[fast97rs]

What do you guys think?

I like the .30-06 Sprng. because ammo is always available and because its a .30-06....

But for game like hog/boar... and whitetail deer what do you guys think?

 

[huntswithdogs]

They'll both do a good job on deer. The 06 may have the upper hand on the boars. Selection of bullet weight are generally better on the 06 also. That being said,I don't believe you'd be under gunned with either though.

hwd

 

[Drop-Shot]

If I were only hunting white tail deer,antelope,mule deer,I would love the 7mm08 but when bigger animals are brought into the picture,I would go with the 30/06.If you ask uglydog he would tell you more about the 7mm08 but then again he he has alot of experience with the 7mm08,mine has been limited and along time ago.There are better bullets now but I still like the 30/06 for more power and bigger bullets.Drop-Shot

 

[mountainview]

I could not decide on which one to get so I wound up getting both and would not want to part with either. My 7mm-08 is a tad trimmer than my 30-06 so is easier to tote in thicker stuff while the 30-06 has the extra pep I want for bigger game. When it comes to deer, I toss a coin. Above posts seem right on with their comments of each cartridge.

 

[8pointduck]

Hey Mountain I like your style. Getting them both now thats my kind of thinking...

 

[uglydog]

If your hogs are generally in the 200 pound class or less, then either will do. For really big hogs at all angles, I'd go with the 30/06. I don't have a lot of hog experience but they are mean enough that I prefer over kill to barely adequate. I've shot a couple handfuls with a 6mm and even .223s but I wouldn't want to rely on them to protect my health. If your hogs are regularly over 200#, I'd be picky with my shots with a 7mm/08 and use premium bullets. I don't think a hog with a 140gr or larger Nosler Partition, Speer Grand Slam, Barnes X-Bullet, Bitterroot Bear Claw, etc. through its lungs is going to go far. It still will be able to cover some ground (which is true with a hit like this with any bullet) but it will definitly expire. For bone breaking ability, the 30/06 with similar bullets would be my minimum choice. For game that can bite back, I prefer as big as I can effectively use. You can't kill them enough.

 

[Drop-Shot]

I like your answer ugulydog,I used to hunt the hogs down south and they hunt back.I've seen them run when they see you but when wounded I've resorted to climbing the smallest trees around to get away from those things.I once found a tree that had fallen and the roots were 10 feet high,the thing was the dang hog knew how to go around and climb the easy end,I hated to do it but I had to shoot her,I had shot one of her sholts and she was pissed.I had to turn her in to the game wardens but I got to keep that 80 lb sholt,boy was she good eating.So I argee,where animals hunt back,use as much gun as you have and 30/06 is just fine.Drop-Shot

 

[Guest]

re: .30-'06

Fast97rs,

I do quite a lot of hog hunting here in California and all of it has been done with a .30-'06. Yeah, I'm biased.

But here's the deal. The feral hogs that we have in California are, for the most part, a combination of domestic and European wild boar genes. Some look "wilder" than others, but most of them that I've shot have had one thing in common. That "thing" is known as a "gristle plate", which can be up to 2 inches thick, or more. It's a tough, "spongy", cartalige material that your bullet has to penetrate through before it gets to the shoulder blade bone. I've never shot a whitetail, as we don't have them here in the Golden State, but I've yet to shoot a hog that wasn't "built to a higher, stouter standard" that our typical mule deer bucks -much heavier-duty bone structure on the pigs.

I don't have to shoot real far, but I need a lot of sectional density and deep-digging penetration from my bullet when I'm hog hunting.

For me, the .30-'06, loaded to the hilt (safely, by working up to the max load in the book) with the excellent Barnes 180 grn. .308 'X' bullet is the right medicine for hogs because it's got the penetration to get through the gristle plate, break the shoulders, and anchor the animal.

If I was going the 7mm route, I'd be shooting 175gr. bullets for certain, and it would certainly be a Barnes 'X' bullet.

-JP

 

[Drop-Shot]

I'm with you Mr Shelton on how hard the hogs can be to kill,I've shot them in north Louisanna at a game reserve called Thistlewait.The hogs have tusks there and were brought here from europe and went loose in the slavery days.They have taken root and will hunt back,a game warden there(I bet he is retired now,that was in the 7o's to 80's)walks with a limp and a cane because of the hogs there,he shot one with buckshot at close range and the hog tore up his leg muscles.I would use 30/06 as I have seen them shot with a 30/30 several times and still run us up a tree,yea he died but it took awhile.I always carried a 44 mag pistol with shiloute bullets just in case after that.My 30/06 took 3 hogs,2 with 1 shot and the other was just mean and took 2 180 gr partitions.Yep,30/06 for sure.Drop-Shot

 

[Guest]

Drop-Shot,

What's up with this "Mr. Shelton" stuff? "JP" works for me, and it's a heck of a lot quicker to type!

