Looking for Boar/Hog Hunter opinion.

[Doc_Stihl]

I'm planning a hog hunt for this fall for the wife. I'd like to use a 310GR Lee C430-310-RF (#2 allow, quenched) backed by 20-21GR of H110. MV should be in the 1250FPS range out of a yet to be determined revolver. (She likes the 29 and SRH, she hasn't tried a SBH)

My only previous experience was with an 8mm and it proved rather ineffective on a spooked and mad hog. Lethal shots, but not stopping shots. I'll be over her shoulder with either a 458 or a 45-70 marlin with unquestionable stopping power, but I'd like to ensure she can do it herself.

Anyone have experience with either this bullet or a similar 44 on heavy hogs? 250-400lb range is the norm.

[BD]

I've had good luck stopping them with neck shots, as close to the head as is possible. I'm using 265 grain WFNs out of a six inch Dan Wesson 744.

Free advice: If your looking for a BBQ, let the big boars go. Once thier nuts drop they smell real bad, all the way through. Look for the ones which will fit on the grill whole, and kill two or three. They're the best eating. Hunting in the islands near Savannah, I've known guys to get so sick from the smell of the boar on the bow that they threw them overboard before getting back.

A lot of the trouble had dropping hogs comes from a lack of understandiing thier anatomy, which is different than a deer's. A hogs heart is lower and it's lungs are more vertical than you think and almost completely shielded by it's forlegs when standing broadside. A pig shot behind the shoulder when broadside is gut shot in most cases. Also, a hogs spine drops over it's shoulders and comes out from behind the forlegs very low in the neck, so a shot just forward of the front shoulders can be ineffectual. The "shield" is a thick gristle mat from the front of the shoulder across the breast. This can soak up expanding bullets like a sponge. Add to that, they have thick leg bones and can make good time, and fight, on three legs.

So if broadside I'll take the neck shot close to the head. They hit the dirt and run in place until I get a head shot in. Quartering away, a shot just behind the front knee, lower than you'd think usual gets the heart and one lung. Sometimes they're DRT and sometimes they do the 20 yard dash and pile up. IMHO there is no good shot from the front. If that's your situation, I'd hold under the eyes and try for the spine, and keep shooting.

I lost a hog last fall who had his head down behind a sow feeding by taking a high angle shot for the front shoulder at about 35 yards. the bullet apparently hit dead center on the leg bone and traveled down to the knee taking the leg off clean at the knee, and he blistered out of there on three legs. I found him the next day laid up with 10 or 12 other hogs in the thickest briar patch I've ever entered on purpose. I spent an hour crawing in on them from downwind, eventually spooking them all out but one, which I assumed to be the wounded one. We played cat and mouse in the thicket for another hour until he finally bolted out away from me. Men are no match for hogs when it comes to busting through the briars.

Good luck on your hunt, and pay attention when you gut and butcher the hog. They're really put together different.

BD

[Lead melter]

BD,
Some really good info there. Thanks for taking the time to help out someone.

[Doc_Stihl]

BD, I really appreciate the response.

As far as picking a roaster out, the boars we're after are russians. They're in a 2000 acre reserve and you pay by the head. The 2 that I've eaten off were between 200 and 250 and were fantastic. The meat is alot more like beef than pork. There was no odor at all to the russians. The average boar is aroud 200lbs, but I'm planning like it's a 400. Better to plan for 400 and find 200 than the other way around.

I know what you mean about them being quick on 3 legs. My first and only experience to date was a learning adventure about 10 years ago. 1 pig was shot by my cousin with a .50 AE. That was a mistake. Well placed(or so we thought) shoulder shots were horribly ineffective, one shot cleaned both front legs off at the knees, that just let us to catch up. The 8mm I used easily penetrated but had little stopping power because of of the adrenaline produced by .50 handgun blasts. I'm very much looking forward to a 1 shot kill this time around and was hoping to drill low on the shoulder and shock/knock/kill instantly. Assuming the boar isn't given any time to build adrenaline.

