.32-20 on hogs

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dwwhite

New member
I was wandering around my deer hunting pasture this morning with no real intention of shooting any deer, so I only carried my little .32-20.

Long story short, I ended up shooting two feral pigs out of a sounder of 10-12. One with a double lung shot and one with a spine shot. Both were anchored and dying, but I did go ahead and finish each with a forehead shot at close range.

Both weighed around 100#, which is a typical mature sow for the area.

According to Internet wisdom, that little cast bullet should have bounced right off, but oddly enough, I guess those hogs don't read the hunting forums.

Granted, it's not an ideal caliber for the job, but it goes to show what kind of shortcomings you can make up for with close range and shot placement.

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Good job.

I killed a 180 lb boar years ago with a .22lr behind the ear at 35 yards. While .22lr and .32-20 aren't ideal for feral pigs, sometimes you have to use what you have on you.
 
Commercial, or handload ?
Click to expand...

Hand loads only for this one, I don't make enough money to feed it commercially loaded stuff.

My go to is a commercially cast 110-120 grain LFN of whatever brand is available over 3.5 grains of titegroup. No chronograph but it should be good for about 1050 fps.

In other rifles I have loaded 100 grain Hornady XTP's over a lot of 4227, but I need a taller front sight for this rifle to shoot that load to poa, so it's slow cast loads for now.
 
There is a lot of misinformation out there about hog hunting. Ideally a larger caliber would be better, but they can be killed with all kinds of bullets. I have used 32/20's, 38/40's,44/40's and lots of other calibers...including muzzleloaders. Don't let folks tell you about all the bullets that bounce off of hogs....It just ain't so..
 
I recently watched a YouTube video of a young man who toppled a big Pennsylvania doe with his 25-20 rifle. Two quick chest shots did the job at close range from his tree stand. Certainly gave me new respect for these old time cartridges for close distance hunting.

Jack
 
I killed two out of a sounder of ten with a .380 Pocket pistol.It surprised me as they were hit in the shoulder area. They both ran about twenty yards. When I were younger my dad let me shoot meat hogs with a .22 short.
 
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