Quiet Pig Stunning Load

[curioushooter]

Odd thing. I recently have needed to stun some domestic pigs to be slaughtered. I do not posses a captive bolt gun, which the standard tool used by abattoirs for this purpose. I was thinking that a small revolver would do this job nicely.

I was thinking a Lyman 358429 in 38 special loaded with about 3.5 grains of Unique. The Lyman manual lists 3.7 as the suggested starting load, but I cannot think of any reason to back it off a bit more. Perhaps even down to 3.0 grains. This bullet I would think would easily penetrate through a pig's skull and perforate its brain and exit into the ground.

I would like to to be as quiet as possible otherwise. I know the position to place the muzzle (at the intersection of an imaginary X drawn between the base of the ears and eyes).

Anybody have experience with this or know if it can be backed off even more?

[GhostHawk]

The ones I killed were all done with .22lr.


These days I would likely use a .32sw long. A because they are reloadable. B they won't overpenitrate. C they will go far enough if you line the shot up right.

My first try the pig in question had his nose up in the air throwing off my target. Either up or down you need to allow for.

.38 special will do the job and the load seems fine. Just might go a bit further and do a bit more damage than needed is all.

[curioushooter]

A little 22 is all it takes? Thanks for the guidance.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

It can be a bit messy, but pressing the muzzle against the pig's head muffles the sound quite a bit, although it may cause the pig to jump when it feels it. The brain can also be hit from the side (beween the eye and ear angled rearward) or rear (behind the ear angling forward). Good to know if you have one that won't cooperate.

[JWFilips]

I have a very old pig gun Used for dispatching ! .22 long
261759

[curioushooter]

Do you think a 148 wadcutter would be better?

[rancher1913]

all we ever used was a 22lr, right spot they drop in their tracks.

[Slugster]

I have dispatched many hogs with .22 lr. As you say aim for the imaginary X. They go down fast, usually bang/flop. Watch out when you go to cut the throat, they can still kick and such. Approach from behind the animal.
I always used some pastry to get them to come to the side of the dispatch cage...gets them real close with their heads about where you want them, Easy peasy.

[jcren]

If you use magnum primers, you can go below 3. Had squibs and unburned powder trying to go lower for some loads for the kids. Magnum primers were effective at 2.6 grains of unique for me.

[Outpost75]

Colt M1903 Pocket Hammerless in .32 ACP with Accurate 31-077B cast from wheelweights with 2 grains of AutoComp at 900+ fps does the job neatly, but you need industrial rubber matting over the concrete killing floor to prevent riccochets because they shoot clear through a pig or sheep. They will stay in a beef.

Years ago Dad used ordinary 73-grain FMJ.

261760261761

[country gent]

We always used a 22 lr and it never filed . behind the ear to the opposite eye. From behind the pig dosnt see you and no skull to penetrate entering. Also much closer to the brain stem. Coming from the front the bullet gas to penetrate the skull first then the brain. The pastry is a great idea, will still them and make it easier.

For most of his years butchering my grandfather didnt use a firearm. Stunned them with a 4 lb cross peen hammer, until he gad a big Guernsey cow get up on him.

[TNsailorman]

My grandfather was the executioner in my younger days. He would keep the revolver in his pocket until he walked up beside a hog and then on smooth motion bring the .22LR revolver out of his pocket and shoot the hog behind the ear into the brain. Most didn't even grunt. Just dropped down dead. He was also the one who castrated the male hogs while they were young.

[megasupermagnum]

Back when we butchered pigs, my dads gun of choice was a single shot pistol in .410. A .410 slug to the brain did the job. Lots were killed with the 22lr too, but shots were most effective from the side. The .410 worked no matter what. If you can shoot through them and not worry about the bullet hitting the ground, and you don't care about the mess, then the sky is the limit. I remember one time the 41 magnum was used, and while the bullet did exit, it was not that big of a deal.

[Brassduck]

when I was 10 my job was to mind the rifle and the ammo and shoot the hogs. used a remington 513 single shot and a box of shorts. hog raised his head I missed the spot and the pig squealed, that's the only one I can remember other wise they dropped on the spot.

[RU shooter]

No load out of a handgun is gonna be quiet . About quiet as your gonna get is a rifle with a really reduced load or 22lr and put the muzzle about an inch from the head

[frkelly74]

My grand father used a Remington 550 . There was one that took two shots once. Either he flinched or the steer did. So it was pop, pop that time instead of just pop.

[jmorris]

At distance my suppressed 458 socom pushing 400+ grains subsonic is what I use, in a trap a .22 works fine, just have to wait for them to calm down for good shot placement.

