Rethinking my 357 Mag as a hog rifle?

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Rethinking my 357 Mag as a hog rifle?

Post by Ranch Dog »

A week ago, I shot a feral hog with my R92 chambered in 357 Mag and lost the hog. The shot was taken at night but with some illumination from my yard lights. It was at 75-yards. The shot was less than perfect meaning I was shooting standing with the forend across a planter attached to the back of my tractor. The hog disappeared into the night without a trace. I did see the hog's direction of travel, about 10 yards worth, before it was swallowed up by the dark. It appeared to be moving straight across an open food plot. I could not find it with a light, nor any sign of any kind. A couple of days later, the buzzards found it and it appeared to had made a large u-turn into some dense brush to reverse its course of travel. The birds we're making too much of a mess to tell much. Now a week later and the hide is skinned by the birds and it looks like the shot placement was as good as it gets, across the top of the heart which does a good job of destroying the bottom of both lungs on a hog as well.

Last night, I shot another nice hog. I shot it while I was standing and resting the forearm on a block of wood I attached to the side of a pecan tree (I've killed literally several hundred hogs using this wood block in the last decade). I was very patient, observing two hogs apart from maybe a dozen others. Just watching them both through the Weaver Scout until one gave me a full broadside profile. Also a hog is not like a deer, it never stops moving even while eating something of great interest. You cannot halt them like you can a deer with a noise. Any noise outside the ordinary causes an immediate bolt from their present position. As one turned perfectly, I settled the crosshairs on the top of her heart and shot. As I felt the trigger release the hammer, I heard the "splat" of the 175-grain bullet and then the boom. The hog was immediately out of sight but I did see the others take a course toward a large pond. I heard a splash but heard a couple of blue herons take flight with their squawking at the same time.

Same as before, no sign of a hit and no blood to determine the course of travel. I went across the spillway and dam of the pond but nothing. I was pretty sure the sounder crossed it. I've had hogs die crossing the dam and they seem to favor the backside into the brush. Probably their last thought is to hit the closest brush. I could see nothing with a light so I turned my three legged cow dog out and she could not find anything either. I always make sure their is no growling or grunting before I use her as she is in a world of hurt if hogs get on her.

This morning I went out early while all the grass was still wet but nothing, no blood. I walked the dam checking the brush side on one pass and then the water on the other. I immediately saw the hog flat on the bottom about two feet under the surface. She was laying on the exit wound side, so I could only see the entry wound but it was about the one inch hole I expect to see. One thing hogs are famous for is both the entry and exit hole choking with cartilage and tissue. The entry hole was choked as described with about 2" worth of tissue material outside the wound. Looking back at the grass, I think the hog was running flat out, just like a heart shot critter does, and started a slow, uncontrolled descent down the bank of the steep dam straight into the water (the splash). Head low, a lot of forward energy, and out of air from a heart not pumping; straight to the bottom she went.

I've shot at least a dozen and a half hogs with this rifle, maybe more but the one thing, it has never done is knock a hog off its feet. The other R92 cartridges; the 44 Mag, 45 Colt, 454 Casull, and 480 Ruger does. They might get up and run but that expends a lot of their body's energy and they don't get far. It also allows that brief moment where you recover from the loss of the sight picture and are back on them. Typically, they are just off their feet, run in place a few seconds while they are on their side, and then are done. That last few seconds of motor reflex, the run, is where I have lost these two 357 Mag kills.

So all this has me thinking the 357 Mag is not making a good backdoor gun for my needs. I think if I was shooting in the daytime, I would at least see the direction of travel. I would have actually seen this hog go into the pond from where I shot and with the first hog, seen the u-turn in made into the brush and then known that it didn't cross a pole-line that leads to my house. Kind of a bummer as the recoil and noise is so mild with the rifle.

Here are the exterior ballistics for the load that I'm shooting.

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This is an extremely accurate load and rifle producing that produces groups of less than 1.5 MOA. On the day of the first hog event, I actually had shot the rifle. I had two guys ask if they could use my range early in the day as they were leaving on a WY elk hunt and I asked them just to leave their target up as I wanted to check the R92. I walked out and looking at the 280 Rem and 30-06 Sprfld holes thought, good thing elk are big. I taped over everything thing and took three shots at 100 yards. There was a very stiff breeze from the right that I didn't compensate for and I didn't change a thing as it our nights are very still.

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I think what I will do next is go back to my maxx load with my TLC359-190-RF bullet, a bullet that I designed for the 35 Rem but that has shot well from the R92. I use it with 38 Spl brass so that I can get a full length cartridge of the 357 Mag with a match of the crimp groove and case mouth.

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When I worked the loads up for the three bullets, I also saved some comparison charts for evaluation.

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Once I get it sighted in I will put it on some daylight hogs so I can observer better. Maybe that silly 15-grains of bullet weight will help knock them over.

I'm sorry about the blog rather than a post but I know several members are getting ready for some 357 Mag hunting. I have killed several deer with this rifle and it does knock them off their hooves. They do have a lot higher center of mass and usually turn from the trouble which does get them started over. Hogs are a bit different.

In the meantime, the 480 Ruger is moving up. I need a sure thing the next time the hammer drops!
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Re: Rethinking my 357 Mag as a hog rifle?

Post by cstone »

Interesting information on hog behavior.

Just curious; have you ever shot a hog with a faster moving 125 or 158 gr hollow point? Clearly with an exit on both hogs as described there is still energy left in the bullet that isn't getting dumped in the animal. Slow moving hollow points tend not to expand and often will over penetrate, thereby wasting energy beyond the target. Just a thought and I would be interested in the results.
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Rethinking my 357 Mag as a hog rifle?

Post by jdl447 »

Ranch Dog wrote:I'm sorry about the blog rather than a post but I know several members are getting ready for some 357 Mag hunting. I have killed several deer with this rifle and it does knock them off their hooves. They do have a lot higher center of mass and usually turn from the trouble which does get them started over. Hogs are a bit different.
Thanks RD
Last edited by jdl447 on 20 Mar 2016 23:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Rethinking my 357 Mag as a hog rifle?

Post by Ranch Dog »

cstone wrote:Interesting information on hog behavior.

Just curious; have you ever shot a hog with a faster moving 125 or 158 gr hollow point? Clearly with an exit on both hogs as described there is still energy left in the bullet that isn't getting dumped in the animal. Slow moving hollow points tend not to expand and often will over penetrate, thereby wasting energy beyond the target. Just a thought and I would be interested in the results.
No I haven't with the 357 Mag but I have with AR. I've also found hollow points imbedded in their shield, which covers everything from the diaphragm forward, and also in their skull. Some of the wounds were horrendous but healed over. The hogs were operating without issue. I've also found them with broadheads in them all grizzled over.
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Re: Rethinking my 357 Mag as a hog rifle?

Post by mr surveyor »

I have seen a few hogs DRT at 300+/- yards with .243 ... dropped like a sack of rocks. For the close stuff, I would prefer the .44 mag (I think) ... but I lost my magic hunting spot the year before I bought the .44 mag R92 and haven't found the special place that's over run by hogs since.

Personally, I wouldn't "dis" the .357 mag, but for pigs I would think the bigger holes (one in and one bigger one out) would be better. If it ain't hyper-velocity, I'd think a bigger hole puncher would be the ticket. But, my experience is obviously pretty limited.

RD .... are you jerking our chains? Man, you've killed more hogs than most here have ever seen .... wild or farmed :)


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Re: Rethinking my 357 Mag as a hog rifle?

Post by Ranch Dog »

mr surveyor wrote:RD .... are you jerking our chains? Man, you've killed more hogs than most here have ever seen .... wild or farmed :)
Ahh... no chains jerked, just pondering what could be better. My Marlin 1894FG, the 41 Mag is by far my favorite hog killer but I'm shooting a 265-grain bullet in it. That rifle in my hands, and the hands of a few others, has killed several hundred hogs and not one has stayed on its feet. If they get up, in a few feet they are back down.

I do think that cstone is on the right track with his description of a bullet expending everything it has inside the hog but I like and entry and an exit hole cut through them. It may take 15 yards but with two holes, something is going to come out. I'm going to fish that hog out of my pond tomorrow and see if there is an exit hole. I didn't want to mess with it but I want to know.