But back to the subject at hand.......

I used to hunt pigs with a guy who thought I was ridiculously under-gunned. When he started hunting pigs with me, he carried a .338 Winchester Magnum and wound up with a .375 H&H as his pig harvester. He never needed more than one shot.

I'm not so sure that a .375 H&H is really needed for the pig hunting that I do, but I wouldn't be too proud to carry a .338 Winchester Magnum on a pig hunt if I had one.

I've heard stories about how mean these things can be. I guess we must have a kinder, gentler version here in California. Either that, or I've been lucky. As one who has been chased around an Oklahoma barnyard by an uncle's old domestic sow, I do know that a pissed off pig is nothin' to be trifled with. I guess that's why I wouldn't be too proud to carry a more powerful rifle afield than a .30-'06 in pursuit of pigs, if I had one.

-JP

 

[Drop-Shot]

JP I've only take 3 wild hogs at Thistlewait and been with others that had permits that got theirs,so I've been involved with about 11 or 12 hogs.I watched one shot with a 30/30 4 times before we had to hit the trees,another off ground shot at about 3 feet finished the job but if trees of small size were the only trees there we would have been hog bit,and that always ends up bad.I used a ruger 30/06 with 180 gr partitions,and mostly that was ok but I still had one that charged me with a shoulder hit with a partition and I shot it from the front and droped it.The first hit was devastating but that rascal kept coming.30/06 is the smallest I ever hunted Thistlewait hogs with,once a friend took one with a 12 guage slug,but for rifles,30/06 worked.We hunted ferral hogs in Mississippi that wern't that bad,cross between russion boar and ferral hog.duroc mostly and they could be bad but not as bad as thisthewait's hogs.Drop-Shot

 

[markIVbigblock]

i dont know where ur from or what ur ranges are but for hogs and whitetails out to 100 yards (which is the longest shot we ever get here in michigan) nuthin works better than the four four mag it was my primary deer rifle till i decided deer huntin sucks and its taken a north carolina hog. just thought id give u a different choice I like to think outside the box and be different :twisted:

Aaron

 

[Drop-Shot]

Hey Aaron,I wish you could see these hogs in thistlewait,you use to have to get a permit to hunt them,I talked to a friend back in Louisianna(my wife and son and married daughter are there now)and he said they are thinner since I used to hunt them,the last one I got had 4 inch tusks and stunk so bad I just kept the pictures and donated the meat.Hard cast 44 mag might be an option even for those rascals.I kept a 44 mag pistol with shilouite bullets for penatration,we did not have real hard cast back then.The kinder hogs would not be so bad but when your life might hang in the balance you want alot,the 44 mag hard cast(laser-cast or performance cast bullets)would probebly work fine,I hope,one day I'm going back to take a look at those rascals one more time before I die,or mabe thats when I die.The texas boys know of a mean hog that don't get as big,but there tempers sure do.The Javalinas are pretty mean and a male is a trophy not a meal,those rascals stink.Drop-Shot

 

[Guest]

MarkIVBigBlock,

Well, the .44 mag from a rifle might be okey-dokey in the part of Michigan where you hunt, but it sure wouldn't be my first choice in the parts of California where I hunt hogs currently and have hunted them in the past.

It's not a distance issue. In the rolling oak / grassland hills of the Central Coast, the longest shot I've ever taken on a hog was right around 200 yards. Dittos for some of the Channel Island hog hunts I've been on. Most of the the hogs that I've shot have been somewhere between 100 and 200 yards.

The issue, as I stated before, is having enough penetration to get through the gristle plate, bust the near side shoulder, take out the lungs, bust the off-side shoulder, and go through the gristle plate on the off-side.

Here's a little ballistics compairison.....

The .30-'06 with the 180 grain Barnes 'X' bullet can be loaded to exit the muzzle of my CZ 550 at a tick over 2800 feet per second, which gives me a muzzle energy figure of 3133 foot pounds. At 100 yards, my bullet is moving along at 2622 feet per second and hitting the target with 2747 foot pounds of bone-crushing thump. I'm getting all of that with a bullet that also has a sectional density of .286 Even the 300grn .429 bullets fall a little short in terms of SD at .232. As you probably know, sectional density is a key factor in penetration. Of course, mass is, too. But let's assume that you're shooting the more common 240 grain bullets. These will have an SD of .186.

You'll be able to drive 240 grain bullets out of the muzzle of a .44 Magnum rifle at around 1680 fps or so. To make the math easy, we'll round that up to 1700.

Assuming that you get 1700 fps velocity or close to it, you'll have around 1540 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle, or roughly half of what I get from my .30-'06. At 100 yards, your bullet will be zipping along at 1366 feet per second and will thump the target with 994 foot pounds of energy.