[jack19512]

(She likes the 29 and SRH, she hasn't tried a SBH)









Just some more info and this is only my opinion. I really like my SRH but had to purchase some grips for my SBH before I could continue shooting it. Thr SBH really was torture on my middle finger until the addition of the
Pachmayr grips.

[BD]

If those Russians have balls, and don't smell, they'd be different from the feral hogs for sure. If it's a canned hunt, maybe they're nutting the piglets?, (which is what the commercial hog farmers do to produce the pork we buy at the supermarket).

BD

[725]

What BD said! I've gotten a few with various rifles & pistols. The only cast conquest was with a .54 T/C Scout pistol, 80 grs FFG, & a round ball. Crawled into a thicket of very low cover to stalk one bedded down in a wallow. One well placed RB and it was lights out for the pig. I think the soft lead did a better job than any of the jacketed projectiles I've used.

[lead Foot]

BD sounds like you have shoot a lot hogs two. We call nutted pigs barra's here they can grow up two 250+kgs. But only grow about 60kgs and bullet proof were I go hunting. Just to add to BD's reply a moving pig is hard hard to put down with the first shoot. DB's shot placement are spot on but for neck shots aim low of centre and 1" above the centre of the ear (side on) boolits will bounce off front head shots until they about three feet in front of you and a shot in the ass will pull him up for second shot.:Fire::Fire::Fire:
lead Foot :drinks:

[Leadforbrains]

I have shot a few hogs and BDs advice sounds right on to me. Every boar that I have shot that was over 100 to 150 lbs stunk to high heaven and the meat was really strong. I shoot the sows and the smaller boars for meat. I also prefer to use neck and head shots when they are a sure thing. I hunt down south and trailin a hog that is supposed to be dead through a briar thicket at nite is no longer any fun to me. I really hated it one evening ( shot this particular boar with a bow) when I accidently knocked over a big fire ant mound while crawlin on my hands and knees in the dark through a hole in a thicket. I got tore up, but I got my hog anyways.

[BD]

My most recent hog hunting was in SC, up the Savannah, just south of Bostich Plantation. I leave the crawling through the briars of SC for daylight. Leadforbrains left out the copperheads, rattlers, aligators and bees in addition to the fire ants.
BD

[Leadforbrains]

My most recent hog hunting was in SC, up the Savannah, just south of Bostich Plantation. I leave the crawling through the briars of SC for daylight. Leadforbrains left out the copperheads, rattlers, aligators and bees in addition to the fire ants.
BD

Yes there are alot of things that will bite you and make you sick out there. The bad thing is that those same critters seem to hide well enough in broad daylight.[smilie=1:

[Ranch Dog]

I kill a lot of hogs, I think I've averaged about 25 year on my ranch and see another 10 a year killed by my dad or others. This year I'm killing one a week for a total of 52. We are trying our best to eliminate them (impossible) or kill everyone that we see. I kill a lot of them with the 44 Mag rifle, either my 336-44 or 1894P. My preference has become my 300-grain bullet and it is leaving the barrel at about 1550 FPS.

Ditto what BD and the other hog hunters say. Some other thoughts: Hogs are a lot narrower than you think, head or tail on shots are loosing propositions. 95% of the shots I see others take are too high, read BD's notes or organ placement. I personally won't take anything but a quartering away shot. Hogs move a lot. If they are feeding they will rotate for you. If I'm trail watching, I plan ahead to be in a spot that will give me the shot. My shot is tight behind the shoulder, lower third of the body's vertical mass. A hogs lungs are small for the body mass. Take the air out of them and there is no fight left in them and they do not travel. A hog that has traveled 100-yards is a lost hog. That's as far as I will follow someone else's hit. It tells me they did not penetrate the heart/lung package. Normally, I won't find it until the coyotes drag it out and the buzzards mark it for me.

http://www.ranchdogmolds.com/Hunting/2009/090208hog.jpg

This is last weeks hog, shot another two nights ago but didn't bother with a picture. You are looking at the exit wound. This hog was picking up seed out of my freshly planted food plot. From the shooting spot to the hog is extremely up hill. My house is back at the two tiny lights in the background. I had walked out of my house to sample the night like I do every night before go to bed and I could smell her up on my food plot as the breeze was just perfect. I took my 1894P and slowly moved up hill without a light. I finally saw her (pretty hard to see against the dark soil) at about 75 yards, and low crawled up to 50-yards, sat down in the field and shot her low and behind the shoulder (opposite side). DRT.

[Ranch Dog]

With three freezers full of hog (that is about all we eat), the rest serve as coyote bait. We drag them to one of our fixed stands and you are guaranteed at least one, may be two, coyotes the first afternoon.

http://www.ranchdogmolds.com/Hunting/2009/DadsCoyote.jpg

This is my 79 year old daddy, he lives on my ranch and only shoots his M94 with my TLC311-175-RF bullet.

[BD]

RD,

I'd say you were in "Hog Heaven", if it weren't for the amount of damage they do.

I'm a little envious as currently I'm in a situation where work is really interfering with my hunting.

BD

[Doc_Stihl]

Thanks for the info RD.

Nice pics too.

[Larry Gibson]

RanchDog, Bd and anyone else

I shot numerous hogs as a kid but we just took them down to the local butcher who processed them. I'm looking at a Texas hog hunt this fall; once you kill an eating pig do you skin it or what do you do?

Larry Gibson

[Tn_River_Ratt]

We try to only take head shots on the pigs we kill.

Leadforbrains.....you are absolutely right about the boars, they stink something fierce.

Eatin pigs are for the grill.........ice down the beer, kill hogs, clean hogs, drink a few while its cookin...............then its dinner time. or you could just quarter it up and put in coolers for the trip home.



Ratt

[Leadforbrains]

RanchDog, Bd and anyone else

I shot numerous hogs as a kid but we just took them down to the local butcher who processed them. I'm looking at a Texas hog hunt this fall; once you kill an eating pig do you skin it or what do you do?

Larry Gibson

Larry I am far from any kind of expert on this, but I take them to a local butcher when I can. I have also just skinned them and boned out the meat into roasts, loin and ham steaks. I also have scalded and scraped the hair on a hog to put him in the ground to barbecue whole, but that is alot of work that requires some help and numerous cold beers.:drinks:

Larry I skinned and boned out a 150 (aprox) pound my son shot over the past weekend in S.C. It made some nice backstraps and roasts.

[BD]

I much prefer the little ones, 100 lb dressed and under, and I skin them and throw them on the grill. I have heard that if you're hunting an area with a long term hog infestation that you should freeze them hard for a month before eating to kill the brucellosis. I don't know if thats gospel or not. I turn the grill up to the max and sear the whole pig, then turn it down low for a couple of hours BBQ with sauce. Good Eatin'

The bigger ones I've skun, quartered and BBQ'd the quarters individually. I have a couple of friends that will smoke the hams for me, and I'll give them one in exchange for the smoking on the other for lunch meat. I never went to the trouble we go to for domestic hogs when butchering the feral pigs. There's usually nothing much in the way of bacon on a feral pig, and the boars big enough to have sizable chops smell too bad to eat. Not really worth the time to dehair'em for smoking either.

I've heard there's a few tearing up farmland down the south end of this lake. I just need to sort out who I'm asking permission to go hunting here in the PRNY.
BD

[Ranch Dog]

We skin them and butcher them like you would a deer.

Get this. I finished writing my post this morning and was getting ready to take my stepson back to Austin. Out on my lower food plot this big fellow was tearing the crap out of my field. I went out on my front porch and shot him at 70-yards with my 1894P and the TLC432-300-RF. He went 20-yards.

http://www.ranchdogmolds.com/Hunting/2009/090323hog.jpg

Here is tip that works for all hogs, even big fellows like this. Sit them up like I have this one in the picture. They will sit perfectly upright. Split the hide down the backbone and fillet the backstraps right off the bone. In that my freezers are full, I throw the rest to the coyotes. On a hog like this it is a hell of a slab of meat. This is the 14th hog I've killed this year! I'm a week ahead! 38 more to go!

