Under Gunned?

[rodwha]

Would you feel under gunned tracking a big (400 lb) hog with a 315 grn wide flat nosed lead bullet pushed to 800-850 fps, a little higher than a typical .45 Colt hunting load?

I see many hog hunters prefer a magnum with this type of bullet and weight. But a .45 Colt seemed pretty good at killing stuff, so one with a heavier bullet and a little extra oomph seems stellar to me...

[Hard_Cast]

Depends on if you can hit with it instinctively. I go out often with only a 44 special and a hot 240. But I know my gun. That being said, .30-06 puts 'em down a lot quicker! Careful out there....

[tacklebury]

No problem with the load, but the follow-up might be an issue. Big pigs can be tough and can kill ya given a chance to get at your thighs. If you take a muzzle loader, I'd probably at least carry a matching Kentucky style pistol or something for back-up. I have a .50 cal 10" barreled "Buckskinner" pistol that goes out with me for follow-ups and sometimes, I'll throw the smaller .45 Colonial pistol in my off hand pocket too. ;)

[rodwha]

And there we have it…

I've not been in that situation. The one hog I shot didn't go anywhere. With a rifle and a rest I'm fairly confident (not a sharpshooter, but fair). With a pistol offhand I can put the majority in a nice group at 15 yds, but I've not had to do so with something coming out of the brush ready to chew off my leg!

I've done fairly well when things got crazy in other situations, but that doesn't mean panic can't set in, and moving around and firing is a whole nuther situation.

Though this bullet is a bit heavier than I intended I'd rather have too much penetration in this circumstance.

I'm hoping a .50 cal ball will be plenty and my bullet won't be tested.

[rodwha]

There's something about trying some bear meat over my bear skin rug that makes me want to try even were it huge. I wasn't too interested until I heard they tasted good...

[rodwha]

I'm glad I reduced it from .70" OAL to .675"! I figured I would have had a <300 grn bullet. Many 270 grn bullets with what appeared to be a similar enough design with moving of parts were .70" OA.

[IROCZ]

Rodwha, Are you talking about a .44 revolver or a rifle?

[rodwha]

Revolver. My Pietta '58 Remington.

I'm confident the ROA can handle that and more.

[725]

I dropped a big pig with one shot from a .54 ML pistol w/ a round ball. Of course, I had a modern revolver at hand in case one of those angels did you know what to the lock of my firearm. :)

[rodwha]

I'm curious as to what you noted with the wound and recovered (if so) ball. Expansion? Damage done? How big was your hog?

[Geraldo]

I live in Florida. We have to hunt hogs mostly at night around here, and if you wound one it runs straight for palmetto so thick it's like a tunnel. If you track with a pistol you'll be holding a light in your off hand and visibility will be 10' forward and about 2' to either side. Want to meet a 400 pounder at that range with a pistol? I've used my .44 mag under those conditions. The hog didn't seem too impressed by my handloads and neither was I. As for your ability to hit stationary targets, unless you're real lucky the hog will be moving. Try this test: tie a plastic just about the size of a hog head to some fishing line and then have somebody reel it in while you blast away. It will be illuminating.

Just so you have something reasonable to compare it to, we started hunting them with muzzleloaders. My buddy has had a few with rock solid hits from a .54/90gr FFG that left a blood trail Ray Charles could follow but they still got way into the palmettos. Now think about a hog six times that size and a your pistol's ballistics.

I know some guys who hunt with dogs and they recently ran up on a 300+ pound hog. One of the dogs took a tusk in the side. It went under the skin and out like a rug needle but didn't tear the skin, just two big punctures. Not something I'd like to think about in my leg.

Reality is that you'll rarely encounter one as big as you're talking about and most of the ones you do shoot will die peacefully. The ones that don't, well, that's when it gets exciting.

[GabbyM]

Would you feel under gunned tracking a big (400 lb) hog with a 315 grn wide flat nosed lead bullet pushed to 800-850 fps, a little higher than a typical .45 Colt hunting load?

I see many hog hunters prefer a magnum with this type of bullet and weight. But a .45 Colt seemed pretty good at killing stuff, so one with a heavier bullet and a little extra oomph seems stellar to me...

Just my opinion and it's worth the price.
You'd be way better off with a more standard bullet weight in the 45 Colt. 255 to 280 gain flat nose. You'll still be subsonic and with any half decent alloy won't have any issues with bullets breaking up. Going with ultra heavy weight less velocity does not give you more "oomph". Although I'm well aware that point is commonly argued. I'd argue that every cartridge ahs it's ideal weight. All that said. 315 grain boolit at 850 fps should work just fine. It would however have much more likely hood of bouncing (deflecting out) of a hogs skull than a faster 255 grain. There are many hogs shot now days with suppressed 44 mag rifles running sub sonic Lee 320 LFN boolits. Those rifles can go super sonic with that 320 bullet if you push hard IIRC. I'd pick a weight I could push at 1,100 to 1,150 fps and call it good.

