I am interested in hearing yalls stories of hog hunting with your AR’s. Unfortunately I have yet to find a hog when I was actually looking for one but hopefully that day will come soon. So what have your experiences hunting pigs with your AR been like? What caliber did you use? Bullet? Distance? Part of the country? How many rounds did you fire? Etc. I would like to hear the details if you don’t mind and pics if yall got 'em. As soon as I get my own pig hunting story I assure you I’ll contribute. Hopefully I’ll get one in the next few days as I’m leaving on a trip in the morning!
heli, pop over to the accuratereloading site and into the hog area, there is a guy down Texas way thats doing night hunting with NV’s and AR, he’s posted several vid’s and photos
Last time I was hog hunting I left the AR at home and took a knife. Ran up and stabbed him. Mean old boar was really pissed too.
Cameron
That’s how we used to hunt hogs in South Florida when I was in high school. We would run trail & catch dogs and then cut its throat while the catch dog had it. That is much more fun than sitting in a tree stand, freezing to death waiting on a deer to walk by…jmo.
Checkout 68 forums, there are a bunch of guys doin hog hunts with ARs
I feel ARs are a little much when hog hunting. But I like a good AR story non the less.
I had the opportunity to hunt pigs (purely accidental) while trying out my still fairly new AR .223 at a friend of mine’s acreage in South Florida. I’m kind of a red neck, so I figure; pop in a five or ten round magazine, and instant hog gun. What I learned is you have to have enough AR to hunt pigs. Some of these South Florida pigs do not know when they have been shot. First shot was from about 175 yds. Could not tell how far the other two were as the truck was bouncing up and down a lot trying to get close enough to finish the job. I’d say just inside 100 yds. The pig was not large, but it was tough. I think I’d rather have an AR in .308 if I did it again. The pig still tasted good.
I made a quick run down to the farm a few weeks ago to put out a game camera in preparation for deer season. The creek bottom where I set up the camera was freshly plowed up by a group of hogs. It was getting dark and I was already in the truck getting ready to leave when a group of 20+ pigs came running out of a small field in front of me and headed into the creek bottom. I always keep my AR (SR15 E3) close by for hogs and coyotes. I hopped out of the truck and took a knee just in time to catch the last hog in the field with a single 75 gr. Hornady TAP Practice round.
90 yards, broadside & a fast trot. The hog just rolled over and dropped immediately at the shot. It was a neck shot, just ahead of the shoulder. I had to really look for the entry wound, it was just a caliber sized hole with no bleeding. The exit hole on the opposite side was a couple inches in diameter.
Gave a young sow a parking ticket with the LMT a couple of weeks ago. All I had with me was WWB 5.56 FMJ, so I borrowed some soft point Remington .223’s from a buddy. Didn’t check the bullet or weight.
We have a little pig problem down here in Texas.
Before:
She ran about 30 yards.
A few minutes later:
Celebratory blurry cell phone pic:
Doesn’t the entire South have a hog/wild pig problem?
Touché. And these state game departments had better get about the business of getting rid of some hogs. It’s almost unimaginable the ecological and economical damage these danged things can do.
Unfortunately, we do. I hunt in central GA, 15 years ago, we didn’t have hogs or coyotes. These days, they are frickin everywhere.
I see alot less deer and turkeys these days and no more quail at all.
Pigs are one of those animals that you can never kill enough of.
Cameron
What’s really crazy is 3 nights ago while sitting in my backyard at night smoking a cig (in my massive subdivsion in the Houston suburb I live in), I no shit heard a pack of hogs squealing 2-3 times, couldn’t have been more than 300-400 yards away from my house. I can NOT believe we actually have hogs in such a populated area.:eek:
Do you think Animal Control are the people that would handle this problem? Should I call them directly or call the local Sheriff’s Dept and let them take it from there? The main thing I thought of is a pack of hogs killing dogs and cats in the neighborhood, as well as getting into everyone’s trash and possibly attacking some unsuspecting homeowner or something. Too bad they won’t let me post up all night where they’ve been spotted, and use my NODs and IR illuminator to kill the shit out of 'em. I’d even do it suppressed, so as not to disturb people while they sleep:D
Anyhoo, I’ve got a couple hog stories, complete with some pics that I’ll share later. One of the pics is extremely gruesome though, but I wanna post it so others here can learn from my mistake with that poor smelly bastard.
Yep…they are even creeping into metropolitan Orlando. I guess they’re learning they can cross paved roads. They are amazingly resilient creatures. The cartilage plate on the outside of their shoulder blades can be nearly an inch thick (that’s an INCH of cartilage BEFORE you get to bone).
