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Old November 6, 2017, 06:06 PM   #1
deerslayer303
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.50 Round ball on a HAWG, NOT our beloved HAWG!


Hey Guys,

We are going out to try our luck on some wild hogs. I plan to take my Kentucky Rifle to do so. Will I be ok slinging a round ball at them? And will my deer load of 90grs be enough or should I up the ante? And where should I place this shot if so? I've never hunted these things before. I've only ever gave a feral sow a head full of buck shot on a deer hunt at the farmers request. He couldn't keep her in the pen.
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Old November 6, 2017, 06:22 PM   #2
Wyosmith
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I have some advice that I am sure you will find to be true:

A hard 50 cal ball with 80-90 grains of powder will EXIT a bull elk. I know of 13 actual cases where it has, so that's not a theory.
A soft (pure lead) ball up to 58 cal will sometimes not exit a large deer. I know, I have used them.

It's been 45 years since I did, but I did it when I was young and found pure lead flattens into a "button" on impact with heavy muscles or bone. I killed game, but penitration was not always what I'd have wanted.

I have used WW metal ever since, and I have never recovered any ball from a deer, elk or moose shot with a WW ball. 100% penetration in all cases so far.

Cast the balls from Wheel Weights, and a 50 cal is all the gun you'll ever need for hogs. Don't water drop them, just let them air cool and if your patch thickness is correct they shoot very well, and kill very well.

Don't believe the tripe that pure lead is needed for accuracy either. I won a lot of ribbons, cups, trophy's and blanket prizes when I was shooting a lot at muzzle-loader events, and I stopped using pure lead about 1973. Many of these competitions included string cuts, card cuts, ball splitting, washer shoots and paper shooting. My rifles would put the ball through a ragged hole when I held them right (which I used to do quite a lot)
I never shot any event with anything but WW balls. They are plenty accurate if cast right.
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Old November 6, 2017, 06:53 PM   #3
deerslayer303
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Thank you for the reply. I have plenty of W.W. lead. So I will cast up a batch and take the rifle to the range an figger patch thickness. This should be fun!! Can't wait!!
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Old November 6, 2017, 07:10 PM   #4
Capt Rick Hiott
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Sounds good,,,,but make sure you have a big handgun on your side (Just in case)
I hunt hogs in SC
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Old November 6, 2017, 07:16 PM   #5
deerslayer303
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I'm not sure on the public land we are going to if we can carry a handgun. I will check though. As far as I know its Archery and ML on that Tract. Good tip.
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Old November 6, 2017, 07:32 PM   #6
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A hard cast round ball will work just fine because it's the patch that engages the rifling not the ball. Hard cast balls don't shrink as much as pure lead when they cool and will be bigger so you will need thinner patches. Make your shot count because a wounded boar will charge you, I don't care what anybody says. A sow will charge if you get between her and her young or if she thinks you're a threat. The chest is protected by a hard bony plate. It won't stop a direct hit but may deflect an angle shot. I would indeed have something for backup or make your shot next to a tree that's easy to climb.

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Old November 6, 2017, 07:43 PM   #7
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Thanks for the pic Hawg. I didn't know that about the chest. I had heard that they had a thick shoulder blade too. Seems just behind the shoulder should do the trick. I will cast up some hard ball tomorrow. And I will also go and get some good rounds for the fo five Colt and I'll carry her along.
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Old November 6, 2017, 07:57 PM   #8
4V50 Gary
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Shot placement is everything. I would prefer a .58 minie ball, but I'm not partial to being charged by a hog.
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Old November 6, 2017, 08:11 PM   #9
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Oh me either. We plan to still hunt them. I'll be up a tree in my climber when I touch the smoke pole off.

