The Hog that grabbed my rifle and attacked me

This actually happened to me last January, but I was in a whirlwind of hunting at the time, so never got around to posting about it. Hunting near Carthage I was walking the fields with my 375 lever gun/ sightmark night vision setup. In the rain at about 100 yards I was watching some hogs and eventually took an off hand shot. Video at bottom of post. Sorry its shakey, but it was an off hand shot in the rain. So the boar was down and not moving. As I walked up I heard what sounded like some agonal breaths and then silence and assumed he was dead. I wanted to take a picture as proof of kill to send my hunting partner for this property as we are in a yearly hog killing contest with each other. I put the bipod down on my rifle and set it next to the hog and took the picture below. Immediately after taking that picture, the hog got up, grabbed my rifle in it's teeth, shook my rifle a couple times and threw the rifle up spinning it about three feet into the air. I ducked at first as I could not remember if I had racked another round into the chamber after the shot. That would have been something in the headlines. "Hunter found shot by hog". Then the next instant my thought was my rifle getting damaged and I think I yelled an audible "No, NO, NOooo" as I went for the rifle to get it away from the hog. Only the hog turned towards me and opened it's mouth making a sound I could best describe as Adam Sandler in Waterboy just before making a tackle. I could see the hog's teeth and had no idea they could open their mouth so wide. That Boar chased me about 30 yards in that wet sloppy muddy field before stopping. I went a little farther and thought about how I had no sidearm and would have to go around him to get back to my rifle. I instead walked back to my Suburban where I had a shotgun, then came back to finish him with the shotgun. The crippled hog had got up and traveled about another 100 yards by the time I got back. I think I will start carrying a sidearm on those night hog hunts.

Because the field of view is so narrow on NV devices, I keep a green laser on my primary night rifle so I can shoot accurately at very short ranges. I also have a green laser on a suppressed .45 for follow ups in thick brush. Knock on wood, I've never needed it, but its there if and when.

Wild story!

Fun story. Glad you survived it. Another sound you don't want to hear up close at night is when they pop their jaws and clack their teeth and give out a low growl that sounds like it is coming from the depths of hell.

🤠

Poke’em in the Oklahoma bullseye to make sure they’re dead, you poke, it twitches, needs another round! 😀

I always roll up to mine in the Pioneer and give ‘em a bump with a tire before I get out to strap ‘em up.

Charlie

Heckuva story!

Glad it wasn't you he grabbed a hold of, they can bite! LOL

Good friend of mine caught a big sow with the dogs one night and hobbled her. He and another guy were loading her up when he screwed up and got too close to her mouth. She latched on to his leg and bit him so hard it broke his shin bone.

👀

Did you happen to notice where he was shot?

Sounds like he had a lot of life left

Darn right they can (bite). And shake you too. That is where the most serious injuries occur. Not getting gashed by a boar (though not fun). It's when they (boar or sow) latch onto you that you are in real trouble. They can crack walnuts with their mouths/bite so can obviously do some real damage to flesh and bone.

Yep. It was hot so he was hunting in boots & shorts too, when she bit down on him it was mouth on bare skin. Not even jeans in between. Got him good.

Honestly it was long enough ago that I don't remember. Not to mention being cold and wet. I was more concerned about getting my rifle off the wet grass and out of the rain. When I finished it with the shotgun, it had finally stove up enough that it was unable to fully get up, but it did try and was still being aggressive towards me. Then too, I really did not give it time to get up and come at me again either.

One word... dayuuum. That’s a crazy story. Glad you came out still able to tell the story.

Wow! That will get your blood pumping.

People wonder why I track hogs with a pistol. That’s why!! Try shooting a charging boar with a rifle at point blank range and 99 times out of 100 you will miss.....if you get a shot off at all.

I'm more in interested about the rifle, did the hog damage it? Clad you wasn't hurt.

Great story.

Wow
Heck of a story👍

I'm interested in how your 375 is working for you on hogs?

Do you handload for it? What load do you like, if so?

I bought one back when they were first introduced thinking I had the ideal hog gun. What I found is that while it would kill the pigs, it did not always put them down. The Winchester did make an excellent heavy brush deer rifle however. Anyway, I traded the Winchester and moved up to a 7MMRM for everything.

A couple of years ago, I picked up a Winchester in 375 to give it another try and so I am curious.

Good reminder story to ALWAYS verify that your hog is actually dead, not mostly dead, but fully dead. We check for breathing, head movement, ear twitches, and finally blink reflex. If any of those are present, the hog gets another shot. After being lunged at by a hog that I was checking, is why I do the blink reflex last because that puts me close to the hog to do it. Fortunately, the hog that lunged at me had been spined and his lunge was extremely short.



We can make some guesstimates on where it was impacted and then some wild conjecture on what may have resulted. Assuming a 100 yard zero and a target at 100 yards, the elevation will be where indicated by the crosshairs.

Now, the hog was in motion when shot. I would guess from the video, maybe 2 mph. That converts to 35.2" per second.

Depending on the bullet used and velocity, flight time will be 0.1 to 0.12 seconds for it to cover the 100 yards. So at 2 mph, that would mean that the bullet impact 3.5-4.2" farther back than the point of aim

Maybe you think the hog is moving slower, say 1.5 mph, or 26.4 inches per second, then the bullet impacted 2.6-3-2" farther back from point of aim.

Here is the last frame of video as the video was just starting to distort (see bottom of screen has gone gray), so this is pretty close to the exact split second of when the shot happened. You see the point of aim. So the point of impact will be roughly about where the right crosshair starts.



Looking at the image, the shot will be about vertically mid body, back side of the shoulder, maybe going through the shoulder blade or possible under it that far back. The bullet entered the rib cage. There will be less damage if it passed between ribs than if it took out 1 or 2 ribs before passing into the lungs (wish rib shrapnel if it hit rib). The shot should be well above the heart and most likely going through the lungs, but maybe lower/rear lobes of the lungs. The shot is going to be below the spine. This will be a fatal shot, not immediately fatal and potentially not incapacitating physically, which turned out to be true. That is because there was no significant CNS involvement beyond the hog apparently being stunned temporarily. If only the rear or lower portions of the lung or lungs was damaged and the lungs not immediately filling with blood because of the area of damage, the hog may live for several minutes.

This same shot, made in the same way on another hog of the same size, might result in the hog going down and not recovering even temporarily.

Sniper John can correct whatever assumptions I have wrong for a better interpretation, but that would be my best guess given the information at hand.

I've had them get up several times over the years. I remember two in particular that got very close. It taught me to never let my guard down when walking up. I always have my pistol out, light on at night. Then, approach and go thru the procedures described by DNS. I reach out with my rifle to do the eye reflex from the backside, pistol in the other hand. A rifle is harder to use at point blank range.