I will be going on a hunt next month we will be able to take a few larger hogs. I will be bowhunting the smaller 400lbs boars having taken a few a little over 300 lbs I am not that worried about the slightly larger ones here.
I am however worried because my friend wants to take the 650 lbs boar with a Ruger Super War Hawk in 44 Rem Mag.
First do you think it is sufficient.
Second any hand loads you could recommend I would like to try and work them up.
Last I believe bullet selection will be very important so if you could suggest I would appreciate it.

Powder will probable be H110.

I know someone will say hell your hunting with a bow why are you worried about the 44 mag? Well it is simple to push a thin blade through and animal and let his lungs collapse and blood to flow its harder to kill by kenitic shock like the 44 will be doing and last they never hear or see me so its hard as hell to charge but they will sure as hell know where that shot came from.

I appreciate your help.

I will probable back him up with a 12 gauge slug gun.

First of all, I doubt that you will ever see a 650 pound wild boar on this side of the Atlantic and I'm not too sure about the other. Not saying it isn't possible, but it is kind of like black polar bears, there may be some, but not many people see them.

At any rate, use a heavy hard cast bullet 240 grains an up.

Do not back him up with a shotgun, if he is charging and you don't get lucky, it won't stop this mythical boar, use a large caliber rifle. A lever action .45-70 would be ideal.

a 650 Feral Boar is a joke
300 maybe

Swift Shot,

I have not hunted Feral Hogs but have hunted Russian Boars on a hunting ranch in North Dakota. On this hunt, there were six boars and one sow taken total. There were two boars over 550 pounds, three over 300 pounds and one BBQ pig. The sow weighted about 150 pounds.

Everyone except myself hunted with archery gear, I used my Ruger Blackhawk in 45 Colt. My boar was just over 300 lbs and took a 300 gr Speer Uni-Core SP through both shoulders at 30 yards with full penetration, he dropped in his tracks. Also both of the +550 pounders were finished with my Colt, no bullets were recovered.

This is typical performance from this bullet loaded to 1200 fps out of my 4 5/8" Ruger.

I am not going to question you about how large a feral hog will grow, I have no idea, but it is possible to come across a very large boar.

The 44 Mag is fully up to the challange of even 1000 lbs critters at close range(under 50 yards) with the correct bullet.

First off, select a bullet that will handle the largest game you MAY come across. If the harvested animal is smaller then expected, the larger bullet will still work great. If the game animal is to large for the selected bullet, better not shoot.

My first advise will stir alot of feathers but I have seen them fail to much on game to recommend them. Do not use the Hornady XTP bullets for heavy game, not even the 300 gr version. They expand to easily and can shed their jacket to often for this type of game. Deer they are fine but nothing larger.

I would start off with at least a 300 gr Speer Uni-Core SP driven to max velocity with your H-110 and lit with a hot large pistol primer, I use only CCI-350's.

I say start with this bullet because it is stout enough for heavy game but not the best choice.

For the best of the best, choose a 300-325gr hard cast bullet of LBT design from a company like Cast Performance Bullets. Search under their name and their site will come up.

These are very quality bullet intended for hunting the largest game on the planet. They make heavier bullets then the 300-325 gr for the 44 mag but then velocity is quite limited and in all honesty, there is no need.

Depending on the barrel length of your partners SRH(7 1/2" or 9 1/2") you should easily be able to get 1250-1350 fps with these bullets. In all honestly, anything over 1000 fps will fully penetrate any pig in the US.

With the 300 gr Speer or hard cast, start with 19.0gr H-110 and work up until either the cases get a bit sticky or recoil proves to much, then reduce a full grain. Do not go under about 19.0 gr with H-110 or W-296.

With a 325 gr pill, drop down to 17.5 gr and start up from there.

In my SRH, I have driven a 330 gr hard cast to +1400 fps and a 355 gr to +1300 fps. The SRH has plenty of strength but don't push to hard, like I said, anything over 1000 fps will do your job easily.

