I went out late Saturday night with the intention of shooting coons for my BIL, he has been having lots of trouble with them. Instead of coons though I ran into a big sounder of hogs.

I had brought my 14.5", 556 Adams piston gun to have something cheap to shoot. Normally it is an ultra-reliable gun. I guess I found the limit on just how dry and dirty I can let it get though. About the end of the first mag it decided it was going quit cycling and go into single shot mode. First time it has ever done that. The first batch of pigs I did decent on, but the second batch I swung onto I couldn't get the distance and kept shooting high. Third batch is when my gun quit cycling. I was shooting cheap Hornady 62 grn BTHP. Shoots great in my gun, works decent on game. Not as good as the 65 SGK I normally shoot though. Of course if I had known what I was going to run into I would have brought my Grendel with 120 Gold Dots instead.

I was out on a split irrigated circle. The pigs start out on the peanuts, some ran over into the cotton. I was right off the road that splits the two halves of the circle.

While I was shooting the first group I could hear hogs running around me, that was when I had to spin around and make sure I wasn't about to get run over. I wasn't sure where they were at. I guess what I was hearing was that one I rolled up right as it was coming out of the cotton.

I didn't trim the video. You guys can see the whole thing, warts and all.


https://youtu.be/WmlxTMK88tw

Goodness that was a lot of pigs.

That was a hoot!!!!

I am not great on cleaning my guns either, but I do wipe down and relube the BCG about every 2nd or 3rd hunt just to make sure that all the parts are moving properly.

You might want to turn off the automatic nuc function and turn it to semi-automatic. That way, the scope only nucs when you press the button and won't end of nucing in the middle of a shooting sequence when you are trying to target runners, as happened in the video around the 40 second mark.

I think there were 35-38 pigs in that sounder.

Yes, I do need to swap to semi-auto on NUC. Been meaning to do it but just haven't.

I am pretty bad about abusing that Adams upper just because it does run so good. That is the upper I shoot classes with, 500-800 rounds in a weekend. Literally it has never given me a lick of trouble. But with all this heat and blowing dirt we have been having it was dry as a popcorn fart. That malfunction was totally on me.

The thermal I was using was my new XQ50 Thermion.

I have to work a lot more on my leads. Still pretty new to this shooting pigs at night with thermal. I was supposed to be at a Moving Targets Engagements class at Badlands this weekend, but they had to cancel because of Covid.

How do you imbed an image and not have it link? One of those pigs was a pretty cool looking white pig with spots.

I think I have it.

Wow! Youre covered up in hogs!

An opportunity to bust on a bunch of hogs out in the open is a heck of a lot of fun

Fun to watch! I want to see someone go full auto on a sounder that size...

looks very fun

I swapped the Thermion back on to my 6.5 Grendel this morning, Obviously I have some more pig shooting to do. Swapped zero profiles in the scope and checked zero at 200 and it was within 1/4 MOA. This combo of the Thermion and American Defense mount holds zero very well. Swapping around from gun to gun, different temps/whatever. Every time I check it, it is right where it is supposed to be.

For sure I will get back on those hogs this weekend, maybe sooner than that.

Good on you for verifying your zero after swapping!!!

Some guys don't do that and are then surprised when they can't hit anything. The gist of what I have heard before from more than one guy, "I don't understand. This has never happened before..."

Go kill more pigs and bring us more video!!!!!

DNS- I do lots of long range shooting and precision shooting. I am fanatical about rifles holding zero. I have both 100 and 200 yard ranges here at work and shoot nearly every day. I am constantly checking to verify. I know if my equipment is holding zero, and if it doesn't it gets fixed or goes down the road.

Back last spring I bought a new XQ50 Trail LRF. Within the first week I knew it wasn't holding zero. Spent another week documenting it very well. Sent the info to my dealer and he had me send it back to him. After studying more about the whole situation I decided I just didn't know if I could ever completely trust the polymer housing on the Trail models, so I had him put me on the list for a Thermion instead. It took 7 more weeks to get it, but I am glad I waited. I have tested the absolute snot out of it and the American Defense mount I have it mounted in. It has been rock solid reliable so far. Swapping guns, swapping profiles, from 68 degrees to 105+, it has always been right where it is supposed to be.

But I still check. Just because anything mechanical or electronic can and will fail sometimes. Checking zero doesn't eliminate that possibility. But it sure gives a whole lot better odds. Trust, but verify.

And yeah, I plan to be working on getting some more video. Got my NUC swapped to semi-auto too. Next trip I should be running 120 Gold Dots.

JTP, you would be amazed at the number of people who are not so meticulous about their zeroes, or maybe you would not. Like I said, I have seen this sort of thing go wrong numerous times, particularly with clip-ons, but not exclusively.

I agree with you. It amazes me how many folks hunt with an unverified zero. They throw the optic on, zero once, and assume it is good to go from there.

This is the kind of shot placement a good hard zero gives you though. 207 yards last night.