I put this in the ho hunting section bc my question is specifically about this bullet's ability to perform on larger thick skinned hogs.
Is there anyone who uses or has used this factory ammo on hogs? How does it perform? If so, please provide shooting distances, where the bullet hit the hog, angle the hog was standing at, how far he ran, size of pig, how deep the bullet penetrated, the damage done and of course, PICKTCHURES!! [b][/b]
Thanks!

I honestly wouldn't worry about it too much. I'm not sure if there is any difference between a Federal Fusion .257 caliber 120 grain bullet and a .277 caliber 115 grain bullet for modern sporting rifles, but I shot a 60 lb. sow quartering WAY away from me (she was standing in tall grass and I was just aiming at the space between the base of her ears). The bullet struck her pretty far back, traveled through some guts, through the diaphragm, through her left lung, into her neck and I found most of it stuck in the space between her first cervical vertebrae and the base of her skull. The bullet clipped through a couple of ribs, broke throug a couple of vertebrae and passed through about 24" of soft tissue before running out of steam. I think that a 6.8 115 grain Fusion at, oh, about 2600 fps (right?) would be more than fine. I will say this, though... The biggest vital zone on a pig is it's head. I kid you not, it's a more forgiving target than trying to put a bullet into the heart/lungs and risking any gut puncture. If you aim at the centerpoint between the pig's eye and ear but miss by 3" in any direction (except high) you'll still drop the pig and it will be right there waiting for you instead of dead in the middle of a prickly pear patch covered in a mixture of blood and feces or under the biggest bramble of huisache on God's green earth.

I made these to teach my nephew, girlfriend, and other new shooters where to aim. Neck shots do well for me and allow a Few inches forgiveness left right and low. And the third pic is for when I need to take a quartering away shot obviously. Thanks for the reply

I'm still laughing at that second picture. I love it!

The ample castration shot.


I would worry less about the terminal performance, especially a fusion out of a 6.8, and more about shot placement.

Haha ya the reason I was asking is bc my 6.8 RRA coyote carbine shoots them really well, but it doesn't shoot the hornady 120 SSTs or the Remington core lokt ultra bonded 115s. Just wanted to see what it would do to a hog. I'd still like to know if it will give a complete pass through on a big pig shoulder shot. Hopefully I'll get to find out first babe sooner than later.

The fusion seems to be as reliable in performance as any of the premium bullets I have reloaded over the years.

A through and through shoulder shot on a hog may only slow it down for the first hundred yards and then it will figure out how to run with only hips for the last couple hundred....in my experience (and I think most would agree) best place to aim for hogs is head/neck trying to disable CNS, otherwise you will end up watching them travel a way before dropping. Unless the hog is quite small, a typical deer shoulder shot isn't going to give you the same bang for your buck on a larger hog. Tough little buggars.

Having said that, I have dropped several hogs in their tracks with a 55 gr soft point and also a 100 gr soft point, so the 115 fusion should do fine with good placement.

good information.

I keep wondering why you would want to use premium ammo on a hog when the cheaper Remington Core Lokt will do the job nicely. It's only a hog and not some mystical supernatural beast. They don't deserve premium ammo when a well placed .223 will do the job nicely. Just my way of thinking.

On a lone boar standing still-ish I would definitely be going for a neck shot (hence the pics) but if I'm using night vision on a group of pigs that has taken off full steam and am on my 3rd or 4th shot, my POI probably won't be perfect. The question was in reference to hoping that the bullet would do significant damage even if the shot placement didn't end up being ideal... Kind of a prepare for the worst, hope for the best line of thinking. I was just hoping for some confirmation that the bullet can and will hold together and still expand well enough while penetrating deep enough to severely damage the vitals on less than perfect shot placement, giving me a little more room for error.
And yes those pigs are tough. I shot a 250ish lb boar at about 75 yards with a 370 grain bonded sabot slug at 2000 fps (bullet expanded larger than the size of a quarter and ended up stuck in the hide on the exit side double lung shot) and still ran 150 yards.

Well, there you have your answer...if you double lunged a hog with a 320 gr sabot and it still ran 150 yards, by extrapolation a similarly hit (as you mentioned very optimistic on running hogs on your third or fourth shot) hog with a 115 gr bullet would run approximately 245 yards give or take, and I know that ballistics don't add up in a linear fashion the simple way I did that math.

Realistically, with a 115 gr bullet, if you are going for the center of mass or lungs (or whatever you want to shoot at outside of CNS) you might as well kiss that hog goodbye, unless you have a 1000x1000 yard field you are shooting them on, unless the hog is less than 100 lbs, then you might have some go down sooner.

Hi Blakester -

I kind of take a different approach on the running shots strategy. I load my magazine with two premium bullets on top and then figure that the remaining shots on running pigs aren't the highest probability with respect to even making contact so therefore from a cost savings standpoint I load cheaper core-lokt or equivalent affordable hunting bullets in the remainder of the magazine.

I know opinions and strategies are like elbows, everybody has one, but for what it's worth I know I am better off hitting the first few pigs and getting the most mileage with a premium bullet there.

Practice makes perfect and I don't get afield near as much as I'd like or need to in order to be a good marksmen on runners.

HTXH

^^^ good advice there.

Good thinkin! That's what I call usin' your kindeys! (Pointing to my head)

I've had better luck than that with run distance on shoulder shot hogs. Most less than 50 yards. You break their shoulders and they aren't going far. They are hogs not tanks.