Boar vs. R92 480 Ruger

[Ranch Dog]

It ended in the latter's behalf. Hogs had started tearing up my entry road, the whole 400 yard length from the cattle guard and then the night before last they hit my yard while we had a heck of a storm moving through.

Decided to wait up for them last night but moon rise was not until midnite plus 1 minute. So I spent the evening busying myself by working on the Load Notes for the NOE designs, part of the deal I made with Al for the work on the R92 base, and it helped passed the time. About 1100 I got cleaned up and my plan was to move down the brushline on the downwind side of my road at moonrise and start waiting. I had pulled the 480 Ruger out as I knew these would be big hogs and I knew I would not have a lot of illumination which spells very close work. I wanted them dead the moment that big bullet touched the first hair on their hide.

At 11:58 I bid my wife good night but as I looked through the door I saw four large hogs walk out of the brush nearest my home. Couldn't believe my luck! I slid out the door and down the breezeway to my barn where I rested the R92 on the rear tire of my tractor. The hogs were 70 yards out and the lighting better than none from the "moonlights" at the feeder and various yard lights. These were large hogs and for a moment I thought about going for a "twofer" but decided against it. Boom! The slap of that 375-grain bullet and it's massive meplat is always impressive. It is every bit as loud as the boom. Not only did it knock the hog off it's hooves but it moved it a foot or two downrange.


The wound channel is massive. What you see is the entry wound side. At impact, blood is typical sprayed about 10' out. The exit is simply a mess.

The picture is fuzzy because while my wife was taking it the other boars had moved about 70 to 100 yards away in the brush and were roaring at us. I doubt she had ever heard this as she doesn't like being out near the brush at night. I gave up on getting a good picture. The lights immediately behind me is the barn I shot from but all the lights in the background had been out when they came in.

[Moon Tree]

nice shooting, Micheal.

[Okie44]

Good shooting, Great story! Ole Dap would have been proud of a "twofer".

[ethang]

I know you might not think so, but to us those of us that can't, stepping out to the barn and shooting pork chops and bacon is really freakin cool.

Enjoy reading your exploits as always Mike. Thanks.

[akuser47]

That's a very nice size piggy. great shooting and also looks like that round is working like a charm.

[zippy]

Thanks RD, I've missed my vicarious Texas hog hunts.
Too bad they keep beating up your property though.
Any determination yet from the state's experiment of using MSG on them?

[Ranch Dog]

Thanks fellows. Yeah, no doubt I'm a lucky guy; living in a place that offers a fellow like myself plenty to do, some good guns to do it with, and a wife that lets it all happen and understands it!

I think that R92 in the 480 Ruger is the real deal. I cannot picture a better rifle for dealing with very large game inside 100 yard; like elk or moose in heavy timber. Mine is a bit of an an odd duck being it is a scout scoped rifle but in that I'm a hog hunter, 90% of it is just like last night and that is the only way to do it.

If I was a elk or moose hunter, I think this rifle with the XS receiver mounted ghost ring would be a beautiful thing!

Thanks RD, I've missed my vicarious Texas hog hunts.
Too bad they keep beating up your property though.
Any determination yet from the state's experiment of using MSG on them?

I don't know anything about that other than I'm not fond of it as a flavoring enhancer

I was working my boar experiment. That is leaving a large boar alone to rule a given area. I've had one at the house for awhile. I have kept it quiet, even called him "Buster". He had become a daytime hog and would be seen at odd times from the house. The idea behind it is that sows do not like to frequent areas of a dominant boar and so far that had worked. Monday a week ago the entry road was tore up down at the highway. My dad was blaming Buster but I knew it was the work of others as Buster had been at my house all night. I saw him a number of times throughout the night and early morning milling around. There is a spot that hogs cross under a gate from across the highway, I use the gate to bring large implements or heavy equipment through and they had been through it. We got hit hard this past Monday night but again Buster had been at the house and the gate crossing was all a mess. That is the last night I saw Buster and I haven't seen him since. From the house he ranged to the north to a food plot/feeder/stand site about 400 yards north of the house and I went over there to check a protein feeder and it looked like he had been around there. He either joined up with these boars and might have been the one on the ground, but it is real unusual to see that many large boars in a group. I think these might have pushed him to the north end of his range of moved him off, maybe that is a hope.

Kind of miss him! I had him approach me several times in the daylight while I was working. Absolutely no threat, I could tell he was just curious as heck. Weird to see an 180# approaching you and doing so submissively. I know he knows that I fill the feeders.

I've only killed three hogs this year, they have all been boars that are caught in the act of digging. If I see one in the pasture just walking along and there has been no digging in the area, I leave it alone. These four hogs were quite destructive this past week but still no comparison to a sounder of sows and piglets. 15 to 25 hogs plow up a lot of ground, acres, real quick.

[zippy]

I mis-remembered, it was sodium nitrate they were testing to control the hogs.
From the San Antonio Express-News, June 26, 2014:
A food preservative used in bacon may be the next option used by Texas in order to combat the state's massive feral hog problem.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is beginning to test the use of sodium nitrate in order to control the estimated 2 million feral hogs within Texas, according to a report by The Associated Press.

Sodium nitrate is not deadly to humans, but pigs cannot make enough of an enzyme needed to counteract the chemical. The AP said unlike people and tested domestic animals, pigs make very low levels of an enzyme that counteracts the chemical.

If they eat enough sodium nitrate at once, the swine will show symptoms similar to carbon dioxide poisoning. They become uncoordinated, lose consciousness, and die, according to the AP.

[Ranch Dog]

Thanks, I remember that. They have special feeders that listen for the vocal sounds of a hog and dispense the food with the animals present. Without the hog vocalization, the entire feeder is "hot" and anything that touches it will be shocked.

The run of the mill corn feeder is $450 and a protein feeder the same, I wonder what this will cost.

I also suspect that it for it to be effective you will need extremely large areas of control feed. I see this in use for the State Wildlife Management Areas that are under high fence but not viable for private lands.

[Ranch Dog]

I think it is so weird that the State agencies spend so much time and money trying to find a "government" solution to this problem, I guess no different than anything else they are trying to resolve. They do this when the solution in this State is simple; lift the restrictions on providing feral hogs to the food banks. No different that the "Hunters For The Hungry" programs. Feral hogs would cease to exist if they did this. Most of the issue with eradication is the basic human feeling of wasting something that is edible. For this reason not enough hogs are being killed and you cannot have hog control unless you can get past this. You must be able to drop one, leave it, and move on to the next one.

This simple step could solve two problems but government agencies don't like resolves that don't support or further complicate the bureaucracy while sustaining or growing their payroll.