The Guide Sam and Ming Li
Kats First Hog
Starting the year 2010 with a bang!
No pun intended here but we will be featuring a new section in the Native Hunt Blog.
We here at Native Hunt currently have an impressive roster of 10 Professional Hunting Guides working for us who’s experience and knowledge of the wilderness, hunting and the outdoors can be utilized by the readers of our blog.
This new feature will be added to our Hunting Tips section, and will be a completely open forum. This forum will enable you to have full access to over 100 years of collective knowledge gained from these experienced woodsmen.
Please stay tuned and look for: Ask The Guides to be up and available after the first of the year!
Happy Hunting and a very merry Christmas to you all!
Blog Archive
August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009Categories
Question for Sam the guide!
How many yards and will we see a story on the second Archery Bison Hunt this year?
Dangit! There was another archery bison hunt?!?
I gotta hear the tale! Video this time? Out with it, man!
I know it is a bit early yet Sam as we do not have our “Ask The Guide” feature up and running yet, but a previous client who you guided earlier this year (Ken Walls) asks your opinion: Ken writes:
“In your opinion, what is the optimum calibre of rifle and bullet grain (type) combination for stopping a big boar in his tracks!”
“I am ready to go after a wall mounter this time!”
Dear ken,
In my own opinion of callibers for hunting wild pigs, two cartridges come to mind. 30/06 and 7mm rem mag. The 30/06 outfitted with a bullet weight from 150gr up to 180. For the 7mag, 140 to around 160 has always worked for me. Now you can go with a larger rifle or smaller and realistically any rifle from a 25/06 up to a 338 ultra mag will do the job. But what I have seen is that the 30/06 and the 7mag has the balance between power and control. With larger rifles it can take some time to learn to control the recoil and muzzle blast. A lot of hunters reach for these large magnums first and cant get used to the shock and get “shooters flinch” and it can take some time to get rid of it once you have it. With the lighter rifles the problem can be when you make a less than perfect shot and had you a little more power behind that bullet you may have been able to recover a poorly hit animal. So the 30/06 and the 7mag is somewhat the middle ground for hunters. plenty of power but not unmanagable. When a hunter arives at the gate and I ask him what caliber he is shooting and he says he has one of the two, it always makes me feel more comfortable. Now there are many new callibers out there that will match or exceed the ballistics of the two I have listed and are good shooting rifles but economically speaking it makes more sense to me to get the rifle with forty plus years of reloading data behind it and save a little on cartridge cost. But in the end you need to shoot a rifle that you can be most affective with. Hope that answers your questions Ken.
Great answer Sam!
I just learned a thing or two myself from reading what you had to say about this often discussed subject.
But Sam, I love my .17hmr, and I’m stone cold deadly with it. If shoot a hog in the eye, it should do the job just fine, shouldn’t it?
Just kidding, folks… don’t get excited. No way I’d shoot hogs with a .17.
Totally agree that the 30-06 (and 7mm) are excellent choices for hog hunting… and for exactly the reasons Sam described. Most hunters can handle the recoil, but both calibers pack plenty of wallop.
As far as bullet selection, you’re gonna be limited to non-lead since the ranches are in the “Condor Zone”. Remember that you generally want to step down a touch in bullet weight when using the Barnes, copper bullets. For example, if you shoot a 180gr lead bullet from your 30-06, step back to a 165gr Barnes (TSX, TTSX, MSX). You’ll usually find better terminal performance and accuracy. If you’re shooting one of the gilding metal bullets (Winchester/Nosler eTip, Hornady GMX, etc.), you’re fine to keep the same bullet weight you’d always used.
Regardless of bullet weight or composition, you should always re-check your zero when you switch ammo. Most people report a significant difference when they switch from lead to non-lead… especially with the Barnes copper.