12 July 2017, 13:31
Bobby TomekREDEMPTION tonight for the 123 grain Hornady SST
Well, the other evening when a 123 grain SST from my 6.5x30-30 AI went to pieces on a 56 pound hog and failed to exit, I was disgruntled. But I vowed not to judge a bullet on a single odd performance, even if that cost me an opportunity at a nice sow that had aligned itself behind the shoat I killed. After all, that bullet -- that very same load -- had served me admirably on a number of hogs prior to this incident.
I was hoping I would not live to regret the decision to give the SST another chance tonight when -- some time after midnight -- that same sounder and very same sow returned. When I saw them, they were extremely skittish. I'm not sure if they sensed a coyote or 'cat in the area or simply remembered that the last time they visited, one of their comrades failed to make the journey back home with them.
They ping-ponged across the pasture in the softly-diffused moonlight and appeared to have had ideas of checking the feeder, but they still seemed quite unsettled. So when the first opportunity presented itself, I planted the illuminated dot of the Victory HT 3-12x56 on the sow's shoulder and touched off a round. That 123 grain SST leaves the 24" barrel right at 2600 fps, and it made a rather audible "whap" when connecting tonight. The SST did indeed impact the shoulder approximately 1/3 ways up from the bottom of the chest, wrecked the lungs, damaged the edge of the liver and exited mid-ribs. The exit was slightly larger than a quarter and had small pieces of both lung and liver tissue hanging out of it.
The sow covered close to 30 yards before dropping. The shot was 160-165 yards.
