Subsonic Caliber for Hogs

[TXCOONDOG]

I have a new place to hunt hogs, and the farmer wants me to use a bow or subsonic ammo when hunting at night. All my shots will be 100 yds or less due to velocity restraints. I do have many .308's with 10 & 12 twists and have the Lee 150 & 170 molds using 50 WW & 50 pure alloy. I'm going to use Trail Boss with a mag primers.

I'm thinking head or behind the ear mostly. I just don't have any experience with rifle cast boolits on animals.

Good to start with since I have the rifle and 30 cal can? Is it recommended to go with a larger caliber (large meplate) such as .450 Bushmaster, etc.?

Need some help and advice.

Thanks in advance.

[Larry Gibson]

Doubt you'll get a larger suppressor for quite a while (perhaps a year+ now if not longer with all the ATFE SBR filings expected) so you'll probably need to go with what you got. Use the 170 gr bullet and load it until you just start hearing a "snap" in front of the suppressor. Pick your shots as suggested.

[TXCOONDOG]

Hey Larry,

Your recommended LE powder charge of 35.5grs was the ticket for the XLR 30-30 and the Lee 170 bullets.

Appreciate all the help!

[HWooldridge]

My son and grandson shoot beaucoup hogs around San Angelo - mostly at night. I would not use a bow unless you have dogs to follow the blood trail.

The .30 cal and a suppressor will definitely do a number on them - head or body shots will take them down pretty quickly, even big hogs. My son uses a 7mm Mag with a thermal sight and a .30 can. The suppression is not great but still better than nothing. He is not using subsonic loads, which would obviously also help. My grandson uses a .223 with a .22 can so those shots are fairly quiet.

[centershot]

OP, you stated that the landowner wanted you to use a bow or "subsonic" ammo - did you mean suppressed? Or, literally, subsonic? If suppression isn't a factor, a 44 mag with a 300+ grain boolit at around 1050 fps would work nicely.

[TXCOONDOG]

Suppressed. His place is 300 acres out of the city, but there are houses close by and the homeowners like to complain to the local LE/Game Wardens. Hogs have got wise to traps/snares, etc.

[Harter66]

I'll leave this . A 500 gr 45 at a balmy 1100 fps holds 1000ftlb past 300 yd . A 405 does the same but only to about 200 yd .

Twist can be a problem in the 308 . I had one that wouldn't shoot anything over 175 gr , it had a 1-12 twist . Others have had better results .

[lar45]

I like to shoot at the base of the ear, no tracking needed. A real bonus for the area I hunt= very thick brush , lots of thorns...
The 170 in your 308 with a can should be great.
The 450bushmaster gives great penetration, but for head shots... the 30-170 should be plenty.

[quilbilly]

One of my 308's really likes a subsonic load of Red Dot but doesn't like Trail Boss. Another 308 won't shoot either powder or anything under 1500 fps. Both are the same twist at 1/12. So you might consider that as an option as well. Each barrel seems to have its own personality.

[elmacgyver0]

Unless you have your suppressor in hand, you will not be doing this for at least a year.
I bought a suppressor on the 22nd of January of 2022 and received it 3 days short of a year.
I thought I would easily have it for the summer of 2022 because of the new E-Forms with the 90-day approval.
Well, that worked out real nice.
Form1s are a lot quicker so if you build your own in theory you could have it soon.
Of course, that was before all this Form1 brace fiasco.
You are lucky you already have that 30 cal. can.
I may be wrong, but I think all the approvals are going to really slow down do the brace fiasco, which makes me wonder if that wasn't the idea in the first place.

[TXCOONDOG]

One of my 308's really likes a subsonic load of Red Dot but doesn't like Trail Boss. Another 308 won't shoot either powder or anything under 1500 fps. Both are the same twist at 1/12. So you might consider that as an option as well. Each barrel seems to have its own personality.

My Rem 700 w/ 12T shoots 150gr softpoints MOA with 8.5gr of Trail Boss and Rem 9 1/2" primer so I hope it will with the Lee casts too. I don't have any Red Dot, but I do have lots of other shotgun, pistol and rifle powders.

