The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - smallest handgun that reliably penetration a boar skull or other large animaL?

Old Stony · January 27, 2014, 07:45 PM

Too many variables to come up with a definitive answer to this question. Without getting insane, bigger is better always. I did a European mount of a feral boar I shot once. It was about 400 lbs and I had to shoot it through the chest 3 times with a 240 gr. .44 mag before it gave up and fell down. I saved the skull, because it had another bullet hole through the front of the skull where it had been shot with what should have been a killing bullet slightly above and centered to it's eyes. The lower part of the skull showed some deformation where the spinal column met the skull, so apparently this hog was wounded at an early age and kept growing afterward. It appeared to me that the bullet must have passed through the brain and into the body at one point in it's life.
The hole in it's head shows evidence of the bone attempting to grow back! Perhaps a larger bullet would have done enough damage to finish the job but we will never know.

January 27, 2014, 07:45 PM	#28
Old Stony Senior Member Join Date: May 31, 2013 Location: East Texas Posts: 1,705	Too many variables to come up with a definitive answer to this question. Without getting insane, bigger is better always. I did a European mount of a feral boar I shot once. It was about 400 lbs and I had to shoot it through the chest 3 times with a 240 gr. .44 mag before it gave up and fell down. I saved the skull, because it had another bullet hole through the front of the skull where it had been shot with what should have been a killing bullet slightly above and centered to it's eyes. The lower part of the skull showed some deformation where the spinal column met the skull, so apparently this hog was wounded at an early age and kept growing afterward. It appeared to me that the bullet must have passed through the brain and into the body at one point in it's life. The hole in it's head shows evidence of the bone attempting to grow back! Perhaps a larger bullet would have done enough damage to finish the job but we will never know.