The closest I came to being hurt was trailing a very large hog that I had shot with my Marlin 1894C 357 Mag. Lucky for me it was a morning shoot. I hit her behind the shoulder and was a few inches high, ended up taking only one lung out. I decided not to go up the trail she went up and instead circle around downwind on a seismic line and come in behind her. Sure enough, I found her crouched, watching the trail. I have no doubt she would have run right over me and she was big enough to hurt me. Instead, she got a bullet into her ear.

What is really weird around here is that while you are out at night, and I mean 2 to 3 o'clock, you hear rifle shots about like you do on a typical Saturday morning during deer season. All kinds of hog hunting going on. I hear a lot of semi autos, two to three shots real quick. Sounds like 308 Win.
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Re: Rethinking my 357 Mag as a hog rifle?

Post by mr surveyor »

If I had my choice, I would love to take that .41 mag for a spin on hogs. I've never owned anything .41 mag, but I still dream of paring down to a single caliber and I really think the .41 would be the ticket.

So you've dropped a good number of pigs with the .41? How does it compare to the in/out drain holes of the .44 mag and up?



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Re: Rethinking my 357 Mag as a hog rifle?

Post by Ranch Dog »

mr surveyor wrote:So you've dropped a good number of pigs with the .41? How does it compare to the in/out drain holes of the .44 mag and up?
Good question. I ran the comparisons through my TMT software. When I run these charts, my R92 44 Mag and R92 45 Colt overlap. You cannot tell one rifle from the other. I'm using a 300-grain bullet in my & 290-grain in the 45 Colt. I do load the Colt to 35.0 KPSI.

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There must be a point where "enough" is reached between the black line (R92 357 Mag 175-grain Round Flat Nose cast bullet) and the blue line (Marlin 1894FG 41 Mag 265-grain Round Flat Nose cast bullet).
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Re: Rethinking my 357 Mag as a hog rifle?

Post by Ranch Dog »

All this pondering of hogs and killing them has caused me to think about the largest hog killed out here, one killed by my brother in law using my Marlin 375 (375 Win) and my 235-grain cast bullet. He had seen a hog several days in a row in the predawn light that he swore was a black bear. He lived in the mountains of PA his entire life in an area where bears are as common as hogs are to me. I told him I was "pretty sure it was a hog so kill it even if it is not shoot'n light". Hunters from out of State have a tough time with the kill stuff at night in Texas. On schedule, the hog appeared the next morning and he shot it at 70 yards (notice how common that distance has been in my writing).

The hog made an immediate run, it wasn't knocked off his feet, covering a tight circle of about 20 yards in circumference and fell over dead. Ralph shot the hog right through the heart and that run was just that motor reflex in play. We estimated the hog at 300 lbs on the hoof and when we took it to the locker, a bit more trimmed up that field dressed, it weighed 200# on a certified scale.

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So, this got me thinking of just how does the short cartridges compare to the long. I just ran the cartridges compared with the Thornily index as I feel that is a true representation of what I see in the field.

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Pretty big gap between the 357 Mag and the others but you can see what a 44 Mag or 45 Colt (loaded it its potential) is capable of.
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Re: Rethinking my 357 Mag as a hog rifle?

Post by Bibletotingunslinger »

THANK YOU ALL for these informative posts, especially the miss piggy details by Ranch Dog and all,,,
I am one who puts a whole lot more lead through paper than critters, well and other recreational toys, GONGS, DINGERS etc. So my view points are, different.
I have always wanted to hunt me a good hog, well for a long time. No luck yet. So I went to this shoulder specialist to have my rotator cuffs looked at and this doc has trophies from all over the world, mostly just pictures in his office. Even had his photo in some hunting magazine.
We visited, I told him of my desires. He asked what I'd shoot the hog with. I told him SKS and .357 Mag revolver.
All he said was, "leave the 357 home."
I thought it was cool , he had a picture of a Mtn Goat he killed in some 3rd world place, with a 7.62X39,,,I thought, a rich guy with an SKS? strange

Some day I will get to Arizona or Texas, I hear they have little piggy. Utah not politically correct?????
Don't ask me to do anything where where I can't take Bible and Gun, I would leave Dog home, but reluctantly.
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