[Ranch Dog]

Texas has reached critical mass with hogs. The estimate is that there are now more hogs than deer. I've killed them at sea level and at elevations exceeding 7,000'. I've killed them in every eco-region in the state. We've got to start digging in or we won't have any deer left.

[fordwannabe]

Ranchdog, when your ready for some help with that fight you just let me know. I love hog hunting and a 45/70 leaves them in a bad way. Tom

[3rptr]

I have learned 240gr jacketed HPs loaded hot in a 44mag w 10" barrel is no substitute for accurate shooting.

Too long for a bad story, but I'll shoot pigs with a rifle from now on even though others claim to do it regular with a 38 special. Good for them!

Best
3rptr

[Leadforbrains]

Texas has reached critical mass with hogs. The estimate is that there are now more hogs than deer. I've killed them at sea level and at elevations exceeding 7,000'. I've killed them in every eco-region in the state. We've got to start digging in or we won't have any deer left.

Nice hogs RD! You are right hogs are very prolific creatures. One of the few animals that I know of that can be nursing a new set of piglets and come into heat again. They will breed like rabbits and overrun a place in short order. The only upside to this is that they are fun to shoot and good to eat. In your case they also make a handy boolet testing medium.

[22lover]

We have them tearing up our land in E. Texas left and right.

[Triggerhappy]

We used to shoot a LOT of the big Russians in CA when I lived there. For years we shot them with rifles in the hay fields. After a while we got where we would go in the barn at night with flashlights and .45's and take 5 or 6 out in an evening. Grab the tractor to help with butchering out, never wasted any.

At the end of the year we would roll our sleeping bags out on top of a hay stack and have a party. After a while the pigs would show up. We'd hang over the side and pop a couple of 120 or so pounders. Run down and bleed them then continue the evening. Then first thing in the morning go dig a pit and start a big fire. Butcher the hogs out and wrap in wet burlap, onions, citrus, apples and garlic. Bury them till evening and have another party. Wonderful to eat. When I moved to Idaho we brought freezers full of pork sausage with us. Good stuff. Some of those pigs get up around 600# but they taste pretty good at 100-120. Depends a lot on what they're eating too. If eating acorns they taste rank. Eating wheat and oat they finish out real nice.

The last year I lived in CA, 2004, I went bear and deer hunting over south of Yosemite with a good friend. We got snowed on pretty good so he went home early to hunt pigs and deer on the coastal range with his SIL. Guess the kid shot a big hog and wounded it. He took a long rifle into the brush to root it out without a pistol. The pig charged him and there was nothing he could do and the old man couldn't get to him. By the time he did make it in there the pig had torn the kids leg off at the knee all but a small strip of skin. Bruce cut the skin off and got the kid to the hospital but he lost the leg anyway. Those pigs will fight when cornered or wounded. Keep that in mind. I've seen them do very surprising things after taking very good hits.

I heard an old timer at a gun shop talking about getting treed up a telephone pole by a pig while the pig peeled the tires off his old Jeep.

My neighbor was the state trapper that was tasked with removing a lot of the pigs out of one of the state parks there. He would trap them in big box traps then shoot them. Had to bury them with a back hoe and wasn't able to donate any meat to the poor. CA just had him waste them all. That last year he killed 3600 and you couldn't tell he'd killed any up there. They were everywhere. Tough on the ground.

Good times.

[Ranch Dog]

Ranchdog, when your ready for some help with that fight you just let me know. I love hog hunting and a 45/70 leaves them in a bad way. Tom

I'd trade some hunting for some chores! Simple stuff, cleaning fencelines, pressure-washing my house, etc.

