Years ago hunting at the Guthrie lease. Man it was freezing and windy but the hogs were out that night. Steve stopped the truck and I shot a small one around a hundred pounds. We got out and threw it in the truck. When I got back in the truck the smell on my gloves was incredible! We took that pig to the boneyard and got him out of the truck and went back to the cabin so we could get different gloves.
I'd sure like to see the results.of the hunt. Good luck
In areas where hogs are a moderate problem, I've known people to trap them young, castrate them, then let them go so that they can fatten up while not getting gamy, tough, and nasty. Normally you cut a chunk out of an ear when you castrate them so that you can identify the cut ones when it's time to harvest them in a year or so.
In areas where they are a major problem, it's just kill them as quickly as you can. Shooting from a chopper seems the most effective way to get big kill numbers, in areas where that's legal. Pen traps are probably a close second. Hunting on foot, just gets a small percentage of them unless you really know your stuff.
I've seen someone plug a hog with a .308, only to have it turn & come back after him. I've seen them dropped with a .22mag & even a hot shot air gun. Shot placement means a lot. Also the variety of hog means a lot too. Russian bores & Javalina are both called hogs, but they are as different as a pit bull & a poodle.
“an armed society is a polite society.”
Robert A. Heinlein
"Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset."
Publius Tacitus
When I wanted to hunt with something like that, I would pick an alloy that I expected would give me the expansion I wanted, then load a bunch of different powder charges & shoot into a soft backstop, like crumb rubber, & recover the boolits. When I started to see skid marks in the rifling, I had gotten too fast. In some cases, slower powders would let me get up to higher speeds without skidding, but if I went too slow, then I would not get full obduration & I would get gas cutting and lead spew blowing forward of the boolit as it moved through the barrel. In this case, the barrel would foul quickly and accuracy was poor. A very fast powder can deform a soft boolit before it leaves the barrel. This screws with accuracy quite a bit.
The fit of the boolit in the barrel was also important. With softer alloys & moderate powder charges, I never had much luck with boolits that were much less than .001 larger than the groove diameter of the specific barrel.
There are a lot of variables to play with. It takes time to work up to the magic recipe.
I remember .30-30 being one of my best cast-shooting rifle calibers. I'd have to look back into some old records to see how with I did with the Russian short .30 you have. I did fool with that for a while & I do remember having success hunting with it. ...but it's been a while.
“an armed society is a polite society.”
Robert A. Heinlein
"Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset."
Publius Tacitus
what's the retained weight on that recovered slug?
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |