Thread: A good calibre on pigs

@Mr Browning a couple of questions: Do you already have a centrefire? If so, if it is in the the range of my suggestions, use that.

I have done a bit of boar stalking as I have never had a dog. My preference would be anything larger than 243 up to whatever you can shoot comfortably. Any rifle that fires a 110gr up to a 200gr bullet at about 2300fps or over...My go to is one of three, 30/06, 308 or 303. but there are many others suitable. You mentioned maybe having a crack at deer with the same rifle, then that similar range of calibres would be fine.

Of all those I would lean towards a 308 for a number of reasons. That calibre is suitable for any sized game in NZ, is capable out past where most shooters are capable of hitting, and most importantly, there is a large range of ammo commonly and easily available. Whatever rifle you get , you will need to practise with it to get comfortable and accurate and reasonable priced 308 hunting ammo makes practise more about what needs to be learnt rather than cost. Walk into any store that sells ammo and there will be 308 on the shelf. Its the "Toyota Hilux" of calibres.

You can shoot pigs with 223 etc but I generally would not pick that as my first choice especially if you have not done a lot of this before. And going by the OP I would suggest that this is the case.

Finally, wild pork is much much nicer than shop bought pork. It is well worth the carry out. As mentioned earlier, the bigger ones dont taste as good (but they do make good sausages...) and the smaller ones are much easier to eats as well as being easier to carry...so it makes sense to carry out the smaller ones.

I see you are in Chch so if you want to have a chat in more depth, then feel free to PM me and we can talk about it.