Wet weather hog trip and cast lead

[Fenring]

Went on a week long trip to southern Queensland a couple of weeks ago. We have had a LOT of rain in many places Down Under and it was touch and go if we'd be able to get there. But we risked it and it more or less paid off though the standing water, swollen creeks and mud caused hardships and limited our mobility on the place, which is about 75,000 acres.

We were hunting off bikes - I had my Suzuki two wheeler and my pal had his Honda four wheeler which came into its own in the wet conditions.

Loadout for both of us was the Ruger 96/44 shooting the 310gr Lee over 20gr of ADI2205 for 1500fps. :)

We were camped in a sheep shearing shed.

http://i.imgur.com/ERfiqjt.jpg

There was a lot of water lying around....we could only get to a few places....

http://i.imgur.com/AWWATn9.jpg

Bogged quad...

http://i.imgur.com/4h0Nk0T.jpg

Some screencaps from my head mounted Replay action cam. (note wet and muddy rifle)

http://i.imgur.com/3KPNonm.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3u8x1AL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/QDtBs1j.jpg

We even torpedoed a few that tried to swim for it. :D

http://i.imgur.com/Qm3GKCA.jpg

Young boar.

http://i.imgur.com/NNZWiNG.jpg

[Fenring]

Fat sow that led me on quite a chase through the bushes and slush.

http://i.imgur.com/uLJNi0c.jpg

I also tried out my new Adler A110 lever action shotgun and shot some pigs using SG's.

http://i.imgur.com/iWCsAmr.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/VZCzQya.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PXJUBDY.jpg

Despite the limitations to mobility, we still managed to shoot 56 pigs in four days or so of hunting. No boolits recovered this time around - most of the pigs we shot were not big enough to stop the 310gr Lee slug.

[Harter66]

Sounds like a great trip !

I have a lifer friend ,we don't hunt together as much as we used to.. we had a sliding dirt scale fun quotient rating system for hunts . Basically it was a nice trip with muddy fenders .. it was a great trip if it took over an hour to get the mud out of the frame and mud on the roof and in all the gear rated a perfect unforgettable experience. 1 such trip cost me a full set of mud chains . I gained 2" of suspension washing the mud out and off that trip.

Good looking pigs too.

[Fenring]

My chain and sprockets were screwed after this trip. :D

[runfiverun]

tell me more about that shotgun.
lever action and 12 ga?

[kenyerian]

Sounds like a lot of fun! Thanks for sharing.

[white eagle]

man you are livin the dream

[shoot-n-lead]

tell me more about that shotgun.
lever action and 12 ga?

That shotgun appears to be a semi auto...that is a safety behind the trigger.

[barrabruce]

lever action.
They are light.
Tried one myself and slugs tended to punch me in the nose with my thumb.
Then again it wern't my gun.
Pity those extra hulls prevent you from getting your cheek to the stock.
Nice..fenring as usual paint me green.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

that lever is a ruger 44 mag I believe

[Fenring]

Thanks guys.

The rifle with the scope is the Ruger 96/44.

The shotgun is an Adler A110 lever action 12g. :)

http://i.imgur.com/cl4KDgL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/5A8f9dt.jpg

As semi auto and pump shotguns are very heavily restricted in Australia, and have been since 1996, in the last couple of years modern design lever action shotguns have popped up. They are all of Turkish manufacture - the Adler A110 was the first, followed by the Pardus LAX12 and the Uzkon LA887.

While not as slick and fast as a pump they at least give us the option of more than two shots... Mine was set up with a Bushnell TRS25 red dot on top and sighted for solid slugs, which I never actually used on pigs this trip. Mine has a 20" barrel with interchangeable chokes. The action is quite long, and the 28" version looks and feels like Jedd Clampett's long rifle. :D

Oh yeah, the extra rounds on the stock are on the opposite side to my face so the stock is cheeked normally. :)

[castalott]

How far were the shots in the pictures? What was a normal shot? Are the pigs a nuisance animal? I bet that load puts 'em right down...

I'm full of questions but more of envy.... Wow...looks like fun....:Fire:

[Fenring]

Shots are normally close - 25 to 50 yards on average and mostly at running pigs. Some shots are really close though.

Pigs are a big nuisance on farm land in mid to northern Australia and they are prolific breeders in our forests also.

The big Lee works quite well, especially on larger pigs and where shots might be angling or right up the back end. That said, the Lyman Devastator hollow point really tears them a new one too!

[runfiverun]

excellent.
I'm gonna have to see what I can do about getting one of them.
the 20" barrel would make it just about perfect for the grouse hunting I do, and the lever isn't a hindrance to a second shot.

[popper]

Running pig with scoped rifle should be exciting. Yours must be euro boars, ones I've seen in Texas have smaller heads. IMHO a HiPoint carbine in 10mm would be a perfect pig 'bike' gun for what your doing. Yea, mud is really hard on driveline parts. Bet you don't use the brakes much.

[Fenring]

excellent.
I'm gonna have to see what I can do about getting one of them.
the 20" barrel would make it just about perfect for the grouse hunting I do, and the lever isn't a hindrance to a second shot.

I only have a lever shotgun because I can't have a pump or auto down here - if I could, I'd have my Remington 870 20" SPS-T back in a heartbeat!


Running pig with scoped rifle should be exciting. Yours must be euro boars, ones I've seen in Texas have smaller heads. IMHO a HiPoint carbine in 10mm would be a perfect pig 'bike' gun for what your doing. Yea, mud is really hard on driveline parts. Bet you don't use the brakes much.


Yeah, you don't have long to pull up, chamber, aim and shoot.

Our pigs here are descended from a variety of stock - Asiatic boards, European boars and also domestics that got out. The various cultures that visited and colonised Australia brought their different pig lines with them, and thus we encounter all sorts of lines of feral pigs here.

[castalott]

What kind of load did you use the scattergun?

[Fenring]

These ones right here:

https://www.winchesteraustralia.com.au/products/RWB12POOSG

[big bore 99]

Great pics. Thanks for posting.

[castalott]

Would you describe about how the 00 buck load works? I see first hand how the 12 gauge slug works but since hunting with 00 buck is illegal, I've never seen anything shot with it....

So many questions dripping with envy...

Dale

[Fenring]

Thanks guys.

TBH, I don't have much faith in buckshot for hunting, unless you are inside about 25 yards.

The pattern is too thin, too inconsistent and the individual pellets lack wounding power IMO.

What I found is that I would get outranged very quickly - my target might be 20 yards out when I get ready to shoot, but by the time I'm actually firing it's 35 yards out and there's no guarantee how many pellets (if any....) will hit and importantly, WHERE they will hit.

[Ramjet-SS]

This looks like allot of fun. I want one of these lever action shotguns ....... just because. :Fire:

[popper]

Yea, IMHO 3" #4 full choke would be better. 1 1/4 Oz payload @ 1300 or so.

[Ramjet-SS]

Do they allow the sabot with the shotgun? then the second question would be can you get a rifled barrle for the lever action shotgun?

[Fenring]

Yeah, that would be fine here.

The way I see it though - if you're going to fire one projectile from a shotgun, why not just use a rifle?

Shotgun ammo is very bulky compared to rifle ammo - a .44 Mag round for example is about 1/3rd the volume of a 12g round.

And more accurate besides.

The shotgun was more a fun aspect for me this trip, I just wanted to try it on hogs.

[popper]

93 Hogs Down: Night hunting with the Armasight Zeus Pro 640 50mm - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvLRmp_7ktw)
Fun vid but 5 min in you see a good reason for more than one rnd.
This one is pretty good too.