If you have already been feeding them, drop the bucket right in front of you and they will walk to the muzzle.

FWIW a .22 will also drop over 1000 lb cattle, like a light switch as well. Doesn't take much, in just the right spot.

[Hanzy4200]

Just a thought, but a wheel gun is never going to be quite as quiet with a light load as a auto loader. The other poster who suggested the Colt 1903 .32 is on the right track.

[curioushooter]

Do not, I repeat do not, use low powered 38 specials this way. Four shots exactly in the correct place managed only to enrage the animal and disorient it. They didn't exit the skull. 22 LR from a rifle stopped it and subsequent pigs perfectly. It was quieter too.

[megasupermagnum]

Do not, I repeat do not, use low powered 38 specials this way. Four shots exactly in the correct place managed only to enrage the animal and disorient it. 22 lr from a rifle stopped it and subsequent pigs perfectly. It was quieter too.

Yikes. I would think anything safe that wont get stuck in the barrel has to be around 500 fps minimum. You're telling me a 175 grain bullet at 500+fps couldn't go through a skull? Theres no shame in missing. Every year we did it, we had it happen. Pigs don't have a lot of brains. Where we always tried to shoot them was dead center between the ear and eye, usually a side shot, as we had them in trailers. From the front, I think it's best to square up and get them right between the eyes. They have a flat spot right where to put it. Shooting straight down, the way their skull is shaped puts a lot of bone at an angle. We were not professional butchers either, just a handful of people who would buy a trailer of pigs every year to split between us.

[curioushooter]

I'm telling you what happened. There were four witnesses. It's actually around 167 grains. I did not chrono it. 3.5 grains of unique from a 1 7/8" S&W 638. Probably 700 fps. I thought I missed despite pulling the trigger with the muzzle about an inch from the skull. Put four more in the poor animal before I got my double badger. A single 22 LR in the same place stunned it. And all other pigs with a single shot. I am thinking of sawing the skull open just to see what happened but am frankly so disguested by the whole ordeal I don't want to mess with it.
Do what you want but I will never shoot an animal with a low powered handgun that way again.

[M-Tecs]

Killed a lot of pig and steers with a 22LR. Biggest hog was 560 dressed so live weight was around 750. Steers were around 1,000 pounds. Did a couple of baloney bulls but used a 22 Mag. Don't know the weight but around 2,000 pounds.

Never shot one from the side.

For bleeding I much prefer sticking verse slitting the throat.

Pics of shot placement here https://www.hsa.org.uk/humane-killing-of-livestock-using-firearms-positioning/pigs-2

https://extension.sdstate.edu/home-hog-slaughter

Until the mid 50's almost all the commercial packing plants used 22's until various type of stun guns came on the scene. I don't remember the head count per year but your smaller local butcher shops still mostly use 22's. For a while OSHA was mandating 22 Long than later 22 Shorts. I believe they have backed off on requiring 22 shorts. 100's of millions of hogs and beef have been killed with the lowly 22.

[LUCKYDAWG13]

I remember when i was a kid 13 14 years old my buddy's Dad would kill a cow with a 22 LR with one shot in the head DRT

[country gent]

I have heard of hogs with thick skull plates, why we come from behind. Rounds that pass thru may be extra dangerous due to concrete floors and equipment causing ricochets. Inside a metal building everything is louder. It just seems to echo in them.

ALWAYS make sure the animal is down and dead before climbing in the pen to stick or slit the throat. Have everything laid out an ready for use. We had a small table that sat beside the "Kill" pen had everything laid out there on a towel ready to go. Slitting knife was freshly sharpened. Boiling pot was ready. chain fall and gambrelle was hung. Be ready to go. Have the tools sharpened and where they need to be ready for use. A lot of this can be done days before. Doing everything you can before makes Butcher day much easier and safer

[pcmacd]

A little 22 is all it takes? Thanks for the guidance.

I know a guy, years ago, used to take deer with a 22 pistol. He must have been one hell of a tracker?

[pcmacd]

Do you think a 148 wadcutter would be better?

Sir: a 148 grn wadcutter is good FOR ANYTHING.

[pcmacd]

I remember when i was a kid 13 14 years old my buddy's Dad would kill a cow with a 22 LR with one shot in the head DRT

I used to inspect factories for an insurance company in another lifetime.

Slaughterhouses were never a favorite.

Places that used projectiles always had a fixture to put the beast in a place so that they can't move, pulled down a fixtured weapon, and shot them in the head. This was used mostly for beef [it has been a very long time, sirs, so please don't beat me up on this?]