[rodwha]

excess: I've yet to fire this Pietta. Still just looking at it…

The 285C is meant for my ROA, and would be most likely what I'd carry as a backup.


Geraldo: Having to track in that stuff sounds ludicrous! I'd want a little more breathing room! I wouldn't want to have to track a 100 lb hog in that, especially not one that's wounded!

Yea, I've only heard of those big porkers. The big ones more commonly run up to maybe 250 lbs with most being under 200 lbs. But they still have tusks!

I'm not too much into heads on the wall, though I am a sucker for European mounts, I'd have to mount a 400 lb hog head in my beer room!

I figured that if a 255 grn Kaido bullet traveled from nose to tail through an adult hog (average ~200 lbs I believe) a heavier one that's only slightly longer (.635" vs .675") ought to do better, especially if black bears may be the game, which is actually why I mentioned 400 lbs (big hog/average bear).

Maybe a Walker or Classic Ballistix cylinder ought to be higher on my list...

[rodwha]

This bullet turned out to be a little heavier than I intended, but figured it still had the powder capacity I was wanting, and maybe the increased weight would be good. I was wanting something more along the lines of a pure lead bullet with the weight shown using WW's.

I may just have to order another mold if I find this doesn't work out as well as I hoped. That or get the Classic Ballistix cylinder to increase my powder charge. I've been considering reaching out to people who have a chronograph/gel blocks and would use Swiss/Olde E/T7 to gauge it's potential.

I had asked about the threshold of bullet weight vs performance as there's a point in which there's too much weight. I'd like to see these burst from the barrel at 850 fps or more.

[Geraldo]

I think your ROA is the pistol to use. Ruger says in the manual that the charge is however much of whatever grade powder you can stuff under a bullet, and that's just how I'd run it.

[rodwha]

Most definitely!

I would like a Classic Ballistix cylinder though. Why stop at .45 Colt +P levels when I can get closer to Ruger Only -P loads? 700 ft/lbs sounds mighty nice! But I still wonder if it's necessary, if a Colt +P load isn't enough. If it can go nose to tail more doesn't do much of anything except come out the other end faster...

[Junior1942]

......I still wonder if it's necessary, if a Colt +P load isn't enough. If it can go nose to tail more doesn't do much of anything except come out the other end faster...Exactly. And waste lots of energy on air.

[BrassMagnet]

One of my buddies used to tell the tale of the boar he went after with 12 gauge slugs.
It charged him and he shot it in the head. It knocked it a$$ over teakettle.
Then it got up and charged again.
When he fired his last slug he climbed a tree.
It went after the tree and tried to shake him out.
Thankfully, he had a sling on his shotgun and it went up the tree with him.
He had trouble reloading while hanging on to the shaking tree for dear life, but finally managed.
Shotgun slugs in the back from above did kill that hog.

So what is the point of this story? I wonder if those heavy but slow slugs would do fine in the shoulder but not so good in the head.

[rodwha]

I've heard a similar story where a father and son were out and saw a hog. The dad had a .44 Mag and the son had a .45 ACP. It took all of their ammo to bring it down right before them. They knew they hit it several times as it would do a nose dive. Dad's last shot had spun it sideways where the son was able to get a good shot to put it down.

And I've also heard how the angle of the skull, like tank armor, makes the bullets deflect. I'm not sure if speed has anything to do with it, though I can't say I've heard anything about using rifles and having that problem.

[tacklebury]

Put a 300 gr. Hardcast on his head from a .45 Colt and it'll drop. ;) Problem is people using fast expanding factory hollow points on them. Even 12 ga. foster slugs are too soft and come apart easily on the head of a big pig. Better off to use a hard cast lead with a good meplat or a RNFP style like Hornady's FP or even a solid like DGS might be sure to make it through. :)

[GabbyM]

Those hollow pure lead Foster shotgun slugs are poor penetrators. I shot my first deer with one when I was fourteen. Next year I had a proper cap lock muzzle loading rifle.

[rodwha]

At 800 fps or below pure lead won't really expand will it? I've seen an old military video where they used several guns/ammo including an 1860 and a ball at 600 and something fps and shot gel with a bone and it didn't look deformed at all in the slow motion.

I wouldn't be able to ram a hard cast with the loading lever though anyway.

