Reply With QuoteI read this whole post thinking you were talking about hogs as in swine, not ground-. We don't have groundhogs down here, and I didn't look at the pictures till the end. Was thinking, The .17? For hogs? Really?
Nice shooting!
After three misses on one >(have not seen it again so far) and another miss (have not seen this one again either) on a second hog :-[, I finally scored on two today ;D. Maybe I should have gone to the range first to get in some practice instead of going out cold turkey???
I won't be counting the two misses as kills, but it will be interesting to see if they ever show up down the road.
Anyway, both kills came with the 17 HMR. The first one I saw was this past Tuesday while scouting one of my regular farms. It was standing on a pile of manure and split before I could get set for a shot. I went back today, set up a hay bail blind and waited. After a long wait and glassing in other directions, she finally showed up, standing up on one of the manure piles. This time I was ready. Her back was to me and then she turned towards the right and the Marlin barked. She dropped, but without the smack of the larger calibers, it's hard to tell it they're dead on impact.
So I walk over to where I think she should be and there's no body. Now I'm pissed! Especially after my previous misses. I looked and looked and finally found her at the bottom of the next manure pile over. With the lack of depth of field on my range finding binos, it's hard to get the right perspective, especially at the shorter distances. This one was 80 yds. She's a young female who looks like she might still be nursing? Couldn't find the entrance, but the exit is obvious. Here are the pics. Sorry about the cell phone quality!
After the retrieval and the pics, I head over to another of my regular farms where I had my second miss. That one is no where to be seen, but another that I have seen twice is right there on top of a weed covered dirt pile waiting for me. He goes about his business as I set up using the hood of the truck to steady my aim. This one is also facing away, but I'm not waiting and let the 17 grain V-Max fly straight to the tarket and he drops right where he was standing. Nice thing about the 17 HMR, you can watch everything enfold due to very little recoil. This time no indication of an entrance or exit wound. Here are the DRT pics of a relatively young male.
Hope to be able to post more of my efforts in the weeks and months to follow.
I read this whole post thinking you were talking about hogs as in swine, not ground-. We don't have groundhogs down here, and I didn't look at the pictures till the end. Was thinking, The .17? For hogs? Really?
Nice shooting!
That's funny! Sorry about the confusion. (G)hogs are all I shoot, so I didn't think about the post from someone else's perspective. I guess you could consider a hog (the boar and sow kind) a varmint? I think of them as bigger game. IMHO.Originally Posted by barrel-nut
They are definitely both, larger game and a varmint around here. To the point that there is no closed season and no limit on them. Consider it fortunate if you do not (yet) have to deal with them. And while I do know of at least one instance of a .17HMR being used successfully on a large hog (it was a head shot), it wouldn't be my first choice for "our" hogs. Probably nearly ideal for "yours", though??
Which bullets are you shooting?
I think he said 17 gr V-max...:)
Here in NJ we have a season for everything. Rediculous! Fortunately, we don't have any hogs to worry about, yet. Heard they are expanding their territory all the time. Have seen (in FL & on TV) and heard about the kind of damage they can do. Get as many as you can!
Yeah, the 17 is ideal and gets the job done, within reason. I use the 17 and 20 grain V-Max and the 20 gr CCI hollow points. So far they all seem to be effective out to about 125 yds. So far all my confirmed kills have been under 100 yds. Most of my opportunities around here are under 200 yds, but the longer distances are not available yet as the crops are too high to see them for a clean shot. Hope to post some of those in the future. :)
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