Sometimes they'd give the beasts a large jolt of electricity before fixturing them and pinging their brains, just to make them more docile. Likely 22LRs, don't know for sure, but that round generally would not overpenetrate and come out the other side of the skull.

That's why, apparently, the 22LR is the assassin's' favorite caliber, suppressed [I'm not the ex-purt here guys, just what I have read over and over?]

It goes in quietly, does not come out, and makes scrambled eggs inside? No collateral damage, as in passers by.

Safety for all except the victim, and I am not kidding.

Most places I inspected were pork slaughterhouses.

There, they usually put a chain around a rear leg of a porker, pulled the sucker into the air (the chain belt never stopped moving) and the next guy in line slit the throat.

It was not a pretty place to be, and if you din't wear hearing protection, you would go nearly deaf after a few years because, OMG, did those porkers SCREAM when getting hoisted up by the hind leg? The sound pressure levels, peak, A weighted, were over 130dB at some places I inspected.

That, friends is LOUD. And NOT something one can accommodate all day long.

[billyb]

Started working a butcher shop while in high school. Picked the meat up from the slaughter house, the men doing the work used 22 pistol and 22single shot rifle, Beef and pork, used 22 long, not long rifle. Shot some of the animals because they got tired of the killing. Shot some of my Dad's pigs also with the 22 long. It does the job.

[pcmacd]

I have heard of hogs with thick skull plates, why we come from behind. Rounds that pass thru may be extra dangerous due to concrete floors and equipment causing ricochets. Inside a metal building everything is louder. It just seems to echo in them.

ALWAYS make sure the animal is down and dead before climbing in the pen to stick or slit the throat. Have everything laid out an ready for use. We had a small table that sat beside the "Kill" pen had everything laid out there on a towel ready to go. Slitting knife was freshly sharpened. Boiling pot was ready. chain fall and gambrelle was hung. Be ready to go. Have the tools sharpened and where they need to be ready for use. A lot of this can be done days before. Doing everything you can before makes Butcher day much easier and safer

I had a buddy (my first manager at Hewlett-Packard in 1984) used to hunt feral hogs in north/central California, around Hearst Castle (Hearst, who brought in these beasts and let them get loose.)

Jon claimed that only the stoutest 44 mag solid, cast load shot into the breastplate of these feral beasts would work.

Jon eventually started using a custom pistol cartridge based on the 45-70. A 45-70 Lindbergh? Linebaugh?

The cartridges were head stamped 45-70, no matter what he did to them. And the bullet was seriously weighty.

Whatever. It was much more than I would ever want to shoot out a hand canon?

I mean, a 50 AE in a Desert Eagle? 5 rounds is enough fun for me for a year or two?

This thing was waaaay beyond that.

Even then Jon din't consider it sporting and, later, only hunted them with bow and broadhead arrow.

As for me? I'd just like to take home the bacon?

[725]

I've only been involved in sticking them with a long knife, through the throat into the top of the heart. Was following a printed guide and it worked well when you got it right. Glenn Fryxell mentioned butchering and "the bullet for all seasons" in his article from the LASC. Dig up the article. It's worth the read.

[35remington]

I would put the velocity of 3.5 grains Unique and a 167 grain SWC with the powder charge oriented toward the bullet as somewhat to possibly well below 600 fps from a 1.875” J frame , having experience with similar charge weights and the vagaries of adverse powder position in that very barrel length. The charge is rather light and the powder position costs 100 fps versus oriented by the primer. What seemed okay with the gun shot level probably wasn’t when the muzzle was pointed down. The charge will not break 700 fps even with the powder by the primer.

If using a J frame snubbie I would suggest a 148 WC at 700 fps with Bullseye, Red Dot or Titegroup. Not quiet. But not position sensitive to anywhere near the same degree either.

The guys that do a lot of butchering around here often use budget 22 magnum rifles on the larger stock as it is the cheapest round they can buy that penetrates bone of thick bull skulls with certainty, and they carry the extra power over to their other duties on occasion.

[M-Tecs]

I've only been involved in sticking them with a long knife, through the throat into the top of the heart. Was following a printed guide and it worked well when you got it right. Glenn Fryxell mentioned butchering and "the bullet for all seasons" in his article from the LASC. Dig up the article. It's worth the read.

That most likely was Home Meat Curing Made Easy: Pork, Beef, Lamb Sausage Paperback – January 1, 1941 by Morton Salt Co https://www.amazon.com/Home-Meat-Curing-Made-Easy/dp/B0012MYHMM

When you stick the target is the large group of branching veins and arteries. If you cut the heart bleeding is less effective.

I prefer to hang and stick without shooting.

