77/44 for wild boar

m1978

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is a 44 magnum rifle a good choice to KO wild boar? some folks have told me yes, others no. just curious what the consensus is? will a 44 mag have enough juice to break through both shoulders?
 
Yes it will do on large hogs, but not sure about the breaking both shoulders part. I just moved home to Ontario in Aug. after living in Texas for the last 6 years. I had a 640 acre hunting lease the whole time and hunted wild boar up to 300Lbs 365 days a year. If you are accurate with your rifle or will not be making long shots, there are better targets than the shoulders. Trust me. I am not a fan of tracking injured boars and prefer a DRT shot. (dead right there)

I have a good friend down there that owns his own outfitting company and all they do is hunt hogs using 3 Rugers in 44mag (2 bolt, 1 lever) and one LWRC AR15 in 6.8SPC There are a ton of videos of Randy and crew in action using the 44's. Enjoy.....

click on the link, then click Equipment.

http://www.nighthogs.com/Equipment.html


Here are some vids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCfOMQPz-sE


Let us know how you do.
 
I have shot boars with a 7-08 XP-100 pistol and 44 mag. You DON'T shoot the shoulder as you loose a lot of meat! You shoot low and behind the shoulder for a heart lung shot! My first one at about 25 yards that was cornered by dogs, showed a nice broadside which is shot hear-lung. It still sood while I reloaded. It turned and then fell, dead! They are not tough animals to kill, if you use prpoper bullet placement. On one trip, there was a fellow from Boston that shot them in the head with a Marlin 45-70 lever action. Never lost any meat and he made jewelry from the tusks.
Henry
 
I have shot boars with a 7-08 XP-100 pistol and 44 mag. You DON'T shoot the shoulder as you loose a lot of meat! You shoot low and behind the shoulder for a heart lung shot! My first one at about 25 yards that was cornered by dogs, showed a nice broadside which is shot hear-lung. It still sood while I reloaded. It turned and then fell, dead! They are not tough animals to kill, if you use prpoper bullet placement. On one trip, there was a fellow from Boston that shot them in the head with a Marlin 45-70 lever action. Never lost any meat and he made jewelry from the tusks.
Henry

I agree. If you can do it, the the ear is a great place to put it and you loose no meat and there's no tracking job.

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Took the bottom of this little guy's heart out with a 110gr 6.8SPC at 50 yards and he still made it another 40 yards into the brush before he pumped himself dry.

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Made mush of this one's heart with a Federal 165gr BTSP .308Win and he made it almost 50 yards. Hogs are tough suckers for certain.

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Don't want to hijack your thread, just giving you some food for thought.
 
if I was God Blessed with info leading to a successfull wild boar hunting area in S.E. Mb, I'd be pack'en one of my repeating 308's, nothing less. Not to say that the 44mag is NFG, I just want some wild bacon and ham sooooooooo darn bad, that I would go with my 308! I'm told that these guys are die hard's, and that one should respect that fact!
 
I'm told that these guys are die hard's, and that one should respect that fact!

They can be tough to recover with marginal shots. That is why I finally switched over to ear or CNS shots in the neck. All hogs, but especilly the older boars, form a layer of fat referred to as the 'shield'. It wraps around their necks and across the shoulders.

Here is a little 60Lb boar that I took to put on the smoker. You can already see the thick layer of fat beginning to form over the neck/shoulders:

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This is a couple of pics of a 282Lb boar I took last year. In the first pic you can see he's got some good cutters. Unfortunately I left the camera batteries in the recharger at home that night or I would post pics of his shield. There was a lot of scar tissue in it where he was getting cut up from fighting other boars for dominance. There is 2 hours difference in the pics. He wouldn't settle down as there where coyotes around. When he came back he got a .308 pill to the head.

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Here is a pretty good video demo of how tough that area can be on a big ol' boar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ1Mg0a7Tpw&feature=share&list=UUCXKkEDiDlaAgIV1nU7cwsQ
 
There are different types of wild boar and I think where/when/how you will be hunting is relevant to the question. In Europe the boar are much stouter than the ones I have seen and shot here. They have much thicker fur and hide, plus often have a thick layer of mud covering their sides/chest. In Europe I used 8x68S and 8x57, and both worked well. Here I used mostly .257 Wby with 75gr X bullets and a crossbow.
 
awesome video's SATX.

That was Todd with Buck & Boar down in S. Carolina.

My personal hog hunting vids were shot at night using red lights about 50 yards from a feeder. They are a bit harder to see on video, but the hogs never seemed to be bothered with red lights. Tried many times getting them used to white lights that were set up with a dusk to dawn switch, but it was a no go.

Here is one of a hog about 125 yards away shot through my nv scope using an older LG phone.
http://youtu.be/FZlDr-d5K_k

Older Sony HandiCam using red feeder lights
http://youtu.be/vQHicn75fTs

Same set up with a fresher battery in the lights
http://youtu.be/1d11KskkvMs
 
thanks for all of the info guys. i'm sure the .44 will do the job nicely i've been reading that the .44 mag hits harder than its small size would suggest. i really like the 77/44, its very light and handy.
 
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