I have hunted a lot of different animals in my life but none have the skin thickness and rubber like body structure that the wild hogs do. At least not until you get into the bigger thick skinned African game. I cannot think of any animal that has thicker more difficult to penetrate hide then a wild boar in North America.
I was invited to hunt at a mountain lodge in Tennesse last week for hogs. I was fortunate enough to shoot two of them and I was using the 30/06 with the standard 165 grain Hornady Interbond that I have written about here in the past. They match so well with my rifle and have such massive penetration that I have really come to like them. This is also due to their perfect and consistant accuracy in my rifle.
Back to the Issue! I hunted quite a while before finding a hog I wanted and then I had a 75 yard running shot on him. He was steeply quartering away and I had to sink one of the 165's into his hind quarter or just in front of it. I recovered the bullet in his neck meat.
That pig was given a second shot because when I hit him with the first one he actually ran on his back hoofs for about 20 yards. When he dropped back down to all four and remained upright I put another one in him. At that Distance and running you just never know how the shot was delivered and I was not about to take a chance.
The first hog I shot was at 157 yards laser ranged. He was also shot slightly quartering away. There were several hogs together and I did not want to kill one and hit another with the exit. As it turned out that bullet was in the 1.25" thick hide on the exit side after breaking the bones on the exit side front leg. Here are a few photo's, I did not weigh the billets yet but from looking at them I would guess they are near 90% or greater weight retention. Just look at the one bullet which almost turned completely inside out. It had the perfect long penetration from hind quarter to the neck meat.
I don't think you can get better then this,.......you can only equal it.