[rem700-3]

The reason the boars stink is because they like to roll in dead carcasses, most wild hogs smell of stagnant water and urine as they uriate in the wallows. I catch or kill an average of probably a hundred or so a year for the last 25 plus years( I have gotten off to a slow start this year, selling my house and moving keeps me busy )useing dogs, traps and variuos weapons. Like any male animal if you get the adrenaline up the meat is ruined. We catch them with dogs mostly and take them home and pen them up for a while and whenever we get ready a 223 to the head by surprise and a 250 boar taste just like a 25 pound sow providing you cut them as soon as they hit the ground. My favorite 2 rifles to use if I decide to shoot one is my .35 rem 336 and my .357 mag 1894 but my favorite weapon by far is DUCT TAPE.


Ranch Dog you could prolly find someone to give that meat to instead of wasting it We donate the meat and our time to cook ALOT every year for varios churches in the area for picnics and church socials mens group events and such.......just a thought

[Ranch Dog]

Ranch Dog you could prolly find someone to give that meat to instead of wasting it We donate the meat and our time to cook ALOT every year for varios churches in the area for picnics and church socials mens group events and such.......just a thought

In Texas you can not "donate" feral swine, it is against State health laws. If you have hogs on your place, so does every one else. You have a better chance of giving someone a two legged dog than giving someone a hog carcass or cuts.

We have a healthy whitetail population in the county and a huge amount of the antlerless deer go to the "Hunters for the Hungry" program. I contributed the initial funds to start the program, three years ago, and all the antlerless deer from my place go to the program. Last year, we had to ship 1700# of venison to other parts of the State as our food banks were beyond capacity.

I don't consider a hog used as coyote bait a waist of meat. Our fawn mortality records indicate that each adult coyote will account for at least one whitetail fawn annually. We have maintained an average of one coyote killed for every hog left on the ground.

I am the manager of over 100,000 acres of whitetail habitat and responsible for insuring that the Wildlife Management Plan approved by the State is carried out. The plan is written to maximize the property's potential for whitetail deer as that simply improves hunting and hunter opportunities. The plan calls for eliminating predators and feral species by any means. I am ####ed if any hunter sees either a coyote or hog and doesn't get a round out. On the referenced acreage, hunters took 1025 deer. Our region is supposed to only have 1 deer per 33 acres. By controlling predator and all feral species we have increased the potential of the property to 1 deer per 19 acres! That is huge! Controlling feral hogs gives hunters more chances to hunt native game and put that game on the table.

Any feral species is a burden to the land and native game.

[MtGun44]

Ranch Dog,

You guys need a hand down there shootin' hogs? I could prolly get
a few friends up and head down to provide an assist if you need the
help. Actually, I would do it if there was some way to do it to your
satisfaction.

Bill

[Lloyd Smale]

ive ate alot of different russian bores. I have some boars that tasted good and some that tasted like urine and had to be thrown out. Anymore when i take one i take a sow. there much better eating.

[BD]

RD, maybe you should change your handle to "Lucky Dog"

BD

[Doc_Stihl]

My wife picked a Redhawk with a 7.5" tube and the 310Gr Lee WFN. Cast in No.2 and air cooled, gas checked and lubed with carnuba red, over 21gr of H110 and a CCI LPM I'm seeing 1325 on the chrono. From 5-25 yards she'll be wielding the redhawk, out past that it'll be a 458 loaded up with 500GR FN at 1500(The backup gun I'll be carrying) I think I'm ready.

I'm ready for bacon and sausage. Dreaming of chops, waiting for smoked shoulder......

[wills]

A lot of the trouble had dropping hogs comes from a lack of understandiing thier anatomy, which is different than a deer's. A hogs heart is lower and it's lungs are more vertical than you think and almost completely shielded by it's forlegs when standing broadside. A pig shot behind the shoulder when broadside is gut shot in most cases. Also, a hogs spine drops over it's shoulders and comes out from behind the forlegs very low in the neck, so a shot just forward of the front shoulders can be ineffectual. The "shield" is a thick gristle mat from the front of the shoulder across the breast. This can soak up expanding bullets like a sponge. Add to that, they have thick leg bones and can make good time, and fight, on three legs.

