300 lb Behemoth Boar, 1 Sow, and 4 more Boars

[Double Naught Spy]

I went down for weekly out of season hog/coyote hunting on a property in Bosque County, Texas. The property is 1200 acres, but most of the action happens inside of 60-65 acres that are cultivated, right now of which half is in oats and the other half is a newly sprouted hay field. So when nothing came to my caller at another part of the property, I headed down to the oats field to see what was going on.



So as it turned out, hunting them alive was much easier than hunting them after they were dead. When they would die, they would fall down below the level of the oats and no longer be visible on thermal. The oats were so tall that thermal was useless until I walked right up on them and that meant my headlamp was more useful for the search than was thermal.

I found only 3 in 2 hours of searching. With the help of the buzzards, the landowner found 3 more while collecting the carcasses with his tractor. So 6 made for a good day!

 

[vmax]

good kills

 

[robertc1024]

Wow - that place is covered up with piggies. Good shooting. I saw where you were using the 90g Speers. I haven't paid that close of attention to your bullet choice the last few videos, but I know you were using the 123g SST's. Any reason for the change?

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Wow - that place is covered up with piggies. Good shooting. I saw where you were using the 90g Speers. I haven't paid that close of attention to your bullet choice the last few videos, but I know you were using the 123g SST's. Any reason for the change?

I enjoy testing ammo to see what works. I tried, briefly, Federal's loaded Berger OTM rounds and Hornady's ELD-M rounds for hogs and was not impressed with the performance on either that I thought was inconsistent. Ammo that does better, gets tested longer.

Hornady SST 123 gr. factory ammo is sort of the standard by which I compare other Grendel hunting ammo when it comes to killing hogs. It isn't the best choice if you are a meat hunter, but if you want to kill in this caliber, it is the best for the money. I think Berger VLD-hunting is even more destructive, but is twice as expensive. Both these and the Speers are going to leave lead particles throughout and around the wound channel, but they kill well. The Speer is going to be a lot more distance limited as it is a lighter bullet with a lower BC than the SST, but it should work well inside 200 yards which is well inside the distances most folks are hunting hogs. So far the TNT has been working well for me. The bullet fragments, makes large wound channels (on the ones I have cut open) and often overpenetrates hogs up to 150 lbs, sometimes larger.

What I really like about the TNT so far is that the performance in hogs has been fairly consistent. Accuracy is good. Velocity is high (as you would expect) at short ranges. It won't replace SST for me, but it is a good substitute if needed.

 

[robertc1024]

Thanks - just curious if I get the chance to use my Grendel on some hogs. I remember some of those post mortem pics you had using the Berger VLD's. Most impressive.

 

[BRD@66]

Ha! A small sow - a mere 120#.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

She was the only eater of the bunch!!!

 

[40Arpent]

Another excellent video. Curious to know how you think the 123gr SST would have done compared to the 90gr Speer on that double?

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Well, I think the SST would have done better, particularly since I apparently just went through 6-8" of muscle across the back of the neck. The SST still should have had another 6-8" of penetration capability.

I have had 4 twofers, all with Hornady SST 123 gr. The latest one was at something like 200 yards and the round passed through my target and my target hog which ran, but left a hog behind that was head shot. It was an unintentional twofer. My target collapsed after running about 140 yards. The SST went through the target hog diagonally, at least breaking some ribs in the process and was still together enough and had enough energy to kill the hog behind it. I don't think TNTs are nearly as capable for this.

 

[flashhole]

Very nice, thanks for sharing. What do you do with the hogs? A comment was made only one sow was fit to eat. I'm just curious as I am in the process of moving to TX and hope to do some hog hunting myself.

 

[SloppyShooter]

Riddle me this Batman; if only the small ones are fit to eat, why is it you shoot the 350 lbs. ones first?

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Riddle me this Batman; if only the small ones are fit to eat, why is it you shoot the 350 lbs. ones first?

