A buddy and I went hog hunting on his parents’ farm in -, TX. Wandered into a field of peanuts and found a group of 20-30 of them having a morning snack.
We both set up and started firing, and the piggies scattered to the winds like you wouldn’t believe. I had a 45-70 lever, and was having trouble figuring out how much to lead the critters when I got lucky and one turned direct away from me, and at about 150 yards, I hit it in the backside and the buffalo round went clean through the pig and out the front end. The results were quite dramatic.
My buddy was shooting an AR10 that had a marginal scope on it, and not having much luck either. The pigs that had run off to the right had gotten away, and I had used up my 5 shots and didn’t have the presence of mind to reload (adrenaline).
I looked over to his left and saw a bunch of pigs stand up and start running to the left (since it had gotten quiet) and tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. He commenced to firing, and managed to hit one in the spine. He ended up having to finish it off with his .44.
All told, we learned a few things, which is why I’m bothering to tell this story.
1: At ... fps, it takes your average 308 or 45-70 round ... seconds to reach a pig at 150 yards. During which time, said pig travels about 6 ft, at 30MPH. We figured out that I was probably shooting *behind* them. (I was aiming 2 ft in front of the head.)
2: As told to us by one of the local constabulary, a high capacity semi-auto with some punch is the preferred tool for the job. Bolt action and such are fine for deer hunting, but this isn’t deer hunting.
3: The pack of pigs we shot at pretty much split and went far to the left and right of us. In retrospect, I’m glad they didn’t start running toward us. That could have gotten ugly.
Anyway, just thought I’d share that little bit of outdoor “adventure” with you. Enjoy!
Sorry, not possible. A 308 leaves the barrel traveling about 900 yards per second. A 45-70 about half to 2/3 that speed. So it would take less than a 1/4 second to get there. You may have been shooting in front of them. Or just shooting over them.
Actually on doing the other part of the equation, a pig traveling at 30mph would go about 40 ft per second, or 5-10 ft in the 1/4 to 8th of a second the bullet takes to get there. So I take it back, you may very well have been shooting behind it. And a fraction of a second can seem like seconds when your adrenaline gets pumping.
“an AR10 that had a marginal scope on it”
Could you describe the scope he was using please?