Clean conscience and a .22 Magnum

[terry]

  We have alway had alot of wildhogs around the area where I grew up. I killed to many to count with a 22 or 22mag rifle when I was a kid at my familys Farm.That was the only rifles I owned at the time so had no chocie. I even killed big 200lb+ boars with lung shots from a 22 mag even though I did have to put a second RD into time to time while doing so. I mainly head shot them at close range which dropped them in their tracks.I also killed a true 300lb+ wild boar my biggest ever this spring with a 22 rifle shot between his eyes. I was out shooting bushy tails and saw two huge boars feeding at 35 yards and aimed right between the eyes and down he went. Now if I am going boar hunting I always take aleast a 357mag or better that does make a much better hog gun than a 22 rimfire does. I have killed several hogs the last few weeks with my 357 pistol and 180gr XTP HP loads blow right through them and they drop within 30 yards with a good placed shot.

[S.S.]

You fellas must hunt smaller hogs than we hunt in South Georgia.
I'll use my .44 Blk-hawk - Thank you!
Seen too many things (including each other) cut up by them to play around
when hunting them. .22mag  is not enough gun to humanely kill several hundred pounds of pork.
No doubt it has been done, But If any other reasonable weapon was available, why would you want too?

[Dee]

I live in North Central Texas and we have lots of hogs. Bigguns and littleuns. Being raised on a farm back in the 50s I found that hogs are not all that hard to kill. Wild or not. Their legend as hard to kill has grown due to advertising of game ranches and gun magazine writers and more than a few hunters who improve the truth on a good story. Until the tree huggers came around every packing house in Texas had a couple of 22s to dispatch every thing from hogs to cows. The last hog I killed this year was a black boar I found sleeping under a cedar tree. He never tried to get up when I shot him. My load was a Black Hills 52 grain match hollow point in the back of the neck. He weighed about 325 on the hoof. A neck shot when a hog is standing is usually a one shot affair and no you don't have the hit the spine. Curdog and his bunch up in Oklahoma hunt them with knives. If you doubt it call him. He'll take you out and show you.

[S.S.]

I have been out with Knives,(not sucessfully, decided at the last moment how unwise I was about to be ) Bows , Firearms, and even a spear! Last 3 from a tree, so no worries there.
Like anything else, placement of the wound is the Key. I have found though that I normally see Hogs when I am hunting something else and am not specifically armed for hogs. Normally what you have will suffice if the shot is placed correctly. I still prefer something bigger though!

[Oldtimer]

S. Sumner:  I was in the hunting museum in Munich a few years ago and saw a whole wall full of boar spears.  Most of them were wrapped with rawhide to reinforce the shaft and had a crossbar to prevent the hog from walking up the shaft to carry on a dialog with the hunter.  Where were you hunting that allowed spears?  I'm too old to think about tickling a boar with either a spear or a knife.  My father-in-law told me about holding a tame hog by the ears while the owner killed it with a butcher knife.  Despite being a WWII veteran and firefighter, it was too much for my father-in-law to want to do it again.  He said he could not abide the squeals of the hog as it was dying.  That's another reason that I will stick with a rifle or slug gun.

[Dee]

That is certainly something to think about. Humane is the only way to go.