Morning everyone!
Got a question.
I have a Marlin .444 and handload for it. I use Cast Performance 300gr and RL7 powder, producing a muzzle velocity of 2100fps.
I've taken a few deer with it and am quite pleased with its performance...which is basicly dropping them right in their tracks. Makes tracking quite easy.
Anyhow, I'm thinking would this reload combo also quite well on some big boars?
Reason why I'm asking is because of the toughness of the boar......
Thanks in advance.

cmr--boars tough? I don't subscribe to them being any tougher or harder to kill than a whitetail, and I base that on having shot 50+ in the past 4 or 5 years. All of them have been one-shot kills with one exception. Here are the calibers and bullets I use: a .22 LR for close shots (less than 30 yds) and only shoot them between the eyes; a .22-250 with 55 gr Ballistic Tips, a .25-06 with 120-gr Hornady HPs, and a 7mm Rem mag with 150 gr Ballistic Tips. I hunt from tower blinds over corn-fed roads, confine my shots to 150 yds or less, and shoot them in the eye-ear (brain) area. No wasted meat and no tracking job.

Now-one of my partners used a Marlin Model 1895 in .45-70 with Barnes 300 gr bullets on hogs for a while until he got bored with its efficiency and effectiveness. That load earned a nickname on our lease of "Ham Slammer" for the way it dropped the hogs in their tracks.

Your .444 load will do the same--and if you are uncomfortable with the head/neck shots, shoot 'em in the heart/lungs and they'll die just about as fast. Here is a link to some photos (graphic) which show heart/lung location on a hog so you can compare your best aiming point to a deer.
http://texaspredatorposse.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=174

Thanks for the reply.
I've never hunted boars before thats why I asked. I know that they have a hard plate on their shoulder, unlike a whitetail..of course.

I'm with dustoffer on this one. Hogs are not as mythologically tough as some people make them out to be.
I've killed a tractor trailer load of them and they can take some punishment but bullet placement is key.
You kiss them in the ear with a .22mag and they will drop...you shoot them in the abdomen with a .44mag and they will not. It's that simple.
Also, the "plate" is nothing more than gristle, skin and bone. It isn't bullet proof and most wild feral hogs don't have much of one anyway.

Dustoffer:

Thanks much for that link.

That's what I've been looking for.

Very good way to show where things are is to
cut one open and take the near side off 'em. Leave things inside where they belong.
Don't see a shield on this one either.

George

georgeld--that hog in the pictures is a bit on the small side to have a shield. In general, the boars on our ranch don't develop one until they are 150 lbs and over. The biggest boar I've shot weighed 203 and he had a decent "shield" but he dropped right in his tracks. Right now there are at least 2 or 3 running the ranch that would weigh 200+ and I don't doubt that they have good shields.

I don't doubt the stories in the other thread you started about the shield, just hasn't been something that I've worried about. We have so many hogs that if they are too far for a high-percentage head shot, I just don't shoot, or wait for them to get closer.