It might be possible to get some WW's to harden it up a bit.

[tacklebury]

In my ROA, I often shot 255 gr. Hard Cast bullets over 30 to 35 gr. FFFg powder if memory serves. Was pretty accurate and felt much like a .45 Colt for recoil. 8) It can be a little fun to get them levered down. One option is to use a loading stand and remove the cylinder and use the stand to load it up for you. :)

Similar to https://www.traditionsfirearms.com/product/loading-stand-for-black-powder-revolver-cylinders

[rodwha]

When you say hard cast do you mean the very hard stuff typically sold commercially which often has a BHN of over 16 or so?

[rodwha]

I know that Kaido states his bullets are 7-11 BHN and those aren't too bad in my Ruger.

It does give me the thought that I ought to look into collecting WW's for casting these, and using pure lead for the others and RB's/REALs.

[tacklebury]

Correct, specifically, Oregon trail lazer Cast 255 gr. RNFP with smokeless lube. I ended up selling the gun to my buddy, but after seeing how well they worked, my plan was to melt off the smokeless lube and re-lube em with SPG. Just sold it to buy something else that was calling before I did that. I still load the Oregon trail bullets in my .45 colt. ;) The BP version .45 colt just seemed superfluous with my Blackhawk. I wasn't using it to hunt directly, only back-up on horribly dangerous eastern whitetails. ;) I decided my .50 cal Kentucky or .45 Cal colonial would be good enough for finishing if needed. 8)

[BrassMagnet]

Correct, specifically, Oregon trail lazer Cast 255 gr. RNFP with smokeless lube. I ended up selling the gun to my buddy, but after seeing how well they worked, my plan was to melt off the smokeless lube and re-lube em with SPG. Just sold it to buy something else that was calling before I did that. I still load the Oregon trail bullets in my .45 colt. ;) The BP version .45 colt just seemed superfluous with my Blackhawk. I wasn't using it to hunt directly, only back-up on horribly dangerous eastern whitetails. ;) I decided my .50 cal Kentucky or .45 Cal colonial would be good enough for finishing if needed. 8)

If those eastern whitetails are half as tough as Colorado mule deer I can understand that.
My first buck turned into a wrestling match. I didn't have time to draw either pistol, it was just time to hang on for dear life or get perforated. I'm sure glad it was a little spike. I would have lost to a two year old. I yelled for help and my little brother came running. It didn't take him long to get there with a knife, it just seemed to take forever because I knew I was going to lose!

[tacklebury]

I don't let them get that close. I had a friend who was inexperienced and wanted to bow hunt. I told him, "if you get one down, stay back a bit and poke it's eye with an arrow tip.". He figured a knife would be just as good and when the blade hit it's eye, it stood up and beat him pretty bad. Was about an 100 pound doe, but broke 7 of his ribs and lacerated his head and face several places. He just said he wished he had listened better. Gave up hunting after that though. 8(

[horsesoldier]

Try wrestling an elk. I got kicked by a younger cow when I was 15.Sure smarts!

[tacklebury]

Ouch. That's one big critter!!

[725]

rodwha-
To answer your question, it was an onery 200lb + pig, shot at about 20 yards. Never recovered the roundball as it was a side shot placement right at the point where the shoulder begins. In and out. He spun around and flopped a little and died probably 5 yards from where he was shot. The wound was impressive. Basic entry hole but a nice cone of damage leading to golf ball + size exit. I've fooled around with almost every conical I could get my hands on. Still use them, but I will never feel undergunned with a pure lead roundball. As a matter of fact, I find myself using roundball more and more.

[Omnivore]

^^^^ In other words; shot placement is everything. We all know the stories of a man or beast absorbing a BUNCH of shots and still being able to keep going. Then there are the one shot stops. The difference between the two is placement of the bullet with regard to anatomy. Caliber or bullet design? Alloy? Within reason, now you're splitting hairs, Young Grasshopper.

Your original question then is; given proper shot placement, would this range of loads be within reason?

Yes, certainly. Look; you can completely eviscerate that pig with a grenade, and if it's central nervous system and blood flow are still functioning, it can still kill you. Put a 22 short in its ear and it'll drop like a sack of rocks.

[rodwha]

725: Ever use FN styled bullets?

Omnivore: I've never been in a situation where I had to react fast and shoot well or be chewed on, so I can only hope that I'd do well enough. Actually lets just hope the first shot is plenty, and there is no tracking necessary!

As I found that Accurate Molds has a ~5 week turnaround time asked, if it wasn't too late, if I could have the 285C modified so that the cast boolit would drop at 285 grns with pure lead, and he said it does as is.