So if broadside I'll take the neck shot close to the head. They hit the dirt and run in place until I get a head shot in. Quartering away, a shot just behind the front knee, lower than you'd think usual gets the heart and one lung. Sometimes they're DRT and sometimes they do the 20 yard dash and pile up. IMHO there is no good shot from the front. If that's your situation, I'd hold under the eyes and try for the spine, and keep shooting.


BD

like this?
http://www.dixieslugs.com/images/anathog.GIF

[Doc_Stihl]

What a great pic! My next task for the day was finding some pictures of hogs at different angles. Gonna have some big prints made to practice on.

[Leadforbrains]

Doc I wish you a safe, enjoyable and bountiful hunt. I hope you get alot of meat and some good memories.

[Doc_Stihl]

Thanks Lead!! It's the first time my wife will be in the woods on a hunt. As I said in the beginning of the post, a 4 year pregnancy "hiatus" had her out of the game for a while. She's back to the range weekly(it's cold out) but next week we'll be moving it outdoors. I don't think she'll have any problems at this point. That's not to say I won't be carrying a BIG GD gun right next to her. My brother will be running a video camera to catch it all on tape. I'm looking forward to sharing the story and photos.
Side note, she really wanted to go after buffalo to start. She loves the meat and thought it'd be a grand ole time, but I talked her into a hog to start. Better leave some options for other hunts down the road.

[Ithaca1911]

ok, so let me get this straight here. Ranch Dog, you're looking for people to take out some hogs cuz you're sick of it? or you're just commenting on the hog problem?
never shot a hog, but sure would like to, is a marlin .44 mag good enough? or would I need to go bigger? .308, 30-06, .300 wby mag? (.300 mag I'd just shoot them in the shoulder, blow right through, course, would be shooting solid copper, no cast for that application)

[lead Foot]

Well Done Michael Ive got the itch now. We're off hunting hogs on the 17th April. The best we have done was 120 pigs in two weeks.Last September we only got 47. It was the first time it rained in September in 40 years and couldn't travel. I'll post a report when I get back.
lead Foot:

[Ftsac1]

My first post here but this thread is EXACTLY why I'm here. Located in SE Alabama and I have 1,000 acres in which to hunt hogs. Will be using either a Savage 99 in 308 Win or a Rem 700 in same caliber.Have just recently bought some 30 cal 200 gr RN cast bullets and they will be used just for taking down hogs.
Need any info on powder (I have N150, IMR4895 & 3031, 748 and some 700X) and loading. I have reloaded for Long Range competitions for years but NEVER Cast loading. I did a search for 308 and it appears that most were with 170 or lighter bullets. I'm not looking for long range shooting ... mostly inside 150 yards so I have a few questions.

1. Can I moly the cast lead and forego the lube ?

2. Do I have to use Gas checks ?

3. What special tools do I need specifically for Cast reloading ?

Regards,
Will aka "Ftsac1"

[725]

Stand by as alot will chime in here. I'll forgo giving advice beyond this one point: Clean your barrel of all the copper fouling. I mean, like really clean it. Find a good copper cleaner and get to work on it. Once it is thoroughly clean and free from all copper, clean it again. Humor, there, but I want to push the point that copper fouling will mess up cast boolt performance. As far as the rest, I'd get a copy of the Lyman cast bullet book for load possibilities and info on slugging barrels, sizer relation to bore, lubes, gas checks vs plain base as it relates to projectile speed, & on & on &on......... Hang on, you're about to start something fun.

[Ftsac1]

I was already shooting moly jacketed only so there shouldn't be copper but it never hurts to clean again. This is beginning to sound like a much more expensive operation than I had thought. "slugging barrels, sizer relation to bore, lubes, gas checks vs plain base as it relates to projectile speed, & on & on ..." doesn't sound cheaper to shoot than me using my match jacketed stuff.