Well Robin, because I wasn't hunting these to eat. If I was hunting them to eat, then I would have only shot one and I would have looked for a little 80-100 pounder. My goal is to remove as many of these as I reasonable can from the landowner's field and to do so safely without endangering the livestock on the property or the neighbors. We (I am often partnered) like to start with the largest ones first because they eat more overall, but sometimes it is the largest best target available. That 300 pounder will be putting down 9 lbs of food a day, and a lot of that will be grain from this oats field. I took out over 1200 lbs of hogs. Combined, they will be eating nearly 38 lbs of food a day. The more hogs we take, the more oats that are saved for the livestock.

Very nice, thanks for sharing. What do you do with the hogs? A comment was made only one sow was fit to eat. I'm just curious as I am in the process of moving to TX and hope to do some hog hunting myself.

She was apparently the only sow and the boars were all 200 or more in size, generally not considered to be great eating.

All of these hogs were donated to the Turkey Buzzard Preservation Society. There is a designated area on the property for the carcasses.

 

[flashhole]

Sounds like the buzzards eat well.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

They do, at least during the warmer months there in Bosque when they have me helping out. During the last couple years, we didn't get the call until about this time (mid May). This year we started in April and have killed more hogs this year already than we killed last year.

 

[SloppyShooter]

I knew that you were trying to thin the population, but it seems like even the guys hunting for food go for the big ones.

 

[FOX941]

I went down for weekly out of season hog/coyote hunting on a property in Bosque County, Texas. The property is 1200 acres, but most of the action happens inside of 60-65 acres that are cultivated, right now of which half is in oats and the other half is a newly sprouted hay field. So when nothing came to my caller at another part of the property, I headed down to the oats field to see what was going on.



So as it turned out, hunting them alive was much easier than hunting them after they were dead. When they would die, they would fall down below the level of the oats and no longer be visible on thermal. The oats were so tall that thermal was useless until I walked right up on them and that meant my headlamp was more useful for the search than was thermal.

I found only 3 in 2 hours of searching. With the help of the buzzards, the landowner found 3 more while collecting the carcasses with his tractor. So 6 made for a good day!

nice

 

[FireInTheWire]

Good Lord... I'm gonna have to start turning tricks on the corner so I can get a thermal. I wonder what it's like to finance one of those scopes? $7,000-$9,000... why they so dang expensive.

 

[EZ-E]

There are some in the $2k range & up...i'm sure like all products ... the more you spend the better it gets.
Flir has some that start in the $2k range
https://pr-infrared.com/product/fli...MIiMT-icfg2wIVA2t-Ch0frAi-EAQYAyABEgKOuPD_BwE


there's also the Torrey Pines Brand that are like a reflex sight & good to about 100 yards. They start around $500 & go up to about $800

https://www.opticsplanet.com/torrey-pines-logic-heat-seekers-termal-imagers.html


I was torn between the Torrey Pines Thermal & the Armasight Tube style when i got my scope. I figured i want a little more than 100 yard visibility so i went with the Armasight Vampire 3 ... cost is about the same
http://www.armasight.com/night-visi...-sights/armasight-by-flir-vampire-3x-core-iit

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Why is thermal so expensive? The single most expensive part on thermal scopes is the lens. The cheaper scopes you see offers usually have very small lenses. The lenses are not glass per se, but germanium lenses. Germanium is very expensive, but regular glass will not work in a thermal optic.

I have worked with the Torrey Pines gear. It is not the gear for a hunter. It really isn't.

Flir and Pulsar each have a sub $2k scope, the FLIR PTS233 and the Pulsar RXQ30V. Neither are particularly impressive, but they are thermal and will get you out to 200 yards with a big enough target, like a large boar. Pulsar has probably one of the best lesser priced scopes around, the APEX XQ50 that folks are using for coyotes out to 200 yards and hog out to 300. It will run about $2800. It is a good scope.

I do own some current top of the line gear and I certainly enjoy it, but I hunt 3-4 nights a week. For Third Coast Thermal, I get to field test a variety of products. Given issues such as product reliability, customer service, etc., the two companies I like best are Pulsar and Trijicon. For customer service, Pulsar (through their importer, Sellmark which is located just outside of Ft. Worth) is the absolute best.

 

[EZ-E]

Good to know about Pulsar's customer service! Always a ++ when buying new toys