.223 in the hands of a very good shot who has the experience/patience to wait for the perfect central nervous system shot placement is a capable round. IMHO, its not the right round for an inexperienced hunter/shooter who may get excited and start blasting away. Also, IMHO, its not the right round for running shots on a sounder. It can result in wounded lost animals. Even pigs deserve to be treated humanly, not a long painful death from poorly placed shots.

I’ve killed more with a.22 short than anything else....

Even in a trap shot placement is more important than caliber....

.223 works just fine....

With good bullets (Barnes TSX, Speer Gold Dot, etc.) and WELL placed shots a .223 will kill hogs and deer reliably, but there is very little margin for shot placement error. Personally I wouldn't shoot a big 200#+ boar on the shoulder with a .223 and expect consistent good results. Your basically limited to ear hole and neck/spine shots with a .223. I consider the 6.5 Grendel, 6.8 SPC and .300 BLK as minimum calibers for hogs.

In my hunting loads I tend to use very tough bullets loaded in both .22-250 and .223 Rem. There is a Hornady 62gr bonded soft point that I like and there is 65gr Gameking that I love. Both will pass all the way through most pigs while seriously F ing up everything in the process of doing so.

IMO the .223 is fine if you shoot the head or neck. One hog at a time round. When shooting big groups, you will not stop shooting a hog until it stops. It takes about 5 in the body of a large boar to stop him with a .223. With a .308, they stop quickly and you can move to the next. Once the rest are gone, you clean up the wounded.

And then there is weird anatomy or something....shot a hog tonight with the same .223 that was dead in the OP (fresh batteries) and the hog did the initial bang flop as I am accustomed to seeing. Short earhole shoot.

Only he didn’t just lay there, he commenced to do a face dive type run away from me and I pumped him with 4 more rounds and stopped him. Went to get the UTV to use the winch to drag him off, pulled up right next to him.

He stands up and starts to walk off....at this point I am

So I walk to the back, grab my gun, and just open fire on the guy. I want him out of his misery. Put about 4-5 more in him and he is down. Pull up to him again, and still breathing. This after multiple shots to the head already. I put the muzzle up to his skull and fired the final breath maker.

Friggin zombie hog

He wasn’t 260+ like my last one, but he was probably in the 230-240 range easily. Little bigger than I thought he would be, and a lot tougher. Will to survive was strong in this one!

I was having issues with putting hogs down with 223 and switched to Maker's 62gr Overwatch ammo. Not sure, but I think this one bled out

Sometimes the big ones just don't want to die.

You ruined that pig's day, looks like he layed there and kicked for awhile.

I have shot a lot of hogs with the .223, using standard 55 gr. fmj's, and they worked just fine. I always preferred a center of shoulder shot with about a 90% angle to the body ( them standing sideways in front of you). Never had a problem taking down hogs that way, although I moved on to different cartridges....just for the fun of it. You shoot them behind the legs, you can just about forget it....they can run a long ways.

I'm 3 for 3 with a 17hmr so I would think a .223 would be plenty.

+1 on shot placement and bullet selection. Heavier is not always better. For example I would use a 50gr TTSX before I used a 69 gr SMK.

7mm mag here, for the win!

And then sometimes you get lucky. Since this thread was brought to the top, last Week Sunday night, get to the feeder ad see hogs there, count four. I stalk up to where I have a decent shot at any runners, about 40-45 yards from feeder. They have no idea I am there.

Fire and hit first one in the ear hole. The rest run. I pump two more shots in two hogs running toward me and they both drop. First one drops about 25 yards from me and the second less than that. I sure wish I had video’d those shots, because I can not remember them at all because they happened so fast , but both were drt shots. All three hogs were down for the count. I hit head/CNS on all three somehow. Three shots in about a second time. Talk about getting lucky!

Sorry for the upside down pic. The pigs were two sow and a boar, all three in the 150-175# range, pic makes them look smaller.

T b, you are the proverbial acorn found by blind hogs! Good job!

DNS, thanks! You are the gold standard and I bring up a mere bronze at best...there are some serious hog hunters on here, you being one of the best, and sometimes I simply get lucky.

Like many others have stated, it is all about shot placement. I have killed many a hog with a .223 but have since moved on to try many different calibers. In my experience, shooting a big boar behind the should with almost anything will not drop him immediately. That being said, I have also killed many with a .22 and .17HMR, all about the shot placement.

Forget the FMJ rounds and use the ballistic tips. Even though most of the Hogs I've killed was with a .17 (Calm day), the rancher where I hunt said he hasn't lost a hog since using Ballistic tip rounds in his model 7 .223. He calls them the magic round. My longest DRT shot with the 223 was 170+/- a few yards. DRT one last year at 230yards with the 6.8' all ballistic tip rounds.

That is only going to be if you do direct or indirect spine (CNS) damage. You can place a shot behind the shoulder on a broadside or quartered toward shot and miss doing any significant damage to the spine. From a vitals standpoint, these would be much less ideal shots.

DNS you kill pigs very well but you missed the "will not" in TXag08's post

223/556 is plenty

Go bigger, go smaller

I’ve killed a few truck loads with a .17 hmr but I’ve killed enough to actually prefer the .17 hmr now

I don’t stretch it past 75 yards, mostly 50-60