[OverMax]

Hunting big pigs with a pistol is quite similar to bringing a knife to a gun fight. I could be wrong. As I don't have any experience hunting wild swine. But I have seen a rather big pair of nasty looking teeth on a wall mounted one once. That leads me to believe I'm right in my thinking perhaps.

[rodwha]

There are many who do hunt hogs with handguns, and they do well, though they all seem to recommend a magnum with a very heavy hard cast.

I don't know that I wouldn't do it were I capable of great accuracy with my handgun. As it stands I doubt my ability to keep all 6 shots within my 4" circle. A flier seems to ruin it often enough.

My intentions are to shoot it with my .50 cal rifle. I'd use my pistol if it wasn't put down and i had to go find it. I'd certainly give it 30 mins to bleed, maybe longer if it's huge!

[rodwha]

Indeed!

But some of the places I've hunted are too thick for even this somewhat compact rifle, though VA likely won't be anything like this scrub brushy place…

I do like the idea of a more handy weapon and a few more shots at the ready.

[Captain*Kirk]

I would not trust my life (or legs) to any muzzleloader if I had an alternative. Wild hogs can be vicious when wounded an I wouldn't want any more variables in the situation then there already are. .44 magnum would be my take on it. Save the '58 for something without tusks.

[rodwha]

ROA. And I'd like to get a Classic Ballistix cylinder which would bring it's performance to about that of a .44 Mag. Maybe I ought to look into having my stock chambers deepened…

My ROA has been 100% reliable after finding proper fitting caps, and ensuring they have the priming compound inside.

There are several guys who hog hunt with their percussion guns too.

[Alan]

I would have no qualms at all with popping a big hog with my .72 Gibbs. 540-ish grains cast of range scrap, that PRB will do anything needed. But I will have a .44 Maggie, or my JR 500 S&W on my belt.

[rodwha]

So you don't think this bullet and speed is sufficient?

I've wondered this as I always thought a .41 Mag or 10mm was about minimal, though I often carried a 1911 with 230 grn +P's, and this would give a much heavier bullet with slightly more power.

And what really made me consider such was the original .45 Colt was considered a great thing to have, though it was also the biggest thing in it's day that I'm aware of so it naturally was considered great.

But reading of field experience with 240-255 grn bullets from percussion pistols slightly exceeding the velocity of a .45 Colt (not cowboy loads) and penetrating nose to tail through an adult made me feel such a thing was quite plausible. And be more sure I increased the weight, gave it a wider meplat, and did what I could to shorten the OAL by increasing the driving bands and making the lube groove more shallow as I don't really believe a pistol barrel needs as much as many do, and hunting and a range session yield different results anyway.

But I do prefer to hear from those who believe it not so good and why since this is a speculation and theory for me. I've been considering what can be done to quantify it's usefulness before finding myself with gnarly gashes! Enough Knox gel is over $80 and I'm not even sure my range would allow it.

[BrassMagnet]

A .45 ACP Hardball round generally will not even flatten a tire. I would not use it as a comparison. It does not penetrate well. I would expect it to act like the shotgun slug my buddy used.
I like the nice meplat and more than 950 fps velocity with weight of 200+ grains.
And a handy bodyguard with a nice M1A or Garand with hunting ammo.

[Texantothecore]

+1 on the body guard. .45-70s are known as "pig rifles' in Texas and for good reason.

[rodwha]

Magnet: I'm looking for constructive criticism, but I find it hard to believe anything out of a .45 ACP won't flatten a tire. Not that what I was speaking of was a standard hardball round, but a JHP +P, which isn't necessary known for penetration but a nasty wound.

Regardless, I'm not sure I could achieve over 900 fps with this bullet. You'd feel better cutting the weight back to get a higher velocity?

I know there's a point in which the greater weight looses the velocity necessary to achieve greater penetration, though I know the heavier weight usually does better.

[rodwha]

Maybe I ought to make that Classic Ballstix cylinder more of a priority.

[Omnivore]

Maybe your best bet at this stage is to go out with someone well-armed to back you up and shoot yourself several pigs, then report your findings, then have a BBQ.

[rodwha]

Indeed. Alas, I'll likely be moving soon enough and be on my own.

[Omnivore]

I did a search on "pig hunts handguns" (without the quotation marks) and got a lot of results. Here's a guy anchoring a pig in south Texas from ~30 yards with a two inch barreled 40 S&W. He doesn't talk about the load, but your Remington can easily equal the ballistics, and beat it by some margin;

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PInyXzaE1ug

In the slo-mo near the end you can see the bullet strike near the base of the skull. Classic CNS hit-- Drop and twitch. A 380 might have been almost as good, with that shot placement.