One thing to remember when shooting potentially dangerous game with a handgun, like an arrow, there is very little shocking power. A big bore handgun works by plowing a large, straight wound channel deep into and through the vitals of an animal.

For this reason, if your 10 feet from even a 300 pound pig, if you punch both lungs, the pig will die, but he will also cover some ground and they are very cranky at times.

Rule of thumb here is to take out at least one but preferably both shoulders with your first shot. The boar will not die any faster then with a clean lung shot but he will be anchored at the shot.

This shot with a handgun and a heavy hard cast or stout jacketed bullet will damage very little meat so do not worry to much about meat loss.

Find a load that shoots well and have your partner practice alot. I like to run at least 300 rounds though my handguns the two weeks before the hunt. Not to mention all the rounds before that.

When and if you get a 600 lb boar within shooting range, there should not be any doubt that the shooter can finish the fight before it starts.

The 44 mag with the right bullet will easily do this, shooters skill is the only question here, practice alot.

Good Shooting!!!

50

[ 02-08-2003, 07:56: Message edited by: Fiftydriver ]

Thanks for the info we got the paperwork from the ranch and looking at the largest hog they have ever had someone take is a little scary it says 800lbs I dont know. I dont think it will go over 650 lbs so if thats the largest I bet the ones they have now will only be over 400 lbs. However I am thankful for the advice I would not have thought to break the shoulders with a pistol but that makes sense even if you only break one he will be knocked down and slower when he gets up. I will be taking my digital camera so I can post the picks I hope they are as big as the ones in the pamplets are because that is one big freakin pig.

Poor mans grizzly my butt looks like a poor mans Cape buffalo.

Get some 300-grain from Cast Performance and load them up hot with H110. www.hodgdon.com should have some reloading data. There is a place in southern Ohio that has some imported European boars that are well over 500 lb. I will be planning on a hunt later this year. Good luck.

For those of you that dont think it is possible for there to be a pig in the U.S. that big check out this website. Florida and Texas pigs mostly I think some from down under but all pictures are labeled.
http://www.baydog.com/photos.htm

I raise hogs for a living about 7000 a year. A hog would have to have easy access to high quality food to get that big. I would not call a hog on full feed a wild hog

I once killed a 200 lb. hog with a .22
revolver in S.FL.I was above it,and shot it in the base of the brain.One shot put it down,but I anchored it with a couple more to be sure.When I was a child I saw DAD kill quite a number of hogs that weighed around 300 pounds with .22 shorts ,always one shot.

Wild hogs are a totally different story though,
a friend of mine shot a 400 pound boar{feral} with
a .308,with 150gr.bullets.The first shot hit the shield on his front quarter and blew up,which turned the boar and allowed him to slip one in behind the shield.When he hung the hog to dress he hung almost 6 ft. long.The old man that shot the boar had hunted hogs for 50 years and swore that was the largest wild hog he had ever seen.
The largest hog I have killed was maybe 220 lbs.

If I had to face a 650 feral boar with a .44
mag revolver,I'd sure want some good backup.

I've never known anyone who got injured in a
wild boar attack,but I know a few that had close calls.I know what they can do to a bull dog and it ain't pretty.

If you decide to hunt large boars with a .44
Mag.practice untill you can shoot fast and accurately.There are two shots that will drop a hog immediately,the brain and spine shots.Most of the time they will try to escape rather than fight but don't count on it.

WC

You can get huge Russian boars at "ranches" and reserves. They feed the hell out of them. "Piggy in a pen" russian boar hunts aren't difficult, they let them out right before you go looking for them. (of course they don't tell you that) If you want a big one, they'll tell you it's harder to get and more rare and will cost more. Then they'll let out a big one. Price will be twice as much.

P.S. I killed a "piggy in a pen" (sure the pen was hundreds of acres of woods) 200lb Russian boar. Used a 500 Linebaugh.. 465gr@ 1350... she took two rounds and still ran along way. A third in the head stopped her. It wasn't "hunting" though.

[ 02-09-2003, 02:19: Message edited by: cas ]

to get 600lb "Russian" boar, you need very pure animals, and they flurish in extremely cold climates.

