Out in the wheat field again. Mostly I saw deer as soon as the sun hit the horizon. I had texted the neighbor to let him know I'd be out, and he replied that there were no cattle in his front field so I could shoot any hogs that showed up there. About an hour and a half or so after sundown I wandered over to take a look at his field, but there were only deer there as well. I turned to walk back to my position and halted a moment to re-scan the wheat field. There were the previously mentioned deer, and also something approaching directly down the middle of the field that looked like a hog!

Here was my setup. I put a chair in the bed of the truck to get a better view. When I went to look at the neighbor's field I left the rifle on the tripod.



When I spotted the hog I was a little over a hundred yards from my rifle, so I hurried as quietly as I could back to my shooting position. I turned on the thermal weapon sight, and while it came to life i took another look through my thermal monocular to get an update on the hog's position. It had moved a little past me and was now angling slightly away, going to my left. I lined up a quick shot and I heard the bullet hit the hog. The hog took off running and I fired a second shot that missed. I felt that my first shot was prety good, so I figured the hog night not make it too far. With that thought I gathered up the rifle and my hald held thermal monocular and started walking. I found the hog within a few minutes. It was most definitely dead.



The bullet had hit just behind the left shoulder, passed through the chest cavity and entered the right shoulder. I'm shooting a 300 Blackout with Hornady 110 grain SP bullets with an IR Hunter MK3 60mm thermal sight.

I collected the leg quarters and back straps. I foresee more sausage in my near future.



No, this is not an original idea. It's based on The Hog Book by Jesse Griffiths, which I heartily recommend. He somewhat humorously suggests using large boars primarily for sausage, and who am I to argue?

Love that sausage.

Good shooting. Good hunting.

Good job on the hog and what a great place to be hunting!

Oh my, that is quite the eye cup on your scope! LOL, it isn't standard. Offer any advantages?

The only real advantage is that it largely prevents light from the scope eyepiece from shining on my face or otherwise illuminating something that might alert the hogs to my presence. The (slight) disadvantage is that I have to position my head just right to see the entire screen on the scope. That's usually not a problem, particularly when I'm shooting off my tripod or a shooting sitck which is virtually always the case.

On another note: While cutting up the meat for sausage I recovered the bullet cup just inside the outer edge of the far side (right) shoulder. The core apparently separated and exited. This is pretty typical of what I see using my 300 Blackout. On hogs that weigh less than about 180 Lbs the bullet exits on shoulder shots. On larger hogs I often find the bullet just under the skin on the far side.

Looks like the bullet probably expanded appropriately: