Had a sounder of eight shoats show up here tonight. Only seven left the property.

I was hoping they'd align for a possible double, but that never happened. After watching them for maybe a minute-and-a-half to two minutes, I realized they had likely never been here before because they were extremely skittish and were definitely on high alert. They also didn't seem aware that an easy meal of corn and protein would be just 100 yards ahead. So I decided to take the first good opportunity presented before they decided to evacuate the premises.

I didn't have to wait long.

From about 130 yards, one of the shoats gave me a stationary broadside view, so I cocked the hammer, tripped the trigger and sent a 125 grain Ballistic Tip downrange from the 24" DVH .300 Savage barrel.

The MV of the load is 2740 fps, and it dropped the little piggie in place. The shot landed where I had hoped it would and absolutely pulverized the heart, leaving in in nothing but tatters. Both lungs also suffered significant damage.

This young male weighed 49 pounds, and there's not a ton of meat on a hog this size -- especially when you basically ruin both shoulders. But a couple minutes with my knife allowed me to take out the straps and the hams, which we'll enjoy in the next couple of days.

I had just returned the SightMark Wraith Mini thermal to the .300 Savage yesterday. The unit has recently split time between the .300 Svg, a Marlin 30-30, a Ruger 10-22 and now the Contender in .300 Svg once again. Conditions weren't the greatest for sighting in a thermal yesterday as everything seemed to be about the same temperature, so after I established a rudimentary zero, my son ran out onto the range and warmed up the edges of the gong with his torch. It worked like a charm. I fired one at 100 yards before moving the portable gong to 175 and proceeding to center-punch it with two shots that were dead-on and nearly overlapping each other.