Best .223 projectile for pigs

Gaznazdiak

Gaznazdiak

New member
Hi all,
I'm living on a 3100 acre grazing property on the Great dividing Range in South Eastern Australia and I'm responsible for feral animal control here.
I've been using my favourite rifle, a Howa 1500 .223 with a 24" 1:9 twist barrel for rabbits, cats, foxes and goats with excellent results, but there are increasing signs that pigs have moved in and it's time to give them the good news.
The only pig shooting I've done was in thick scrub using 12g Brenneke slugs at under 20m, or those caught in traps at 5m.
I was going to load up some of the 65gn Sierra Gamekings I use on the goats, but have been worried about whether they'll do the job as the area they have been tearing up has no cover for at least 200m.
I recently heard about Hornady's ballistic tipped solid copper GMX projectiles but don't know anyone who has used them.
Does anyone have experience with this projectile?
Are they substantially better than a lead core bullet?
At over $1 each they are an expensive choice, but if they are as good as Hornady claim, perhaps the right one.
I would appreciate any advice.
 
Im not sure how the bullet supply is down there but the 65 Grain SGKs work really good on the pigs here in MS.
I killed 18 in a sounder of 20 with the 65s in a 16" AR. Only one of the larger pigs got up to try and run off before getting a extra round in the neck.
They expand very nice and i got alot of pass throughs. With your extra velocity from the longer barrel, they should be impressive.

Ive never used Monos in a 223 for hogs. But i have used the 100gr GMX in a 6.8SPC on hogs and had very good results under 200 yards, Didnt get to test them past that yet.
 
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I have killed a lot of hogs with the Black Hills and 60 grain v-max bullets. Excellent on the predators too.

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Even in the shoulder.

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Thank you gentlemen, I appreciate the feedback. I'll stick with the SGK as I have some of them and the TSX can be hard to get.
We do have supply issues occasionally and "geo-pricing" can be a curse with retailers sometimes charging 2 or 3 times the US price. The advent of online shopping is starting to make some of them pull their heads in, but there are still many things our restrictive laws make it difficult for a private citizen to get.
Our super tight gun laws have recently got even tighter. We get periodic visits from the police to inspect our storage and match registration papers with firearms etc, and in my state, New South Wales, there has been an "appearence" clause added.
If the inspecting officer feels that in his or her opinion that one of your guns resembles a current military firearm or is substantially military in appearance they can confiscate it, on the spot, and the owner gets no say and has the choice of losing it or spending 10 times it's value in court fees trying to get it back. Not aware that anyone has been successful at that.
I have my Howa in an XLR Element billet chassis and was planning to put one of the new 26" 6.5 Creedmore actions into the element and the .223 back into it's walnut, but with this new, further, restriction I have to keep the walnut empty so the .223 can wear it at inspection time.
The really stupid thing about it is that a gun sop can legally sell say, a Colt M2012, I can legally buy it, but if the police doing the inpection think it looks too "scary" it's gone.
If you're a city dweller it's even harder. If you aren't a member of a gun club you have to have a letter from a farmer stating that you will be shooting on their land or you can't even get a licence.
I live way out in the boonies on a large property and I still had to supply them with a reason for needing firearms.
While this nonsense goes on the government is still moaning about the damage done by ferals.
What do you call 100 politicians on the bottom of the ocean?
A [beeep] good start.
Thanks again.
 
That is really sad, Gaznazdiak. Never thought I'd live to see that in Australia.

Welcome to PM!

Regards,
hm
 
It's even crazier than you could imagine Bad Dawg, the firearms legislation here has sunk to the completely bizarre.
It is legal for me to own, for example, my Howa 1500 which, fitted with it's Hawke Sidewinder 10-50x60 scope and fed my tuned hand-loads can reliably give rabbits the good news at 400m and foxes out to 600m, or a person sized object out to at least 1000m.
If, however, I was found in possession of a completely inert, non-functional replica of that same rifle, I would not only lose all my firearms, I would face between 7 and 10 years in prison.
Replica guns are considered a totally prohibited item, and as such attract the same penalties as being caught with a fully automatic, fully functional, assault rifle or M60 machine gun.
This is a result, in my opinion, of the population demographics here with 89% of the population living in cities, and the growing number of political correctness worshipping, tree-hugging vegans who have no conception of rural life and what is involved in producing the food they seem to think magically appears in their local supermarkets, and decades of knee-jerk legislation chasing the ever growing city votes.
For example, to be allowed to purchase any semi-auto centerfire rifle, you not only have to have a registered business engaged in vertebrate pest control, you also have to provide documentary proof of current contracts for said work.
In the state of Victoria, with a population of 5.8 million people there is reportedly a total of 17 people licenced to own such firearms. You even need to provide special reasons to apply for permission to own a pump action shotgun.
If you own a rifle like the Ruger 77/44 that fires handgun ammunition, you have to provide documentary proof, registration papers etc proving that you own a firearm chambered for that round, to be able to buy ammo for it.
We are not even allowed to defend ourselves here anymore.
Just last year in Victoria a farmer and his wife were confronted with a home invasion by an knife wielding ice addict. The farmer used an unloaded .22 to confront the criminal. Guess who ended in the most trouble.
http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/49270...fe-at-his-home/
 
62 and 75 grain Barnes TSX are the best for me, absolutely incredible petaling performance and next to zero weight loss on recovered bullets.
Sorry to hear about the liberal progressive socialists in Australia and the UK, we have to constantly be vigilant with them here too....
 
Barnes handloaded 70 grain TSX recovered from 420 pound one shot boar kill.

Bullet weighed 70.0 grains when loaded, when removed from the Boars spine, it weighed 69.9 grains.



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Barnes%2070gr%20TSX.jpg



I used the same bullet on this 510 pound boar single head shot @100 yards using my HK 10” SBR. DRT.



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