pb will go right through all but the largest. I have never used softer but would trust your boolit more than say a core-lokt. I personally prefer to aim for the armpit. Knock on wood I have never had one go further than 30 yds. Now if you make a bad shot that can change things in a hurry. I also have found hollow points to perform poorly on feral hogs and prefer wide flat points. As far as anatomy the first 2 pics you have posted are pretty accurate and to me look very close to the same as far as the vitals location. The important thing to remember is the heart is basically right in between the two front legs. If you are more than an inch or 2 behind the armpit you might only get liver and clip the lungs. Hogs are tough and can go a long way with that shot. On a hog under 150lbs I would not be afraid to break the shoulder to ancor it with your pp boolit. On a bigger one I would stick to the vitals. Alot of guys shoot head or neck shots but that is just not for me. I think there is to much risk. Every pig I have ever shot was moving at the time. They just don't stand still for long if at all. Just my opinion and hope it is of some help. Good luck and have fun......Marc

[303Guy]

Thanks for that, arcticbreeze. That's of great help. Nice pig there! My alloy is an unknown. It's lead drain pipe with a chunk of soldered joint added. I'd like to add copper to increase its malleability and toughness but it would dissolve. I got some type metal to harden it is necessary but right now, I don't know which way to go. Perhaps that adage, when in doubt, use more clout applies? Today I chrono'd the lighter of the intended loads and got 2000fps with the 194gr boolit. That might be too fast but the boolit weight I intend hunting with is 206gr with the same powder charge. That might still be too fast. If so, I'll slow it down a bit more. 1800 to 1900 fps sounds about right to me so I'll aim for 1850fps. That figure was also suggested to me which confirms my 'guess' or gut feel.

35remington, I noted what you said. (My Dad used to hunt Cape buffalo with a 35 Remington! Successfully too). What I do not want is blow up on impact.

This is supposed to be an impact blow up wound.



That would be a lost pig for sure. It is alleged that critter wasn't killed by that shot. Increasing brightness on that photo seems to confirm it was an impact and not an exit wound.

[white eagle]

that is a terrible wound
its to bad

[Coote]

Mate, that boolit should do its job very well if you land it in the right zone.

Not that I recommend it, but I've taken small pigs with subsonic .22 slugs in the heart/lung area. And heaps of bigger game has been shot down here using the old full metal jacket MK vii .303Br ammo. Compared to these two less-than-perfect projectiles, your boolits seem to be pretty much ideal for the job. I would use them without hesitation.

And yes, we will need to see photos.

[303Guy]

Thanks Coote. A camera is one thing I don't take out with me. My hunting buddy on the other hand does. But first things first. That is actually getting out there and hunting 'em! But before that I still have to set in the rifle, assuming it will shoot straight now that I've fire-lapped the bore again (with my newly discovered trick - the abrasive cookie).

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
With bullet placement it will work just fine I bet.

[MBTcustom]

Hey buddy, the deer that got shot this year with my PP'd wildcat produced exit wounds that looked exactly like those in the picture! I'm talking coffee cup sized exit wounds!
The boolit was a 358 caliber, 250gr, round nose (Lyman 358318), driven to 2000 FPS, and it was a big deer. Now I have heard all kinds of rumor about these armor plated pigs, but I would be dumbfounded if a pig of any size could stand up to a hit like that. The only rifle I have that produces trauma of that magnitude is a 300winmag and its pushing a 165gr bullet @ 3200 FPS. I think you be pleased and shocked at the effectiveness of that load, but, if you tangle with a pig that wont succumb to your first shot, Give him the mad minute! pick up the pieces and have a BBQ.

[Dan Cash]

303, the only hogs I have killed out side of a butchering were some that a neighbor would not keep penned and were marauding my forest. Shot behind the shoulder, 25 yards, .45ACP truncated cone 225 grain bullet; Bullet passed through and pig died. Second pig shot in front of the shoulder at 75-100 yards with .222 55gr soft point; dead right there. Both pigs 300 lbs or better. A 400 grain cast .45 bullet at not more than 1200 fps from a .45-70 against an American Bison at a bit over 100 yards; complete side to side pass through breaking one shoulder, dead right there. There is nothing on the North American continent that I would not shoot on purpose with your Pig Gun and load.

[Hamish]

The "shoulder shield body armor" bit is mostly overrated. As long as you are not using a varmint blow up type bullet, ordinary softpoints punch through easily. It's only a gristle plate, not heat treated steel.

Armor piercing not needed.

Back in '91 I shot a boar in the 250 range with a 31" 2514 (Biggest arrow shaft made at the time.) with a razor sharp 175 gr. Snuffer up front at 10 yards out of a 92 lb. compound. Pig ended up with equal amounts of shaft sticking out both sides. That was the last time shot one broadside, so I can't really comment on getting through the shield with a bullet.

You can NEVER go wrong entering through the abdominal cavity to get to the thorasic cavity. Quartering away, nothin' but gut's and organs!

How to tell if a pig is getting up into the "over 200 club": The first thing that comes to you when you lay eyes on it is ""Holy Bacon, Batman!"

BTW, Behind the ear means no tracking!

[Old Goat Keeper]

AMEN Hamish! If you hit a hog about 2"behind the ear it's a bang flop. Mine sure was with a 375W factory bullet. No squeel. No kick. No twitch. Just straight down on the bang. I'd cast that boolit 40/50 wheel weight/pure lead and not worry bout expansion. It gonna kill a pig no mater what. In fact I think that the expansion of the J-words is part of the "shield problem". I do perfer a larger bore like atleast .35.

T-o-m

[jlchucker]

We don't have hogs around here to hunt, but the guys that have posted in response to you that have killed them don't seem to worry about not being able to penetrate. My own cast boolits are all straight wheelweight diluted with about 10 percent pure lead. They seem to penetrate everything I shoot with them. Lately I've been fooling around with a Rossi 357 trapper. My 158 grain semiwadcutters were driven deep enough into the 50 yard gravel backstop at my gun club so that I was unable to recover them without using a shovel. Don't know the velocity, but my load was 4.0 grains Titegroup. If we had armorplated hogs around here I'd probably take my 45-70 Marlin though, cast with my same alloy. Can't be too careful with armorplated critters.

[TXGunNut]

Found out the hard way the hogs' toughest armor plate may be between their eyes. Had one show up a bit too close as I was locked into a sitting position (inside of 25'!) and put a high-speed 30-06 J-bullet there. Hard-headed buggar ran off! Can only conclude the bulllet failed but have a few euro mounts to study and that's an awesome chunk of bone there and it's angled like the windshield of a Camaro. I'll never use it for a target again!
The gristle plate over their forequarters only give me problems during skinning, and then I really don't mind. Hunting hogs has caused me to join the big slow boolit/bullet school of thought. I work hard on shot placement and if I want a big hole, I use a big boolit/bullet. Expansion is good...when it works as it is intended. Murphy goes along on every hunting trip I take.

[superior]

I think that more consideration is sometimes given to velocity than necessary. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that your penetration will be better if you were to slow the boolit down some.
Imagine standing in waist deep water and slapping the surface with your open hand as hard as you can. Your hand will make a violent splash, but it will slow down quickly in the process.
Next, imagine a gentle push through the surface of the water. Your hand will make less of a splash, but it will penetrate the water much more easily without sloing down much at all. If you read some of the findings of Randy Garrett (maker of Garrett Ammuntion) you may be surprised at the results they dicovered by shooting 45-70's vs .458 Rem mags into wet news print. They found that in the case of those boolits, penetration dropped off above 1600 fps.
It seems that the slower 45-70 penetrated 2 more feet into the media than the much faster .458 Rem mag. This may very well be the case with other bollits also, since the basic principles are the same. He remarked that in the case of the old 45-70, that we may have been overlooking the best African cartridge in the past 100 years. His hard cast 540 grain hammerheads sell for $80 U.S. per box. I prefer to make my own for obvious reasons, but I employ the same theory with them. At 1340 fps, a 45-70 will shoot through a Bison,end to end. The buffalo hunters of the old American west new a thing or two when it came to slow heavy boolits.

[arcticbreeze]

I think that more consideration is sometimes given to velocity than necessary. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that your penetration will be better if you were to slow the boolit down some.
Imagine standing in waist deep water and slapping the surface with your open hand as hard as you can. Your hand will make a violent splash, but it will slow down quickly in the process.
Next, imagine a gentle push through the surface of the water. Your hand will make less of a splash, but it will penetrate the water much more easily without sloing down much at all. If you read some of the findings of Randy Garrett (maker of Garrett Ammuntion) you may be surprised at the results they dicovered by shooting 45-70's vs .458 Rem mags into wet news print. They found that in the case of those boolits, penetration dropped off above 1600 fps.
It seems that the slower 45-70 penetrated 2 more feet into the media than the much faster .458 Rem mag. This may very well be the case with other bollits also, since the basic principles are the same. He remarked that in the case of the old 45-70, that we may have been overlooking the best African cartridge in the past 100 years. His hard cast 540 grain hammerheads sell for $80 U.S. per box. I prefer to make my own for obvious reasons, but I employ the same theory with them. At 1340 fps, a 45-70 will shoot through a Bison,end to end. The buffalo hunters of the old American west new a thing or two when it came to slow heavy boolits.

I don’t agree.

I am familiar with his article and his findings I believe they are true for that bullet. However I believe that the with proper bullet or boolit selection that will not be true. Contrary to his article higher impact velocities with reduced penetration are well understood. In this case it is a matter of sectional density and bullet construction. If you look at a lot of higher quality j-bullets you can find the info on their web site. I will use an example of Nosler 140gr accutip 7mm bullet. They list a min impact velocity and a max impact velocity. That is the range of velocities that get acceptable expansion and penetration. I don’t have the exact numbers handy however the jest of it is at 1800 fps that bullet penetrates and expands an acceptable amount for an ethical kill on cpx2 game as that velocity increases expansion and penetration increase until you reach the optimal velocity in this case around 2500 fps where penetration and expansion is still optimal. At that point increasing velocity, expansion will still increase but penetration suffers until you get to the point that fragmenting occurs. However if you look at a bullet with better/tougher construction (actually better is not the correct word because that might be the correct bullet for your application) such as the partition in the same weight the same principal applies however it occurs at higher velocities. In Garrets article he says “500gr Honady solid” However Hornady does not list such a bullet. I suspect he means a jacketed soft lead core bullet that he uses in his line of ammunition. I also believe that Garrets article is skewed to sell his line of 45-70 ammo

http://www.garrettcartridges.com/4570.html

However when it comes to hunting with a cast boolit which is all I hunt with anymore I am a fan of the big boolit with a fat meplate moving slow compared to todays wisbang 30 cal magnums. My favorite hunting boolit is the mihec 44/444 flat point in my Marlin 444 at just about 2000 fps. You can see the pics a few posts up in this thread for results.

[michael30.06]

I'm glad to see you haven't given up on the old 303 pig gun!
Consensus of opinion seems to be shoot them with confidence, after all you have 10 in the mag and your 303 is still one of the slickest bolt action of it's time.
Make sure you take your camera holding buddy with you.
Happy New Year Mate!!!

[Chief RID]

Shoot a pig, 303 guy. You have all you need. When do you get to go hunting?