7.62 X 39 Tula Ammo (FMJ) Good For Hogs?

Went hunting this past Saturday. I have a Pulsar Digisight mounted on my SKS. Stopped at Academy to see if they had any good hunting ammo.. Nope. Just FMJ, 123 grain, bullets. You guys know that Academy will only sell you 1 box of ammo (for each caliber) at a time? Crazy.

So, I head to the ranch with 1 box of bullets. I stop & sight in just to be sure the scope is on. Hunted hard from 5:45P until 10:45PM running the grounds checking feeders & open fields, and travel lanes. It was a full moon so the digisight was working really well. Finally find a group of hogs under a feeder. I watched them for about 5 minutes. I could tell that one of them was a big boar as he kept running the other pigs off. There were 6 pigs total, with the boar being the biggest. I could see so clearly with the Digisight that I could make out smallish tusks on him. After 1 more episode of him chasing the rest of the hogs off, I decided it was his time to depart this world. He had just chased the other hogs off to the right and was returning to the corn under the feeder. I was trailing him with the white dot in the digisight and as soon as he stopped, he was broadside facing to the left. I put the dot right behind his ear & let the bullet rip. I was rewarded with the sound of a loud "WHOOOOMMMPPP!!" He went down with a thud before I could even hear the echo of the shot. I immediately panned right to see where the other hogs were and found them running straight away from me towards the woodline. I fired a second shot and missed. Just as they got to the woodline I led the front hog a foot or so and fired a 3rd shot, again I hear the "WHHHOOOOMMPPP!" of a direct hit and she goes down tumbling tail over head right at the edge of the woods. 1 less 250 lb. boar, and 1 less 225 lb. sow.

I was surprised to find that the FMJ bullet took out a softball size hole on the other side of the boars head. Basically his bottom jaw was gone, as well as everything under his eye & a good part of his neck. I can only surmise that the bullet pushed bone out and this is what caused all the damage. On the sow, the bullet entered her left ham traveling forward through her ribs, through the length of her body and exited the right front shoulder almost completely severing her right front leg. Complete pass-through. I can't believe that cheap military surplus ammo worked that well. 123 grains of pure destruction.

I know what shots work best (head/neck) and will keep using this ammo until I find it no longer suits my needs.

Anybody else have any stories about this ammo on hogs?

All I ever use on hogs. Never had an issue. The key to my bullet selection was 500rds for $105.

My son shot his first hog with a 7.62x39 fmj he was drt with a good head shot.

I have shot hogs with 123 gr FMJ and with 154 gr soft point. I figured the soft point would be superior, but I was impressed with damage that the FMJ can inflict.

.22LR, 9mm, .40S&W, .45ACP, .223REM, 5.56NATO, 7.62x51, .308WIN are restricted to one(1) box per caliber and up to three(3) boxes in total of any combination of said restricted calibers.

If your caliber is not on the above list, you can buy as much as you can find.

I work at the gun bar at Academy.


Chupa

I think you meant 7.62x39. I know it is on the restricted list at the Academy I frequent.

it is restricted at mine as well. anything behind the counter is.

7.62x54 is not restricted.

7.62x54 and 54r is restricted at the Academy in Lubbock. Just stopped by there yesterday and my wife and I picked up a box each of 7.62x39 Monarch ($5.99/20), Hornady 308 (I believe $26.99/20), and 380 Lawman (I think it was $17.99/50). They had quite a bit of everything restricted except 9mm and 22lr. 30-06 and 300 win as well as a few other rifle calibers along with 44 mag were plentiful on the gun aisle.