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Old November 6, 2017, 08:50 PM   #10
Old Stony
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I've shot both hogs and deer with round balls in .50 and .62 calibers, and the .62 is definitely my favorite. I use soft lead, and have never had problems with killing as a rule. I did have one deer that I shot some time back where the only available angle I had was a quartering shot into the chest. I found it some time later and the ball had exited back in the stomach area...out the same side. So the soft ball must have been deflected and taken an ark-ing direction through the deer.
Using the .62 I have not only had a nice exit, it took a large piece of lung out the other side with it!
Round balls can be a little less predictable than conventional bullets, but can be quite effective nonetheless.
Funny, but I have shot a large number of hogs...more than most people will ever encounter in their lifetimes, and have never seen the aggression others seem to find. I sort of think it might just be a little overrated.

Last edited by Old Stony; November 7, 2017 at 04:49 AM.
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Old November 6, 2017, 09:41 PM   #11
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YouTube will show you some nice gashes from confronting wounded or cornered hogs.

My father, while stationed in Germany, got out to photograph some hogs and was sent back to his truck twice. He wasn't even close enough to be a threat. Now that I'd say is uncommon as he's the only one I've heard of having that happen.
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Old November 7, 2017, 04:53 AM   #12
Old Stony
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I don't confront cornered hogs, and maybe that is some of the difference. I think most guys that have that type of problems are probably hunting with dogs and dealing with hogs that have been put in severe defensive positions. Probably a lot of guys with injuries out there, just saying I never have encountered that type of aggression. They definitely get defensive in a trap but that's to be expected.
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Old November 7, 2017, 07:49 AM   #13
Wyosmith
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I have never shot a wild hog. Only killed 2 domestic ones in my life.

But I did kill a good sized Bull Moose with my 62 cal flintlock. Broke BOTH front shoulder bones and the ball still exited the bull. WW ball and 140 grains of 3F at about 80 yards. Moose weighted 1228 pounds dressed out.

So I am 100% sure the same load would do fine against any hog in America.
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Old November 7, 2017, 08:43 AM   #14
rodwhaincamo
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Indeed many of them are hunts using dogs. And many of those types of hunters use a knife. NOT ME!!! I wouldn't want to get that close.
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Old November 7, 2017, 02:58 PM   #15
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i've killed numerous wild hogs with patched round fired from my .50 and .54 rifles. Put in the right place, those round balls kill about as well as anything else i've used.
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Old November 7, 2017, 06:47 PM   #16
FrontierGander
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Apparently you guys dont ever read my hunt reports with a .50cal round ball, jeez!

You dont need a huge chunk of lead to kill animals. Had most of the fellers on here, been born in the days of patched round balls, they apparently would be vegans, as conicals for hunting were not known back then.

70gr 3fg, .490" round ball. Bull went 25-30 yards with a full exit.



Same load as above,



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Old November 9, 2018, 09:50 PM   #17
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I have hunted numerous hogs both here in the US and in the rocky scablands of north China. Mainly used a takedown recurve bow with 70lb draw. Also in a North Chinese tradition that was adopted from the Mongols, domestic animals are often, and preferably culled by "free-range harvesting" as opposed to traditional slaughter in an abattoir. An arrow would be fired at close range straight through the base of the skull of the animal that was to be eaten. Quick and unsuspecting it would deliver a near instant kill and the animal's body would not be flooded with the stress hormones from a traditional slaughter by exsanguination that many Chinese believe renders the meat unhealthy to eat. And wounded hogs CAN and WILL be a potentially lethal threat to the hunter. Plenty of stories and scars from my family's neck of the woods from huntsmen who have killed boars and sold them on the highly limited personal-owned markets of the 1970s and 1980s. They used bows and bolt action rifles and not all hunts were clean kills and those hunters who lived to tell the tale often carried with them the gore marks of their near-death experiences. Most of the archery hunts I have been on I had been on horseback when making the approach and firing the shot. Not because it looked badass but because being on horseback allows far easier escape in case something goes very wrong.

All this talk of hog hunting just immediately brought to my mind of a movie which features some of the most intensive and prolonged footage of what a traditional boar hunt looks like. The movie is titled "Barbarossa" and it tells the story of the attempt by Emperor Frederick I Hohenstauffen aka Barbarossa to bring all of Italy under his control in the 1170s, the peak of the Crusades, and the formation of the Lombard League by a blacksmith turned warrior named Alberto da Guessano which defeats the Germanic army at the battle of Legnano.