I highly recommend the Morton Salt Complete Guide to Home Meat Curing 1941. It's is a great book. The older Morton books detail how to stick the hog correctly. They recommend to get a loop around a hind foot, hoist the hog up in the air, then stick it. They don't recommend shooting first, they want the heart to pump with the full brain signals coming to it.

You use a hog sticking knife and go in through the thorax stopping just short of the heart and you angle the knife up until you hit the artery under the spine. The hog bleeds out in seconds. If you shoot it the quicker you stick it or cut its throat the better bleed out. With the 22 the heart keeps pumping for a while. I have never used anything larger so I can not comment. After I learned how to properly stick hogs I not have shot one since.

I currently use the F Dick 8" pig sticking knife https://www.knifemerchant.com/product.asp?productID=8590 They are getting hard to find in the US but depending on the size of the hog a 6" to 8" boning knife works fine.

[curioushooter]

22 LR did the job quite well!

[Bodean98]

Grandad would use a 16 oz. ball peen to sedate them and then get them in the air to stick their throat. He didn't want to ruin the Suiss or head cheese with a lead bullet!
He often would raise them up to 400 to 500 lbs. before butchering and they could be a handful.
Done right, it was the quietest and most efficient way for him.:D

[Buzz Krumhunger]

I’ve killed a pile of trapped feral hogs using a .22 mag revolver loaded with .22WRF hollow points. One shot in the head just above and halfway between the eyes, and they’re gone.

[sonoransixgun]

Another vote for the .22. Done many times, bang/flop (also for goats)....but I do like the idea of a light .38. I think that's worth exploring. Next time I need to do the job, I want to try it...

[DonHowe]

Dad used a 1902 Winchester .22LR. His dad thought LR was overkill. If left to their methods both men were quite efficient at the task. The mindset came from poverty where "rifle shells" cost money and nothing of the critter was wasted.

[KCSO]

In the 30's after my Uncle Norman Rann came back from prospecting he brought back to the farm his 45-90 Sharps carbine. He made and used a squib load for hog killing. One day the neighbour came to borrow the HOG GUN. Normans wife gave him the gun and two rounds of ammo, unfortunately full house black powder 500 grain loads. The results were both impressive and predictable and two hogs got butchered with one shot!

[curioushooter]

16 oz. ball peen to sedate them and then get them in the air to stick their throat.

An old farmer, recently passed, who slaughtered hundreds and hundreds of pigs in his life used a 2 lb cross peen hammer for decades before switching to a 22LR rifle as he got older and didn't want to risk getting bitten or kicked. Never reported a failure.

[curioushooter]

but I do like the idea of a light .38. I think that's worth exploring. Next time I need to do the job, I want to try it...

Did you read anything I wrote? This is a bad idea. If you try a 38 make sure it is pushed by plenty of powder or use it in a rifle. According to an article written by Glen Fryxel a 38special with a 358627 (a 210 grain+) and a small charge of unique worked very well on cattle. That is out of a rifle and could have easily been going 900-100 FPS.

The same load out of a handgun could be useless, as mine was.

[marshall623]

We always use 22 shorts and they always go down , unless you miss the X spot or you get one with the extra thick skull . A pig in a pen or on a trailer sounds easy but many time they are everything but especially if you need another shot .

[country gent]

I have been told by several people (and read it) that whats makes a 22 so deadly beyond its size and velocity is , it has the power to get in but not out and stays in moving around in side the cavity until spent dumping all its meager energy in the target. We always used a 22 Lr solid for butchering larger stock. Our butcher pen was like a loading shoot the animal went in and couldnt move enough to turn.

[Thekid]

I have done 2 so far this spring with a 22LR, and will do 3 more this Saturday. It’s quiet and and they drop immediately.

[WRideout]

It can be a bit messy, but pressing the muzzle against the pig's head muffles the sound quite a bit, although it may cause the pig to jump when it feels it. The brain can also be hit from the side (beween the eye and ear angled rearward) or rear (behind the ear angling forward). Good to know if you have one that won't cooperate.

When I worked in a crime lab, many moons ago, I learned that when the gun is in contact with the head it puts pressure inside the skull and blows brain tissue out of the entrance wound.

Wayne

[trapper9260]

I use different rounds to take them down . I normal shoot the hogs or any trap animal I can in the ear. It is right to the brain. As for cattle I use a slug hammer between the eyes. then slit the throat like I do with hogs. I went with 32 long because can reload it for hogs. for trap line 22longs.

[Milsurp Junkie]

Are we talking 22lr or short out of a rifle, or a pistol? I figured out of a rifle, 22lr would be fine for most animals, but out of a pistol I am not sure. I could see a 32 long or 38 special working from a pistol.