You’ve heard the saying, “Everything has a purpose.”  I struggle with finding a purpose for fire ants and feral swine.  I see absolutely nothing good about fire ants.  About the only thing I can think of as being good about hogs, at least with old boars, they make good bullet stops.

An old boar has a shield.  Yes, a shield.  When boars fight, both boars basically do a dance each leaning on the other.  They face each other and end up neck-to-neck with each slashing at their opponent with their tusks.  Over time, a thick layer of scar tissue builds up on each boar’s shoulder area. An old boar will have enormous shoulders that taper back to smaller hindquarters.  The shoulders are massive muscles and heavy bones, but under the thick hide and coarse hair is a plate or shield that is about a half-inch thick with the consistency of Kevlar.  It is pliable but stiff. That is it’s “shield”.  It is not strips of scar tissue but a solid wall.  It covers the base of the boar’s neck, all of its shoulder and quits about the middle of the hog’s ribcage.

I usually shoot for a boar’s shoulder.  I have NEVER had a bullet exit on a broadside boar.  By the time the bullet hits coarse hair, then penetrates the thick hide, then the dense shield, massive shoulder muscles, maybe a heavy leg bone, next in line are the ribs and lungs, then the offside ribs, then the offside shoulder muscles, then shield,  and by then the bullet has run out of steam.

I have used 30-06, 308, 30-30, 7mm-08, 7mm Mauser, 260, 6.5×55 Sweed, 257 Roberts and 243.  These are common deer rifles.  I have used 85 grain varmint bullets with the 243 that everyone knows would not penetrate well all the way up to the 180 grain Hornady round nose bullets and Nosler Partitions.  Nothing has exited the off side.  Shooting an old boar in the shoulder when it is broadside is like shooting a sand bag.

The title of this blog is bullets and I did not mean to get going on feral swine boars but I needed that introduction to set my readers up for how I recover spent projectiles.  I reload my own shells and also use factory ammunition off and on.  When I’m hog hunting, I always carry a sharp knife and plastic gloves.  After I waylay a boar, I roll it on its back and cut deep into the armpit of the offside shoulder.  Probably 60% of the time I see where the bullet has made it through the rib cage and a hole where the bullet made it to the offside shoulder muscles.  I can probe into that hole and feel the chunck of the spent bullet so I simply pluck it out.  The other times the bullet will still be inside the rib cage.  NEVER has it penetrated past the offside shoulder shield where you can feel the bullet as a lump under the hide as you sometimes do with a deer.

When bullets hit an animal they begin to expand.  Imagine the time-lapse movies you have seen of flowers blooming.  Petals open up.  That is what happens to a bullet. There is a lot going on when a bullet strikes.  Not only is the bullet expanding, but it is spinning like a football. Most bullets are made of lead and the lead is enclosed in a copper jacket. The jacket material peels backward exposing the lead in the center of the bullet.  Pure lead expands too fast and will not hold up to modern day bullet velocities.  Bullet manufacturers have tinkered with different schemes to control the expansion so it does not open up too quickly and to keep the jacket and lead intact so it will penetrate deep.

The thickness of the jacket, the hardness of the lead, the amount of lead exposed on the tip, the taper of the jacket thickness towards the bullet’s shank and whether or not the lead and jacket are fused together eiher molecularly or mechanically all act on a bullet’s ability to penetrate.

Here is what I’ve learned:

1. Bullets with a lot of lead exposed on the tip expand faster and do not penetrate as deep as a bullet with a small amount of lead exposed. You would think a heavy bullet would penetrate deeper but not necessarily so. A 180 grain round nosed Hornady 30-06 with a lot of lead showing on the tip will not penetrate as deep as a 150 grain Remington Core-lock factory bullet.  The Remington has a small pin head amount of lead showing compared to the Hornady.
2. The deepest penetrating bullet I have used is the famous Nosler Partition.   That bullet’s front half expands rapidly like a normal soft point but the rear shank area of the bullet drives deep.  Consistent. It is like a hand grenade going off within the first 3-5 inches inside an animal but the rear half of the bullet stays intact to drive on deep into an animal. I have never seen this bullet fail.
3. The second deepest penetrating bullet I have used is a tie between hand loaded NoslerAccubonds and the factory loaded ammunition made by Federal called Fusion. These are normal soft point bullets but the lead is chemically fused to the jacket so the lead and outer jacket never comes apart.  Every Federal Fusion bullet I have ever recovered is the perfect mushroom or flower petal shape.  These bullets are very consistent. Hornady now makes a bonded bullet called InterBond but I have never used it. These should perform like the NoslerAccubond.
4. The worst penetrating bullets (obviously kills the hog but does not exit the chest area to the offside shoulder) are manufactured by Sierra. I reload Sierras a lot and they are very accurate and great on deer but many times the jacket and lead separates and at that point, penetration stops.
5. The second worst penetrating bullets are Hornady Spire Points and Hornady SSTs. Hornady has an inner ring within the shank of the bullet that is supposed to lock the lead and jacket together. 80% of the time they do well but 20% of the time they act like Sierras.   Great deer bullet but some time the penetration is lacking.
6. The second best factory bullet right behind the Federal Fusion line is a close tie between Winchester Power Point and Remington Core-lock. The Remington comes in the famous green and yellow box.  I’ve never seen a Remington jacket/lead separate and have only seen one Winchester separate but the Winchester was still together but simply loose within the jacket.

Now, every rifle is different.  You have to sight in with different weight bullets and different brands of bullets to see what shoots the tightest group in any particular rifle.  Always use the exact bullet you sight in with.  Do not switch from 150 grains, to 165 grains to 180 grains with say a 30-06 or 308 and expect the point of impact to be the same.  Do not even switch between manufactures such as Winchester 150 grains and Federal 150 grains and expect the bullet to hit the same point.  Use the EXACT bullet you will be hunting with when you sight that rifle.

SUMMARY:  Following is my list of best bullets for old boar hogs.

#1.Nosler Partition

#2& #3.A tie between Federal Fusion&NoslerAccubond.Hornady’sInterBond should be as well.

#4. Remington Core-lock

#5. Speer Hot-core

#6. Winchester Power Point

#7.Hornady Spire Point or Hornady SST

#8. Sierra Game King

#9.Nosler Ballistic Tip or Winchester Ballistic Silvertip (same bullet)

#10.  Any brand of Match bullets.  These are made for target shooting and should never be used on game animals.  They might explode and penetrate 2” and the next time not expand at all.

There are bullets made with no lead that should, in theory,penetrate outstandingly.  The most popular line of those bullets is probably Barnes.  I have never used a Barnes bullet on hogs because the early ones that I tried were not up to my accuracy standards.  Remember every rifle is different so Barnes may work great in your weapon.

Finally, all of this rant about suitable bullets reminds me of a dialog I read in a hunting magazine several years ago.  I cannot remember where I read it or who said it but it stuck with me and went something like this……….

Hunter  A – “Those dang bullets are no count!  They failed miserably on the buck I killed!”

Hunter B – “At what point of the deer’s demise did the bullet fail?”

Kind of makes sense.  The fact that I rolled a stinking boar over and was digging in its chest trying to recover the bullet tells the story that the bullet I used worked good enough.