Any other powder (loads) suggestions are welcome?

I need to check with my son-n-law as I think he has a 300BKOT with 7 or 8 T.

[TXCOONDOG]

Unless you have your suppressor in hand, you will not be doing this for at least a year.
I bought a suppressor on the 22nd of January of 2022 and received it 3 days short of a year.
I thought I would easily have it for the summer of 2022 because of the new E-Forms with the 90-day approval.
Well, that worked out real nice.
Form1s are a lot quicker so if you build your own in theory you could have it soon.
Of course, that was before all this Form1 brace fiasco.
You are lucky you already have that 30 cal. can.
I may be wrong, but I think all the approvals are going to really slow down do the brace fiasco, which makes me wonder if that wasn't the idea in the first place.

I think all my can approvals have taken 9-16months even before all this and COVID. I may just order a 46 cal can since I plan on a 338 Laupa build and I've been eyeballing the 45-70 too.

[Finster101]

AA1680 works really well for subsonic in .300 Blackout especially for an AR platform. I've used H110 for 300 subs as well. A 220-230 grn. boolit with about 10 grains of 1680 normally just lets me hear the action cycle and then a smack as it hits the target with the suppressor in place.

[quilbilly]

I use 8 gr of Bullseye in my 30/30 Contender 10" barrel with excellent success without a filler but launching the 113 gr Lee boolit giving an MV of 1350 fps. Something slightly less than that might work with your heavier boolits. It might be worth a try but, sadly, it is my Remington barrel that doesn't like those very fast burning powders. Every barrel has a personality, though. My Remington barrel is one of my most accurate with CB's as long as velocities are between 1800 and 1900 using 2400 powder.

[DougGuy]

The 300 BO seems to excel at this task. I use 220gr jhp Remington subs in it, and with the can it's quieter than a car door. I rarely shoot this gun so I see no need to develop cast loads for it.

[rockrat]

I would recommend powder coating your boolits if using them in a suppressor. Now, that said, if you have one you can easily disassemble to clean, then powder coating would not be needed, but would still help with keeping the suppressor clean

[Rapier]

Look up the speed of sound at the altitde you will be hunting at. Load for accuracy below that number. You may not exceed that speed, so to increase energy and penetration you must increase weight to dore diameter. A 1-10 twist 30 cal will stabilize a 220 round nose.
Load to accuracy for 50-100 yards.
Shoot neck center rop to bottom close to the shoulder or behind the shoulder double lung or heart shot, do not shoot for the head, a kill shot is eye to ear hole, center of the line, a very small target, moving constantly. Study the pig anatomy before you think where you want to shoot.
I do not hunt hogs, I kill hogs, we have real big hogs, any hog I see on my farm I track down if it takes all day, and I kill it so it never comes back on the my farm again. That is my version of hog hunting. I kill six a day at times. First hog I killed weighed 550 pounds, that was in 71, been killing hogs since.
Mt favorite hog rifle is an AR in 358 MGP, a necked up slightly shortened 6.8 SPC with a 10 round mag. 200s at 2,500 fps 3/10 ". The subsonic shoots 230s at 910 fps with a can 1/2". Like a rimless 357 Herrett in a rifle.

[BLAHUT]

If a 30 cal is what you have to work with, go as heavy as you can, a 10 T will stabilize a 220 gr bullet, then if need be, you will need to figure you subsonic load for where you hunt. Base of scull, neck top center, neck at shoulders, behind shoulders, any of these, paralyze, saw grandpa shoot a pig in the head with a .38 pistol, it bounced off and hit him, didn't bother pig at all.. Grandpa didn't do so good...

[MarkP]

If you have any rifles with a longer bbl's like 26" or longer, try some subsonic loads in them. Mine sound like softy clapping hands.

[Bigslug]

Your 170 out of a 1-10 twist should be a dandy at subsonic speeds. You'll have higher sectional density than most any of the popular revolver options. Should give you scads of penetration - and you already have the can.