The beginning of the movie shows the Emperor and his knights pursuing a wild boar through the forest. Subsequently a lance hurled into it's flanks failed to kill the animal outright and the leader of the Holy Roman Empire was saved from death at the last second at the tusks of the enraged boar by a young Alberto, who had been stalking the same boar through the undergrowth with a crossbow. The following exchange between the young peasant boy and the most powerful king in Europe whom he just saved was one of the most memorable moments in film history...
Alberto (aiming his reloaded crossbow at Frederick, who had just gotten up after being pursued by now dead boar): "Stop!...Don't come any closer!.......I told you to stop!"
Emperor Frederick: "I am not a wild boar. I am your emperor!"
Alberto: "You are...........Barbarossa???"
Emperor Frederick: "Is that what they call me here? (Chuckles)...Yes, and you?"
Alberto: "I am Alberto da Guessano...Son of Giovanni...Milanese and Blacksmith.
Emperor Frederick: (takes a beautiful and ornate dagger from his belt and gives it to the boy as a gift): "Well blacksmith...Take this dagger...It will serve you when you become a man".

Ironic that years later, it would be this same boy who will thwart Frederick's ambitions to bring the Italo-Norman city states under his control and revive the glory of Charlemagne. And even more ironic, Frederick did not die in battle or at the tusks of a boar, but by drowning, as his army crossed the Salef River in Anatolia on their way to join up with Richard The Lionheart on the Third Crusade.
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Old November 10, 2018, 03:32 AM   #18
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Well Deerslayer, how did the hunt go or do you remember?
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Old November 10, 2018, 07:59 AM   #19
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stress hormones -- the gov't pamphlet about slaughtering domestic hogs stresses that the kill should be done on a calm animal . Yet I see videos of European hunts where all the pigs are all running ! this is said to be true of all animals but especially pigs.
I eat my deer so all mine have been shot walking or standing !
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Old November 10, 2018, 09:32 AM   #20
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Quote:
The chest is protected by a hard bony plate.
Lots of myths about hogs. One is their "bony plate." I know it can be found several places described online in this manner, but the name is not accurate. Hogs do not have a bony plate that protects their chest. Boars (not sows) have a cartilagenous shield that protects their shoulders and tapers rearward and upwards along the spine along the sides and thinning from mid thorax (or slightly closer to the shoulders) the farther back you go until it is usually gone by the lowest ribs by the spine very thin shield may be present as far back as the ilium. It does not cover their chest per se, but mostly over their shoulder blades, humeri, side, and dorsal rib region.

The notion that this is bony is a misnomer. There is no bone in the hog shield and it does not ossify into bone. As with cartilage, it can be quite hard, however.

On smaller/younger boars, it may be non-existent or very thin. On larger, mature boars, it can be think and you can even rap on it and it sound like a board. There is a nice drawing of where you might expect to find it on a large and mature boar.
https://articles.extension.org/pages...-in-feral-hogs

Also see...
https://www.ballisticstudies.com/Kno...r+shields.html

While the shield can be pretty hard, even a thinner flexible shield can quickly dull a knife during processing, but then again so can the keraten hair (composed of protein fiber), although with a good knife, I hardly notice shield less than a half inch thick when butchering younger hogs. I mention the hair here because I have noticed several folks proclaim how tough the shield is to cut when they try to cut through it and do so by cutting downward through the hair. Layers of hair can be hard to cut through, even on sows, hence I don't try to cut through it. The shield can be tough to cut through, but I find it much easier to cut from the inside out, avoiding trying to cut through the hair.

While I have seen shield 2" thick on a large, mature boar (when cut perpendicularly from the surface), most shield I see is between about .75 and 1.5" thick and that is only at the thickest area. If you cut it at an angle, however, you can make it look much thicker, LOL.
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