More Pasture Plows Down

[Double Naught Spy]

The hardest part on runners is to actually shoot where they are not. Sounds crazy, but many folks (including me) have/had mental blocks to doing that. Probably the next hardest thing is learning from your previous shots. I watch videos all the time where people will aim at the same place and miss every time. They may even be trying to lead the hog by putting it on its head or nose, but that amount of lead may not be far enough in front for the ammo being shot, distance of the hog, and speed of the hog.

If you like mental exercises to help visualize what is necessary, play with the numbers of the velocity of your ammo, distances to targets, and relative lateral speed of the targets and this will give you some idea about how much lead may be necessary.

For example, my ammo has a velocity of 2800 fps. It will take the ammo 0.22 seconds to go 180 yards. A hog running 15 mph is moving at 22 feet per second. Multiplied by 0.22 gives you a travel distance of 4.84 feet. So basically, you need to aim near 5 ft in front of the animal to make the shot at that distance.

Now do I have all this in my head at the time? No, of course not, but I know that I don't need to be aiming at the hog or putting the sights on the nose of a hog (both common behaviors) that is a long way away.