[BD]

Ftsac1,
I know a lot of us might have told our wives that we needed to get set up to cast boolits to "save money", but the reality is that we do it because we enjoy it, and take some pride in it.

If you shoot a couple of hundred rounds a year; the equipment, and learning curve, will take a few years to pay off.

On the other hand, if you shoot 10,000 rounds a year, (or would like to), you might want to start figuring this out.

BD

[Leadforbrains]

I was already shooting moly jacketed only so there shouldn't be copper but it never hurts to clean again. This is beginning to sound like a much more expensive operation than I had thought. "slugging barrels, sizer relation to bore, lubes, gas checks vs plain base as it relates to projectile speed, & on & on ..." doesn't sound cheaper to shoot than me using my match jacketed stuff.

It is a little more involved than buying bullets off the shelf, but you seem to be already involved greatly by reloading your own already. The initial cost is just another ante in the pot of an already ongoing game. Sometimes you just have to keep going to see what happens. That's how I got hooked. There is alot of variables here and sometimes experimentation is all the fun of getting to where you want to be. This is a great site, and there is a bunch of info right at your finger tips. The folks here are very helpful. I am still new at this but I've learned eveything about casting boolits from the fine folks here. good luck and welcome to the forum.:castmine::drinks:

[Ftsac1]

So far 2 replies and NO answers to any of the questions I asked. Must be a bother to pass on info ? Looked in my old NRA reloading book, no listing for 200 gr in 308.
Won't trouble you again.

[Doc_Stihl]

Maybe you should start in the "CB Loads" thread and do a search instead of hijacking this one.

[arcticbreeze]

So far 2 replies and NO answers to any of the questions I asked. Must be a bother to pass on info ? Looked in my old NRA reloading book, no listing for 200 gr in 308.
Won't trouble you again.

First of all if you have questions courtesy would dictate that you start your own thread and not hijack someone else’s. I am not trying to be a smart a%& but many who may have already responded to the original poster would assume the following post are more responses of the same and not a new question from someone else.

[Leadforbrains]

:hijack:
So far 2 replies and NO answers to any of the questions I asked. Must be a bother to pass on info ? Looked in my old NRA reloading book, no listing for 200 gr in 308.
Won't trouble you again.

I was waiting for someone with more experience to chime in. Maybe Not everyone in this thread responding at this minute has the answer or experience you seek right now.
I have no experience with a .308 with a 200 gr lead boolit, but I can tell you the little i do know.

1. Can I moly the cast lead and forego the lube ?
I wouldn't just use moly coating others may differ

2. Do I have to use Gas checks ?
If the projectile has a step for one or was designed for one I install one. Particularly when the velocities are 1400 fps and greater. Others again may differ according to their experience


3. What special tools do I need specifically for Cast reloading ?
are you casting or buying your cast boolits?
If you are just reloading store bought probably standard reloading dies.
If you are casting your own there are a few things such as mold, dipper, lead, sizer and lube just for starters.
Lymans casting guide and Lymans 48th edition reloading handbook should be the first thing you should buy because it also has Load data for the .308 with a 200gr gaschecked boolit. Docs advice to start a new query in another section of the forum will probably net you some more info. goodluck

Sorry fellas for the HIJACK

[BD]

I did at one point try moly coating as lube. What I found was that impact plating it isn't very practical as the boolits take a beating. Spraying with a moly/carrier mix is more time and money than I felt like committing to boolits which still needed to be sized. A lube sizer made more sense to me.

I don't shoot cast in a .308 so I can't answer that question specifically.

BD

[hpdrifter]

Hey, Ranch Dog. That feeder in post #20 don't get visited by many deer do it?

[Ranch Dog]

Hey, Ranch Dog. That feeder in post #20 don't get visited by many deer do it?

Not many. The most bucks I've seen inside the pen is only 11! It is 70 yards from my porch!