I’ve found that when hunting hog, it is VERY important to pay close attention to fragmentation distances of the ammo you’re using (if you’re not using JSPs). A great chart from TOS:
http://www.ar15.com/content/page.html?id=173
If you’re out of fragmentation distance and you shoot a hog (or, ostensibly, a human), you’ve just shot it with a .22lr. If you’re within fragmentation distance, you’re probably laughing like a fool (depends on how much beer you’ve had).
I’ve found that M193 (true M193 with the cannelure) or the 75grain Hornady TAP round loaded to NATO pressure (Hornady TAP LEO or BVAC 75 grain 5.56) all work very well on hog here in central florida. My definition of ‘working well’ is pretty much DRT. Consequently, I also use those loads for defense and stashing purposes. The 75 grain NATO loading allows about 150 yards of fragmenting range from my 14.5" BCM middy. I have seen between 100 and 110 w/ M193 55 rain NATO stuff. Within ~90 yards, both rounds seem to deliver identical (and very satisfactory) terminal results in feral hog.
This is a game where 20" barrels get you more effective distance from the same round.
This one is obviously not with an AR…
but these were:p
Well I shot a deer. Does that count?
I was sitting in an elevated box blind in central Texas. Hondo. I saw a spike at, confirmed with my Nikon range finder at 159 yards from my blind on the dirt road. He had his head down almost constantly woofing down corn like a vacuum cleaner. Being that I was still only getting used to the carrier handle and A2 iron sights that came on the M&P 15, I decided to get out of the stand and try to make a little closer shot. I also had a little advantage as the road dipped way down out of his sight for me to make up a good bit of the distance. As I walked back up the other side of the dip into sight of the deer, just his back and belly, still couldn’t see his head, I raised up, free hand and shot him in center mass. He dropped to his knees but looked like he was just laying there wide awake with his head up looking around like a dog on a living room floor. With his head now in plain view, I made a second shot at his head and that did the trick. The shot to the brain turned his lights out. I wish I had that pic on this computer. The shot entered right under his right antler base, just above the eye. Now that the deer was dead, from that spot I was able to get a range back to the blind. 66 yards! 159-66= 93 yard shot free hand with original irons. I was happy. Aimed at the shoulder…hit it. Aimed for his head…hit it!
Now my hogg hunting story. I have since put in an ACOG TA 31H. My girlfriend and I were sitting in a ground blind in central Texas. It was not deer season, so I was strickly looking for hoggs. It was her first time hunting period. We sat for about three hours before that time where I just know there’s only like 20 minutes of shooting light left and could just feel that an animal would show itself any minute. I was explaining all this to my girlfriend and literally combined one sentence into “Do you wanna shoot a hogg?” She said, “what?, yes…that’s why we’re here…duh.” So I said look behind you. She turned and was stunned, there was a 75 lb sow just 25 yards away. It was closer than i parked my truck for crying out loud. (in a different direction)She picked up the AR and poked it out of the window. Just then the hogg looked at us and snorted…a half dozen baby piggies went to scurring everywhere. My girlfriend was in an awkwardly turned position to aim up on the pig, so she stood up and got square. The hog turned, and she shot at the same time with a slight “aah”. It was a rushed shot and I think the pig was far too jumpy at that point to make a decent shot. But it got away…no blood. Anyways, the gf has the taste now and wants to get a gosh darn pig! It was soooo close!!!
BTW, she was hitting empty 12 gauge shells at 100 yards all day. Myself and my buddy were losing every shooting competition we could come up with to her earlier that day.
Oh well, that’s hunting.
My first attempt
http://tacticalyellowvisor.net/2615/32957.html
My second didn’t go quite as well but it was no fault of the rifle or the ammo used. I was using a 3x compact ACOG and the guide, perhaps not familiar with the limitations of same, was hollering at me to shoot a hog not 10 yards away in very dense brush. All I saw was black fur and finally succumbed to his instructions and pulled the trigger, at which point the chase was on with the guide chasing the hog with the buggy and me laying down covering fire as the thing went bouncing along the scrub. :sarcastic: Finally clipped her front right knee and she went down, then finished it with one to the head.
Also, there have GOT to be hogs in the farms out here in West Boca (I know, most people don’t know that there are farms out here) and the other undeveloped fields. We’re right up against the Everglades and that means there have to be hogs out here. I keep thinking a feeder, suppressed 9mm AR (or the new 300 BLK), and $50 to the landowner and I could have a steady supply of meat.
Absolutely. But I hope you also have a steady supply of good knives or sharpener. Working a hog will straight wear a knife out.
Actually, and I know this might sound counterintuitive on M4C, but the hog threat is one of my biggest motivators for going NFA/night vision. I will not allow them to turn my property upside down. It’s going to be on like Donkey Kong. :big_boss: