Dave
I know you an GB are partial to them hardcast bullets. Howsomever, I have not taken a shine to em as I don't see the need to penatrate 12 Chrysler Hemi Head engine blocks :lol:
Now in as far a rooters go, leastways the herd up this neck a the woods, ya gotta wreck em to kill em square. IF, an that's a BIG if, ya'll are spot on enough to gurantee busting shoulder bones with them hardcast, then you're gonna have a downed hog.
Notice I said down. NOT dead! I have seen em my ownself with both shoulders busted and they have their asses in the air squealin and tryin to make off. They are FAR from dead. I like to take a 10 or 12 inch bowie to em at that point, but you gotta be fast as they can still get into ya. If you sink it right, in the heart, you'll hear an ear splittin squeal as hot blood pours out over your knife hand.
You gotta have SOME expansion to tear em up proper. In the 45-70, I prefer a Hornady 350 roundnose over 48 grains of IMR 4198. This will rip em good in a classic broadside lung scenario, kill em proper with a raking shot, and will bust BOTH shoulders and clean out everything in between!
The other side you already know about. 30-06 with a 180 that holds together, close up. Why that'll rip just about a 3 inch hole on the off side. Blood and lungs will shoot some 3 feet outa the wound and you got a dead rooter. When you see em pumpin like that you know they're bacon.
It's some wicked purty on snow. Oddly enough, one of the BIGGEST holes I ever saw in a pig was done by a hugger usin a 30-30. Twas a handload, just what I dunno, but I swear, that 400 pound hog had a hole in his offside you could near fit a basketball in! Nice! And, brutaly effective :lol:
You can also kill em with a high intensity jobber. Bullet like a Nosler ballistic tip gets in at 3000 fps+ and blows in the vitals works like dynamite. To me, that's anticlimatic. You get a 308 hole going in, nothing out. Sure, the vitals pour out like Niagra Falls when you split em, but me, I like the blood on the ground at the kill site. Kinda the way it was meant ta be :wink:
Where I hunt up in Maine, the owner is touched as I am. He won't get all in a tither about a clean Nosler BT kill. But you open his pigs up, blood let em on the snow, kill a few wounded ones for good measure, spread blood everywhere, why he'll be tellin nimrods about it fer years ta come. :wink:
I got quite the rep up there, folks expect me to do odd stuff. I ain't about to disapoint em
Coug