In the far northwest of Europe and in norther Russia they do get that big.

98% of the pigs I have seen photos of on the net are clearly NOT pure animals. they are inbred with domestic stock.

Domestic pigs can reach 600lb and much more easily.

The other thing to consider is that pig hunters are second to none, not even fishermen in exagerating the weights of pigs that are barley 100lb being flogged as 250lb, 150lb - 200lb hogs with captions saying 350 & 400lb - just don't beleive anything you see written down.

I live in middle GA. We have hogs on the WMA along the Ocmulgee river here south of Macon. They have been weighed out at over 400 lbs. These are not raised or released but wild in the swamp bottoms of the river. I have ran across some and they are not like farm hogs. They run like hell and are very wary of people.

RB in GA

I think only fishermen can out "story" a Hawghunter. :^)

It's all a matter of genetics. There is a one cromosome difference betweeen domesticated hogs and true euro-russian boar.

Ferral means and excaped domesticted stock that have gone are reverting to non-purebred state.

True Euro-Russian boar max at 350-400# that is fact. They don't have the altered breeding of our domesticated swine. Man has breed swine for size for the table.

If your not running dogs "most" times the boar are not aggetated enough to be a true danger. They are to be respected none the less.

A honest 200# Boar is more trouble than most men want. Have fun hunt smart.

BTW - I have a few spots on a Boar hunt the 1st week of March in Lousianna. We will be running dogs. We have one handgun hunter, a bowhunter, one spear hunter, and I'm going to attempt to catch & tie.

E-mail if interested.

I'm with Boss, the only exection I make is that in the far north of Russia and far north eastern Europe the wild pigs, true and pure beast can reach as much as 270gk.
This is due to the extremly cold climate in those areas, and is phenomenon that can be seen with most animals adapted to living in extremely cold climates(look at polar bears)

When you interbreed pigs, they can get very big, but I see very few photos with captions that I would call honest or exact.

I see around 150 (dead) pigs a year, and usually am part of the butchering process therefore the animals are weighed...
I can say that very few of the pigs in the photos on the link above were true to their stated size.

A 100kg boar is a very big animal. That's "only" 220lb.

...Hmm seems I forgot that I'd already answered on this thread...

Shoot big hogs in the ear hole. Some big hogs skulls are so thick bullets will glance off under the hide with a bad shot angle. One right in the ear hole will take just about anything down, if not resort to plan B. Run!

Gringo Hunter

The record Russian is (was?) 1069 lbs. That was in Siberia though.

Someone I know showed me pics of a couple of monsters his brother bagged recently near Corsicana. I don't know what they weighed, but the big one was damn sure over 400 lbs. Judgeing from the pics I've seen of the record boar vs those he showed me, they were likely in the 600+ lb range. I don't know if they were canned hunt animals or what.

I saw a picture of that record russian boar they have it up in bass pro shop thing looks like a dawm bull.

To: Boss Kongoni

I had a hog hunt scheduled for 10-13 March with my two children, Son 14 and Daughter 21. The hunt was canceled after I had reserved it and had been talking to the ranch manager about it for several months (not his fault). I can read, 10-13 March is not the first week in March, but have you any recommendations for a hog hunt that week? It has to be within a day's drive of Ft. Worth, Texas. This would be my son's first big game hunt (he has seen me take a deer) .

So ya wanna hog hunt, do ya? Hee, Hee!
Be prepared for these critters. Not very likely, But it could happen...
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~bamster/rave5.html
An people say hogs don't git TOO big???,,,Bug.

