Another long night and successful

[Jhop]

Pretty much had the normal hunting crew last night. There are four of us that hunt together regularly. One of the guys works 2 weeks on 2 weeks off. On the weeks he's not there various other folks go along. Last night the guy with the hunting rights took his son. We started out by looking over smaller spread out properties in Hamilton county. First two were dry, 3rd one...... Pigs. A 15-20 good sized pigs with a number of smaller pigs. The wind is in our favor, however the gates to the property are not. Not a problem, once the shooting starts we know which way the pigs will run. So a half mile stalk to the pigs go me and the Walker, the son. It's a soft plowed field, pretty close to a full moon, visibility is great. I have my Zeus 3-24x75mm Thermal mounted on my 6.8 AR, Walker has a Nikon 3-9x50mm with a Wicked light mounted up on his .223 AR. Meanwhile the other too drive around in preparation to cut the pigs off after we start shooting at them. Walker and get to with 50 yards of the pigs before the lead sow busts us. We hold tight and she just stands there while we get set up. I'm on her and right when she starts to run I shoot, Walker joins in. The moon is bright enough that he doesn't even turn on his light at first. The pigs are mostly running right to left. I Shoot the ones that run left to right. Walker's Wicked light come on and he engages a few. The pigs reach our cease fire limit. The two guys in the truck turn on the truck light and charge into the group of pigs that ran their way. They run over a number of them and then start shooting at the ones they can. Mean while Walker and I maneuver to shoot a few that have been hit without shooting in the other direction. A good number of pigs are hit but make their escape onto adjacent property and into the brush. I dropped 4 out of this group and the truck crew got 5 for a total of 9. Mine were all sows including the big lead sow. The 5 from the truck crew were all boars. More to follow....

 

[Jhop]

 

[Chopperdrvr]

That's some darn nice looking piggage there. Good job.

 

[Ratdog68]

Kinda rough on the truck to whack-'em with that. LOL Good work, though, whatever it takes to slay pigs.

 

[Jhop]

We drive around picking up the pigs and they kept falling off the back of the truck. We had a couple coolers in the truck and lets face it 3 of us are old guys and just can't throw the pigs up that far into the truck. Truck was riding pretty low, so we lined them took some pictures and headed to the next property. At the next place we driving the fence checking snares, no coyotes. We spot a lone boar out in a field on the way to the back of the property. The driver lines a shot up and POW, "Pig report", however it takes off and a take shot at the running boar and drop him. Double team kill on him. We continue on to the back. We spot the biggest wild pig I've ever seen. Thought it was a cow at first, but there aren't any on the this part of the property. We decide to dismount and walk down a fence line for the kill. No joy, the giant pig takes off chasing a couple smaller ones into the brush onto the adjacent property. We try calling, but no luck with that either. So we head back to the truck. About halfway back from the 200 yard walk we hear pigs squeals. I also have a a Armasight Zeus 3-24x75mm that I don't have mounted on a rifle that we use to scan with. A quick scan and I see 30-40 pigs headed out of the brush from the adjacent property out into the open. I tell the other guys I don't have enough ammo. Off to the truck I go, get a couple more mags for two of us. We walk back down the tree/fence line and spread out. I'm on the far right of the line closest to the brush. One of the guys starts grunting at the pigs and the lead sow heads towards us. At that point I swing towards the pigs on the far right. POW a shot rings out, big squeal, "Pig Report" rings out. I squeeze the trigger nothing. A run thru "SPORTS' on my AR and realized I'd forgot to hit that mag release when I reloaded earlier. Just the same I get off 15 rounds at the fleeing pigs. I drop one of the three pigs we shot. The other guys says they could hear me hitting a number of pigs as they ran for cover. I'm the only one with thermal. They all have Wicked light mounted on their AR's. I scanned the adjacent property but we don't have permission to hunt it. So we don't bother to look for the pigs that were hit. 4 pigs in total off this property. Brings my Total for the night to 5.

 

[Curly Shuffle]

Heck of a fun story and a mighty fine mess of some dandy hogs!! They all look like dandys fo sure!!! So with that a GOOD ON YA!! Nice going guys!!! BANG BANG!!!

 

[Jhop]

On to the next property. By this time I'm pretty tired, I've already worked 10 hours today before we even started hunting. I'm pretty much nodding off the driver and spotter are scanning the next place for pigs. This place is about 2500 acres with lots of river bottom land. I wake up in time to hear someone walk out and shoot him. This perks me right up. Benoh, the spotter has never shot my 6.8 with the thermal. It's his turn, out we go. It's about a 250 yard walk to get close enough for an easy shot. With the moon as bright as it was, he walks behind me till we gets within a 100 yards. He sets up the shot using my Trigger stick and 6.8. POW "Pig Report" he dropped him with one shot. 14 pigs for the night.

 

[Jhop]

One of the guys lost his phone, so we decide to daylight out and look for his phone in the light. Basically 3 of us are napping in the truck while Benoh is looking for pigs when the sun comes up. He spots ones and wakes us up. This one just kinda moved along in front of us. Benoh shot the littlle Boar from about 120 yards with his Remington R-25 in .308. Dropped him in his tracks. Sorry no pic of this one. I'll get one later and add it. 15 pigs for the night/day of 23/24 Jan 2016.


We found the phone too! lol

 

[RattlesnakeDan]

That's a great night! Good job!!

 

[Jhop]

One question. I've only ever put the pigs I kill on the "Kill Counter" do I put other guys kills on there or not?

 

[ZenArchery]

NOW THATS TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS!!! Congrats

 

[Chopperdrvr]

You were with them, so include all that the group killed. The prime reason for the counter is just to get an idea how many pigs we are taking out of the population. Great story and ya'll had an awesome night.

 

[Jhop]

You were with them, so include all that the group killed. The prime reason for the counter is just to get an idea how many pigs we are taking out of the population. Great story and ya'll had an awesome night.

I've been under reporting then. I'm not going to go back and report past kills. I'll just start with the one we killed this weekend.

 

[Jhop]

The daylight pig.

 

[hdfireman]

Nice work and glad that 6.8 upper is do'n the job!!!

 

[FrankT]

Good killing there, I love the 6.8, what ammo you using?

 

[Jhop]

I'm using factory Hornady 120sst's. I've been saving my brass and and as you can see by the picture I just installed the Tactical Brass catcher. I was a little skeptical about using it. However it works as advertised. Didn't get hung up at all getting in and out of the truck. After I get enough brass I'll start reloading my own.

 

[FrankT]

There you go, the best for what you are doing from what TLM says, should get 200fps more out of your hand loads too.

 

[Jhop]

There you go, the best for what you are doing from what TLM says, should get 200fps more out of your hand loads too.

I've been testing with H322. I haven't shot them over my chronograph yet but I'm betting my hand loads will be slower than the Factory 120SST's are. The Factory loads are shooting at 2550 out of my Blackstone Arms upper with an 18" ************** barrel. The faster I pushed rounds the more the groups opened up. Right now I'm at 25.9 grains of H322. Waiting till I shoot up my remaining Factory ammo before I make the switch.

 

[Afalex1]

Looks and sounds like you had a great hunt.

Try Accurate Arms 2200 for powder instead of H-322. Your reloads will be equal to or faster then factory stuff.