just returned from Texas, my son Brad and I had 5 days in the Panhandle camping and hunting hogs. Temps ranged from a high of 64 degrees during the day to a low of 19 degrees at night and we got a taste of winter with 3.5" of snow on Wednesday. We saw plenty of hogs, coyotes, Muley's and whitetails
Brad was shooting a TC Contender with an MGM 375 Winchester barrel, shooting handloads of 37 grains of RL-7 and a 200 grain Serria FP bullet @ 1900 fps. He killed two sows between 125 and 150 lbs at 104 and 158 yards.
I was shooting my recently rebuilt 358 Winchester striker with an ER Shaw barrel, Harrel radial brake, Rockwell custom stock and a 2.5-8 weaver scope. I was shooting handloads in new sig brand 308 brass resized to 358, 48.0 grains of IMR 4895 and a Hornady FTX 200 grain bullet @ 2475 FPS. This gun/load combo is amazingly accurate, shooting under 1/2" groups at 100 yards.
My hogs were 100 lb sow @100 yards head shot, 150 lb sow@168 yards heart shot and a 40 lb boar @310 yards heart shot. The first two were DRT and the 40lb boar hog ran about 40 yards in a semi-circle before tipping over. The shot hit slightly behind the front shoulders leaving his front running gear intact, not on purpose, just didn't dope enough wind into the shot as i had a full value wind at 18-20 mph.
I also for the first time shot a grill pig, this was a 20 lb'er that we skinned and gutted, knocked off his head and front shoulders and cooked on the grill for about 2 hours. Enough meat on the pig to feed me and Brad all we could eat and had a little left over for a sandwich. Most tender hog meat ever! I shot this one at 74 yards with a 4 5/8" Ruger Flattop 44 special wearing a Burris FF 3, 245 grain PCSWC keith bullet with 7.0 grains of universal powder running 900fps.
We had a great trip and was able to get some pork to grind into breakfast sausage and got away from the below zero temps in northern iowa for a week.
