I got invited out to hunt over in Hall County. This had been in the works for a while before I was finally able to get away and the wait turned out to be worthwhile.
I could not believe it. We got on the first set of hogs and David started the count down to fire and as he started counting, the adrenaline dumped. You can watch it happen. The wobble spins up and then I jumped the shot ahead of the count. I had plenty of time for adrenaline to dump before that, but it wasn't until the last moment that it happened.
The second night was much more productive.
No necropsy this time, but I did get some new results with the Berger VLD-Hunting ammo. I shot three hogs. On the smallest (~160 lbs...estimated from the larger 180 lb hog next to it), the bullet passed through on a broadside shot, as expected. The broadside shot on the running 180 hog did not exit, however, and there I would expect it to happen. The coup de grace shot was down the long axis of the body and did not exit. On the largest hog (225 lbs), neither the first shot or the broadside finishing shot (off camera) during the walk up managed to exit. These Berger bullets almost always exit and have on all previous broadside and quartering shots and on hogs bigger in size than these, so the result is a bit surprising. No doubt that the more you shoot with a given round, more of the unusual results will appear.
I am not a great tracker of blood trails, but on the shot that did overpenetrate, the hog ran and ran well. It was a blood trail that could just about be followed in the dark with no lights. The only problem was that the hog make it to some thick brush. I followed the trail into the brush until passage required crawling on hands and knees and after encountering rattlesnakes earlier in the day, that just wasn't going to happen.
I could not believe it. We got on the first set of hogs and David started the count down to fire and as he started counting, the adrenaline dumped. You can watch it happen. The wobble spins up and then I jumped the shot ahead of the count. I had plenty of time for adrenaline to dump before that, but it wasn't until the last moment that it happened.
The second night was much more productive.
No necropsy this time, but I did get some new results with the Berger VLD-Hunting ammo. I shot three hogs. On the smallest (~160 lbs...estimated from the larger 180 lb hog next to it), the bullet passed through on a broadside shot, as expected. The broadside shot on the running 180 hog did not exit, however, and there I would expect it to happen. The coup de grace shot was down the long axis of the body and did not exit. On the largest hog (225 lbs), neither the first shot or the broadside finishing shot (off camera) during the walk up managed to exit. These Berger bullets almost always exit and have on all previous broadside and quartering shots and on hogs bigger in size than these, so the result is a bit surprising. No doubt that the more you shoot with a given round, more of the unusual results will appear.
I am not a great tracker of blood trails, but on the shot that did overpenetrate, the hog ran and ran well. It was a blood trail that could just about be followed in the dark with no lights. The only problem was that the hog make it to some thick brush. I followed the trail into the brush until passage required crawling on hands and knees and after encountering rattlesnakes earlier in the day, that just wasn't going to happen.
