We've been seeing hogs in a neighbor's place in the very early mornings, and they seemed to be hanging around an Osage orange (horse apple/hedge apple) outcrop. So today I decided to take a drive over -- and sure enough, they were there.

I eased the truck to a stop, lumbered out for about 10 yards and found myself a makeshift shooting rest. It was barely 7 a.m., so the illuminated dot of the Meopta R2 2-12x50 certainly came in handy. After watching for a few seconds, I noted that there were five shoats and a decent-sized sow. I put the dot of the BDC-3 reticle low on the shoulder on the broadside target and tripped the trigger. The 123 grain Hornady SST from the 24" 6.5 Bullberry flew true, ripping though both shoulders and making a mess of the vitals. The sow dropped on the spot, but I reloaded in case one of the five shoats presented an opportunity.

They seemed to be gone, but out of the corner of my eye, I spotted movement from the opposite direction. It was another small sounder -- a sow with multiple 40-45 pound shoats -- and seemed to be headed just to where I dropped the first sow. Sure enough, two of them ping-ponged across the clearing, but I could not get the scope on them in time. I was ready when the third came through, though: Figuring a generous lead, I dropped the hammer again and was rewarded by a somewhat spectacular cartwheel by the 41 pound shoat. The bullet entered approximately 2.5" behind the onside shoulder and exited through the center of the opposite shoulder, leaving a gaping exit in its wake -- an exit filled with small bone chips and visible lung tissue.

On the sow, there were multiple small bits of jacket material within the wound channel and surrounding areas along with lots of small, shiny slivers of lead. There were a couple of very small exits, perhaps the size of a .177 caliber pellet. What remained of the jacket was found just under the hide.

This type of performance seems to be the norm for the 123 grain SST when launched at 2536 fps MV from my 6.5 Bullberry.

The sow weighed 152 pounds.

Good deal even if you had to go to them
to do it.

Thanks for sharing, sorry you had trouble
posting this time.

George

Thanks, George. I didn't have problems posting but couldn't get my text to send to you for some reason. I had a phone picture taken right after I shot them, and whenever I went to send it to you, it "spun" a minute or so and then gave me the little red symbol telling me it had not gone through. Not sure if it is the phone or was the connection out here -- or maybe a little of both.

I tried several more times after that. Even deleted the original draft and started from scratch to see if that would help. It finally "sent" in the late afternoon.

I only got it once.

I found with mine it goes thru even
when it says rejected.

Takes a long time to connect most of the time.
Yet when it works right even to the UK or AU
we can carry on a conversation by text.
Amazing, yet mighty disgusting at times.

what's much worse is when it goes to someone not intended!!!!

Cheers, have a great weekend.

George

Bobby--that's a hairy gal for sure---

Got a request for a couple of sows for sausage, so guess that means I have to hog hunt instead of deer hunt for a bit--isn't that a shame? NOT!

Bobby, glad to see you are still making things tough on your local hog population! I may have to try some of those 123gr SSTs in my Grendel….

Z

Good fun and a couple of good pigs. Be Well, Packy.