Tweet
Every time I go out, particularly when testing ammo, I have a plan on how I want things to proceed. The plans are often nothing more than just a fantasy I create while driving to my hunting destinations...fantasies given that they rarely come true, LOL.
I have been trying to recover these Hornady SST 129 gr. bullets loaded by Alexander Arms and have had terrible luck. Despite their low velocity, they seem to penetrate well and usually exit the hogs I shoot. The one exception was a frontal shot where the bullet ended up in the gut and I did not fish it out. Well, I finally recovered part of a bullet, but more on that in a minute.
The first hog last night was taken on a high fence exotic game ranch. I have hunted there before but have not been back in a while. Hogs were present, but I was not ever seeing them and the owner had hunters coming in and, well, it has be 2-3 months since I was last there. The owner said he has seen pigs by "Hoover Dam" (where I did hunt by a reservoir) and up on one of the plains areas. As it was really windy up top on the plains, I opted for Hoover dam. There is a feeder there that apparently has been running as I saw birds under it, but could not see any actual corn and so it must have gone off well before I arrived. Found a nice spot under a tree to watch the dam, feeder and a sort of open section of woods and figured I would spend 3 hours there before going to the next place. Got settled in a chair I just happened to find amongst the trees, did a quick scan to see what animals were around, sent a pic to a buddy who asked what I was doing, put the phone in my pocket and scanned and saw a hog coming in. I got the rifle up and made the shot. It happened that fast. While I could see he was quartered toward me, it wasn't enough and the bullet went through the skull and exited out on the opposite side of the neck, no recovery at all...but a good start.
I drove from property to property for the next 5 hours. I finally spotted a group of hogs and made a long stalk on them only to end up cornered by wind, terrain, structures, and livestock. During the last 20 minutes of the stalk, I moved only about 40 yards. At one point, hogs came within 15 yards of me, but I could not shoot them because it was not a safe direction of fire. All I could do was to do my best tree stump imitation and move very slowly. Eventually, they moved in a direction that was safe for me to shoot and I actually had 4 line up and so that is when I took my shot. Two went down and I recovered my first Hornady SST 129 gr. bullet, well, the cup. The core was gone. It would appear that the cup hit with enough force to enter the skull of the second hog and travel 2-3" into the brain. I could detect no other metal in either hog.
I am saving the information and more explicit images and such for a compilation video of AA Hornady SST 129 gr. results on hogs. I still have a few more rounds to go. Hopefully, I will get some better bullet recovery. The problem on bullet recovery is that I need for the bullet to remain in the hog and the hog to drop in place (or within a very short distance) on many of my properties that are smaller or heavily wooded, or remain in the hog and the hog be readily trackable on a larger property. It would probably help if the hog was a much larger hog as well. So far, What I can tell is that the bullets are punching through well enough despite their fairly low velocity, and they do appear to be opening up some with dime and nickel sized wound channels, but much of the data so far are somewhat tainted by heavy bone strikes, meaning I am not seeing the full expansion potential.
Anyway, there is the video from last night...
I have been trying to recover these Hornady SST 129 gr. bullets loaded by Alexander Arms and have had terrible luck. Despite their low velocity, they seem to penetrate well and usually exit the hogs I shoot. The one exception was a frontal shot where the bullet ended up in the gut and I did not fish it out. Well, I finally recovered part of a bullet, but more on that in a minute.
The first hog last night was taken on a high fence exotic game ranch. I have hunted there before but have not been back in a while. Hogs were present, but I was not ever seeing them and the owner had hunters coming in and, well, it has be 2-3 months since I was last there. The owner said he has seen pigs by "Hoover Dam" (where I did hunt by a reservoir) and up on one of the plains areas. As it was really windy up top on the plains, I opted for Hoover dam. There is a feeder there that apparently has been running as I saw birds under it, but could not see any actual corn and so it must have gone off well before I arrived. Found a nice spot under a tree to watch the dam, feeder and a sort of open section of woods and figured I would spend 3 hours there before going to the next place. Got settled in a chair I just happened to find amongst the trees, did a quick scan to see what animals were around, sent a pic to a buddy who asked what I was doing, put the phone in my pocket and scanned and saw a hog coming in. I got the rifle up and made the shot. It happened that fast. While I could see he was quartered toward me, it wasn't enough and the bullet went through the skull and exited out on the opposite side of the neck, no recovery at all...but a good start.
I drove from property to property for the next 5 hours. I finally spotted a group of hogs and made a long stalk on them only to end up cornered by wind, terrain, structures, and livestock. During the last 20 minutes of the stalk, I moved only about 40 yards. At one point, hogs came within 15 yards of me, but I could not shoot them because it was not a safe direction of fire. All I could do was to do my best tree stump imitation and move very slowly. Eventually, they moved in a direction that was safe for me to shoot and I actually had 4 line up and so that is when I took my shot. Two went down and I recovered my first Hornady SST 129 gr. bullet, well, the cup. The core was gone. It would appear that the cup hit with enough force to enter the skull of the second hog and travel 2-3" into the brain. I could detect no other metal in either hog.
I am saving the information and more explicit images and such for a compilation video of AA Hornady SST 129 gr. results on hogs. I still have a few more rounds to go. Hopefully, I will get some better bullet recovery. The problem on bullet recovery is that I need for the bullet to remain in the hog and the hog to drop in place (or within a very short distance) on many of my properties that are smaller or heavily wooded, or remain in the hog and the hog be readily trackable on a larger property. It would probably help if the hog was a much larger hog as well. So far, What I can tell is that the bullets are punching through well enough despite their fairly low velocity, and they do appear to be opening up some with dime and nickel sized wound channels, but much of the data so far are somewhat tainted by heavy bone strikes, meaning I am not seeing the full expansion potential.
Anyway, there is the video from last night...
Comment