How about a few Swift A-Frame pistol bullets for those monster hogs?
Other than that, Garrett or Cor-bon offer 44mag bullets that otta penetrate anything that is breathing.
VH

I have pictures of a boar that was captured live on the timber co. lease adjacent to my farm in Middle Ga. I have raised hogs and seen them weighed at sale barns all my life, and I would guess this one weighed minimum 450 lb. They are feral hogs that feed on my corn, my neighbor's peanuts, and are almost like pen raised hogs, or hawgs, as we call them. My brother and a hired man killed 15, ranging from 30 lb pigs to a 250 lb sow in one of our fields about a year ago. The big sport around here now is running them down with dogs (dawgs) and capturing them live. The big one we caught treed three people and injured several dawgs before they got him hawg-tied. I shot a 100 lb bbq pig with one 158 gr. .38 sp.+p hp through the lungs. Went about 25 yds and bled out. The sausage is out of this world. I will try to post some pictures when I can get my wife to tell me how. You should see what a drove of them can do to a 20 acre corn patch. Don't hardly leave enough corn to make a good run of squeezins.

Will post pictures as soon as I can figure out how. One boar was huge. The owner where we hunted gave some crazy weight I will not even tell you how stupid his guess was. I think my guess was close which put the boar a little over 600. The only weight we have is at the butcher. Pig was skined, gutted without head. I would like to say the shield on this thing was extremely thick about 2 inch or more. Hanging weight at the butcher was 359 lbs that is one big pig. Boar was shot with 3 330 grain 44 mag Garret hunting loads. Which I might add are freaking noisy as hell. All shots where under 30 yards after first shot boar ran 20 yds turned saw me and charged. I was the back up gun. My friend put another in him at 20 yards. This nocked him down third shot through the back which spined him. All bullets had very little expansion as promised. Also none penetrated over 2/3 thickness of animal all where found on the other ribs from entry.

While that is a big hog, his live weight would be under 500 pounds.

I'm also guessing but would bet this guy is buying domestic pigs and turning them out for his visiting hunters.

Hey man I'm real keen to see some pics of these pigs...!

The largest wild pig I have killed weighed 325lbs on my scale. I did not weigh it as I processed it because I did not want to leave it hanging on the scale as I was afraid it would break it. I have found that two men cannot move any hog @ 300lbs very far by trying to drag it on the ground. The hogs we shoot on this deer lease are free ranging feral hogs. I have killed several in the 225lb to 285lb range, weighed, and another in the 300lb range that I could not move or get a vehicle to so my wife and I butchered it in place and packed the meat to the vehicle.
I have weighed a couple of smaller hogs whole and gutted.
On hoof field dressed guts
157lbs 127lbs 30lbs
175lbs 131lbs 44lbs
I have some other figures on bigger hogs somewhere but cannot find them right now.
So extrapulating from your 359lb figure of a gutted and skinned hog I would estimate the following. Your hog: guts @ 100lbs the hide could weigh a 100lbs or more, I base this on how heavy the hide[head too of course] was on my 325 pounder, I did not weigh it but I did have to pick it up a couple of times. So 359lbs +100lbs=100lbs +@559lbs which give or take a few pounds is a good estimate. One big hog for sure.
Let us know how he tastes.

In regards to "raising domestic pigs and turning them loose for hunters". I am not a wild pig expert but it seems the longer pigs are in the wild they seem to develop longer snouts and straighter tails, I have been told this may be an indication of how much "Russian" is in them. I do not know how many generations this takes to develop but I have seen pigs on this lease with these different characistics.
They all taste good.

...This "Russian" thing really doesn't mean much. Wild pigs, just like the ones found in Russia are found all over Europe and Asia, as far North as Siberia and south as Tunisia in Northern Africa.

Throughout South Eastern Aisa there are also many different wild pigs species, that differ slightly from the European species.

... just gets on my nerves hearing this Russian, Rushen, in a hurry, pig talk.

Pigs turned loose will often tend to take on darker coloration, the tail does not necessarily straighten out, nor do the ears shrink, and they certainly do not turn into "Russian boar"

http://www.bowsite.com/BOWSITE/TF/thread.cfm?threadid=272129&messages=43&forum=17

This is the link where I posted pictures.

You are correct about feral pigs these have no russian in them. While on the hunt I did see one Russian boar he was not anywhere near these in body weight however he was on impressive hog. I guessed him a around 200lbs. He was pretty dawm mean looking I would have loved to had a shot at him however I was bowhunting and he didnt want to stick around.