Hornady Sub-X Again...

After the last video, did more research and testing ballistics out to 100 yards. Everything checked out and I had a better idea of what drop was expected.

Got an opportunity a week later.



This shot was very close to 100 yards and left a good bit of room for error but it seems like I was just at the top of the lung region, but still should have been a lung shot. There appears to be a splash on the ground, I don't believe I missed below the pig completely based on my zero testing.

Possible this pig died in the woods? Sure looked like it ran away healthy.

Just for good measure, switched to supersonic ammo and fall down kill.



Afraid I have lost faith in the subsonic hunting experience, unless y'all convince me I just missed?

If you don't do significant upper central nervous system damage, either directly or indirectly, expect the hog to run. Obviously, your bullet did not hit the spine or the hog would have gone down right there (direct). There was no hydrostatic shock (indirect) to damage the brain and brain stem because your ammo is so slow relative to the size of the animal.

IF your bullet hit (1st hog) where you were aiming, missing the spine, it could have gone through the lungs. If that is the case, the hog could make it upwards of 100 yards before collapsing. Rarely will they go much farther and quite commonly they won't go near that far. Depending on the angle of entry, maybe it hit only one lung, your hog may make it 400 yards. So how far did you look for the first hog?

Even if you hit it in the heart, it could have gone up to 100 yards, though usually more like 10-40 yards. If you just hit a major blood vessel and blood is spurting out of the hog, it could go up to a couple hundred yards.

Where I am going with this is that if you were expecting the hog to be DRT, your shot placement was not conducive to making that happen. Even if you had been shooting a supersonic round, it still may not have been DRT unless you got the benefit of hydrostatic shock. As such, I don't think your results necessarily indicate anything is wrong with subsonic ammo, though as you may have figured out, your shot placement may need to be refined to make it work well for you. I am not saying you don't have the skill. Your supersonic kill was a CNS kill that looked to be in the right area on the head to get the brain. Excellent shot. Had you made the same shot with subsonic ammo, I think you would have had the same result.

With that said, my opinion is that you go supersonic for hunting. Aside from the loudness difference, I can't see any other significant benefits of subsonic ammo when it comes to killing hogs. Save the subsonic stuff for smaller game/varmints, plinking, etc.

I'm in agreement. I use a 300BLK for hogs, and originally thought subsonics would be great. I quickly changed my mind though, and now use 110 grain supersonics exclusively. Subsonics aren't anywhere near "Hollywood quiet" and the supers are much more effective.

Ok, there's so much going on with that and the shot placement. For one, you are shooting a subsonic round on a walking/moving pig that's heavily quartering away from you. If it's 100 yards out, the flight time on the bullet is .310 seconds (at 1000 fps), possibly slower. So, the pig is 1/3 of a second past the spot where you were aiming at. Next, it's heavily quartering away. If you were zero'd at 100 yards, you shot the pig in his butt. Is he dead, not sure. But the shot placement, shot angle, and a moving pig while shooting a subsonic round, make the whole package a bad deal. IMO, you are using the sub ammo in a manner that does not yield a good outcome. I recommend head shots and high neck shots for a more quick kill on a stationary target.

Think about it this way. If you were hunting with a 40 cal handgun, what would be your shot placement? You have basically the same power factor as a 40 cal 180 grain handgun round (actually a little less).

Subs are like a golf saying to me. In golf, you drive for show, and you putt for dough. When you want to show off how quiet something is, you shoot subs. When you want to kill something or when it counts, you hunt with supers, when it matters. I currently shoot a suppressed 308 Win as my hunting round. I can shoot any bullet I want. The last ammo I'm going to hunt with is a subsonic round. And it's for all the reasons you are having problems with.

Right, and this can really mess up shots on animals in motion or that go into motion during the shot.

Flight time is an issue with moving targets and the greater the flight time and/or the greater the speed of the target, the more of an issue this can be. The longer the flight time of the bullet, the more time the hog has to slow down, change direction, etc. For example, I was leading a running hog at a bit over 200 yards with a supersonic Grendel load that would have had a flight time of about 0.29 seconds and the hog literally changed course after I pulled the trigger and the hog never crossed the flight path of the bullet. So I completely missed a hog that I had led properly at the time I pulled the trigger, because the hog changed the parameters after the bullet went into motion.

I tried for a frontal brain shot on a hog at 85 yards. Before the trigger broke, I was on target just above the eyes. After the trigger broke, the hog went to turn its head and moved it only 2 or 3 inches, but it was enough to turn my brain shot into a shoulder shot that fortunately managed to clip the heart and kill the hog, but technically, I missed my intended target. Flight time was 0.11 seconds.

It doesn't seem like tiny fractions of a second can make that much difference, but they really can when it comes to actually hitting where you intend to hit a target that is in motion or may go into motion. The greater the time, the greater the chance for failure due to no fault of your own at the time you pulled the trigger.

Subs at 100 yards on big game is a long way. 10-15 yards farther or closer will have a big poi change. I limit myself to 65 yards and don’t have any issues. Anything larger than a coyote will run through just like shooting it with an arrow. Shooting subs is nothing like supers so I don’t hold them to the same expectations on large animals.

Saw a FB reel where a guy dropped a doe with a 370 yard subsonic 500+ grain bullet, noting the more than 20 feet of drop (you can see the bullet's rainbow path in the video). The deer was DRT. The guy knew his dope, knew the distance, made all the correct choices, and killed the down with what almost looked like plunging fire.

If I knew how to look up reels on FB and find it, I would repost. I tried to find it on YouTube, but haven't found it...

450 bushmaster 395 grn sub x, at about 10 yards works pretty good

Dang. That's like getting a bowling ball dropped on your head.

Something else you are not taking into account . Your reaction time . It takes the average person about .4 +/- for the brain to react to what the eyes see . So add that in .

I second what others have said.
I would also add that when a bullet impacts at ~1900 fps or faster you start seeing “rifle” wound channels. Yes, other variables factor in as well like bullet weight, bullet construction, etc, but those higher velocities tend to create a shockwave layer of tissue damage, larger than the diameter of the bullets expansion and its fragments. This give your shot placement more room for error. With those subs, your bullet will have to do more direct contact damage to the heart, lungs, and/or CNS, where as with a “rifle” velocity impact, there will be permanent damage to the tissue surrounding the tissue that was directly damaged by the bullet impacting/tearing/fragmenting through it.

This 100%

I don’t know how well subs work, probably not great, but that looks like a shot that never should have been taken if recovery of the target was wanted.

On the 3rd shot I hit a running hog @ 20 yds (butt shot), 40sw and tried 2 more as he kept on going. Found him dead100 yds farther. Cast 165gr (950 fps) went all the way through and broke front leg. He ran good on 3 legs. Won't use subs except in emergency again.