In other words, I'm going to be hitting the pig with close to 2/3 more energy and two times the velocity, and I'm going to be doing it with a bullet that has a far superior sectional density and enough mass to keep on keepin' on.

I've never hunted hogs in Michigan, or anything else in that state, for that matter, and I'm not saying that a .44 mag can't down a pig.

But if you ask me how dead I want my California hog to be when it hits the ground, I would say that I want it as dead as I can make it. I want to drop it where it stands when I shoot it, not merely kill it. And I want to do that with the first shot.

That's why I wouldn't be too proud to cary a more powerful rifle on a pig hunt than my trusty .30-'06, and wouldn't consider using a less powerful one.

Your results, as they say, may vary.

Blessings,
-JP

 

[grimel]

Re: re: 7mm-08 vs. 30-06

I've never hunted hogs in Michigan, or anything else in that state, for that matter, and I'm not saying that a .44 mag can't down a pig.

Just to put things in perspective, Larry Kelly (Magna-Port) managed to kill an elephant in the 70's(80's?) with a 44mag revolver. They (44mag revolvers) are routinely used to kill elk, moose, black bear, and hogs. A 250gr hard cast SWC or 270gr+ WFN hard cast loaded warm from a 7 1/2in revolver will shoot through any hog made.

That said, I use an auto 12ga and slugs or 44 revolver.

Also, some "sane" individuals hunt hogs with a 6" knife.

 

[Drop-Shot]

Depends on the hog,you want hunt hogs at Thistlewait with just a pistol(The guy that killed the elephant had a backup with a bruiser of a caliber)The ferral hogs(tame but some years back broke out and became free)would not be as hard to kill and would most likely run if they saw you,but imagine a hog 150-300 lbs from europe with huge tusks and a gristle plate that a 30/30 could not break apart with 1 shot,I shot a dying thistlewait hog with a 22 mag and it did not break the skull,just cracked it and the bullet flattened out.I was a country boy that killed a pig every year that we raised,and usually a cut bull calf.So when I speak of a strain of hogs that are meaner than my wifes people then you have to believe me.Oh,I just bought a 45 acp colt and when a friend and I got in a dispute on weather the 45 acp would go through the front gristle plate on one of these hogs I shot a dead hog between the eyes,it cracked the skull and the second would have gotten to the brain,but point blank the 45 acp would not go through the front gristle plate,so if I wouldn't use just a 45 acp then I would only use the more powerfull 44 mag if it was the only choice.By the way,the 240 gr shilliote bullet went almost lengthwise on the pig but I had no expansion to slow the bullet,and the hog was dead before I shot.I would only use a 44 mag if it was all I had,and I still carry a 4 inch 629,just in case of deer, bear, couger atacks.Drop-Shot

 

[wwb]

Re: re: 7mm-08 vs. 30-06

You'll be able to drive 240 grain bullets out of the muzzle of a .44 Magnum rifle at around 1680 fps or so. To make the math easy, we'll round that up to 1700.

I load 240 grain XTP .44's with 23.1 grains of 2400 powder..... gives me 1700 fps out of a 7-1/2" Super Redhawk, and just shy of 1900 fps out of an old Ruger .44 autoloading carbine.

Still, your point is well taken - that's nowhere near the energy of an '06.

I'm not a hog hunter, but from what I've heard and read about them, I'd use my '06 and carry my Super Redhawk with the scope taken off in case things got "up close and personal".

 

[Drop-Shot]

Always good to hear you(rather,read you)as a voice of experience.I too carry a side arm when hog hunting but my 44 can't take the loads your ruger can,I use a S&W 629 with a 4 inch barrel,and at present it's loaded with 300 gr castcores from federal.Whats this about you wisconsin hunters and your stands?That one guy they showed on tv looked like a normal person,it make's you wonder what set him off enough to kill 5 or 6 folks.I thought you might know more than we do,there has to be more than what we are hearing.I have heard of fist fights over tree stands,and it wasn't me,but I know of the frustration of buying or leasing land and have folks set up on top of you but what just happened hurt our sport badly,what is your take on this?Good to hear from you wwb.Drop-Shot

 

[clayshooter25/25]

Re: re: 7mm-08 vs. 30-06

Whats this about you wisconsin hunters and your stands?That one guy they showed on tv looked like a normal person,it make's you wonder what set him off enough to kill 5 or 6 folks.

Apparently the guy wasn't even a United States citizen and wasn't supposed to be owning a firearm. Things like this give a bad name to hunters and shooters all across the country.

 

[Drop-Shot]

I agree clayshooter,our sport has been under attack for several years now and if people do horrible things like that, it gives ammunition to the anti-hunters and their case.Every time we carry a gun to hunt,we carry a reputation with us,we need to reflect a good stewardship of the land and our sport,we should be above that, and now that I know this guy was not supposed to be a hunter I feel better as a hunter and a person that cares about reflecting a proper image to others.Drop-Shot