And again, I don't care if you have a 500 S&W with expanding bullets, if you hit an animal in the gut and blow its entrails clean out, it's going to run away, or run at you, and it won't die until it's had time to make some distance, or do damage to your legs.

So I say 'taint about the caliber so much. If you have a hot loaded 44 C&B and you put the bullet in the right place, pig's goin' down. If you put the bullet in the wrong place, a 454 Casull or a 500 won't help much. The main thing is you have a gun you know you can shoot well.

[rodwha]

Cool video!

I need to see what I can do from a rest as I've found offhand I don't feel comfortable shooting beyond about 15 yds or so.

Shooting under the gun is a whole nuther situation, and I hope my rifle skills are plenty enough that I don't need to go looking for nothing far. I'm not a great pistol shot, and keep on practicing, though I wish I had land or something to where I could do it more often.

Thanks!

[rodwha]

And I'm certain my gun is good. Just leaves me…

Bigger concern is keeping the cool and aiming that shot. I'd like to think I can do it as I've done well under fire in other circumstances, but one doesn't really know until they've been through it I guess. Never had something wanting to chew on me.

[Omnivore]

This one looks like a bull elk taken with a Glock 20 (10 mm). He says he uses 10 mm and 45 Glocks;
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr2IG6t85Jg

I don't know where to find it at the moment, but there was a very long and very detailed article on gun shot wounds on people, with a lot of first-hand reports, and photos, from emergency room and field doctors. The summary was that velocity, while it may add to penetration (and sometimes not, depending the bullet) it's doesn't contribute much to the severity of the wound until you get to about 2000 fps at impact, and then the shock from impact starts to have MAJOR effects. So with all this experience they had two categories of bullet wounds: one below 2000, and one ~2000 and above.

In the fifteen or so deer that I've cleaned and butchered, shot with 280 Remington and a fifty caliber muzzleloader rifle with round ball, plus my next-door neighbor's bear hit with a 270, I tend to agree. Below 2000 you end up with total destruction only along the bullet path and of roughly the diameter of the bullet (unless some heavy bone gets pushed around) and at higher velocities you get a shock-cone of destruction with a fairly huge exit hole. The one and only one exception I've seen in my admittedly limited hunting experience, was when a fifty cal ball made a direct hit on the heart full of blood and exploded it like a water jug. The other time I hit the heart with round ball at roughly 1500, it just drilled a hole straight through. Both times the deer ran, and didn't seem to matter whether it was a two lungs shot or two lungs and the heart-- 20 to 40 yards, stop, lay down and die.

So when we're talking average power pistols, and even some in the "Magnum" class, we're mainly talkin' penetration and bullet diameter only, with some little bit of extra damage done because of bullet deformation.

So from all that I'd say use a heavy enough bullet with decent velocity and you can't do much better than that without a rifle or a 500 Smith, or an XVR, or something like a TC single shot pistol firing a rifle cartridge. After that it's all about shot placement.

[Omnivore]

Bigger concern is keeping the cool and aiming that shot.

That is THE concern, and so long as you have a hot loaded 44 C&B with a heavish bullet I'd think you'd do alright. But then I'm not the one behind your gun, so it's easy for me to say...

[rodwha]

I know all about the nastiness of a 270 Win wound!!! Was using the scope to pick my deer as it was beginning to get dark, and though I was moving sooooo slow the doe I happened to be going over at that moment was eyeing me, and began to raise her hoof to stomp the warning so I had to put it in her neck. Our deer are rather small, and this one may have weighed 100 lbs on the hoof at best, but it picked her up and flipped her over. The hole at the base of her neck and shoulders could fit in a base ball! I was impressed with this wound as it was the biggest and nastiest I've seen so far.

[triggerhappy243]

here is a test for you... have your friend cast an empty milk jug and reel it in with a fishin rod, like previously stated. now do a 100 yard dash up to your loaded pistol and try to hit the moving jug after running that 100 yards. if you cannot hit that jug, dont let that pig get a second step. it is gonna be pissed after you hit it the 1st. time. pigs are not hard to kill, but you have to put the bullet in the vitals first.

[Omnivore]

triggerhap; That would be a good test! I like your thinking.

[triggerhappy243]

it is not as easy as it sounds. learned it in endurance training.

[Texantothecore]

I saw a boar go after a 16 year old girl at a state fair years ago. That girl did the quickest 50 meters I have ever seen a human run. The boar was never more than six inches from her heels.

I would definitively have back up.

They are much faster than you think.