Thread: Typical Bush Pig Rifle setup

Please pardon my ignorance. I am an American and I am seeking to understand what you New Zealanders find so appealing about a chopped. 308/7mm08 bush pig setup. What is the appeal? What is the net advantage?

P.S. I am a Southeastern U.St. deer hunter and most shots are 100 yards in. Essentially one clean shot is all that is required.

Putting a suppressor on protects your hearing. Putting a suppressor on q 24" barrel is unwieldy and bloody heavy. By cutting the barrel back to 16/18/20" makes the rifle handier and often the same or shorter than the original barrel. By hand loading with the right projectiles you do not lose any performance.
The woods/forest we hunt deer in are bloody thick and limited visibility. A handy rifle is nice at the end of a long day deerstalking.

Originally Posted by stug

the woods/forest we hunt deer in are bloody thick and limited visibility..

This. Most pictures I have seen of hunting in the us is like our beech forest and you can see 40+m. It's not unusual in nz to have less than 5m visability

Nice short handy rifle = less frustration in the thick NZ bush / jungle

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@bill f

Having a short compact rifle (Bush Pig) for hunting in the thick bush is a distinct advantage both in being able to move through the bush without getting tangled up and also for quick pointing when required.

Btw our wild Razor Back pigs are short and compact and love living in the thick bush, hence the term Bush Pig.

As has been said typical shooting distances I've encountered while bush stalking are between 5 and 50 meters.

Here's a couple of examples of the types of terrain you could expect to encounter bush stalking in NZ.

Semi Open Pine Forrest, shooting distances up to about 80 meters


Typical North Island Bush, shooting distances less than 50 meters


I like to hunt the thicker bush with my Rossi 92 44mag with a 16" barrel.

Hope this helps with your question.

Cheers
Pete

The only issue I can see is suppressors are not commonly used by hunters in the USA. (from what I have read I understand they are seen as "specially dangerous".
I suspect it would be unpleasant shooting a short barreled rifle with no suppressor. I have done it once by accident ................ never again

16" in .308 still allows accurate shots past 200m, and the calibre is well suited to shorter barrels, with proportionally less velocity loss than most other calibres. A shorter barrel = less whip / harmonic vibration, and is therefore stiffer than a longer tube, for the same thickness. There is a lot of info about this on the web.

A short, handy rifle with a suppressor is ideal in these situations. NZ has no licence / permit requirement for using suppressors, so that is also a big plus. As said, the average shot distance is way less than 80m in dense north island forest.

Hunting with suppressors is getting more and more popular in the USA specially in the more Free states ( ie not California nor newyork), but I understand you guys are limited to a 16 or 16.5" barrel, which is short enough to make a good bush pig rifle.
Just buy any good bolt action rifle of the shelf like a Remington 700 or 7, kimber, tikka in 308, chop it at 16.5", get a lightweight suppressor fitted and shoot 130 to 150 gr loads and you ll never look back. You can put a nice little leupold scope with a CDs turret if you want to reach up to 300 yards with out too much trouble.

Originally Posted by stug

Putting a suppressor on protects your hearing. Putting a suppressor on q 24" barrel is unwieldy and bloody heavy. By cutting the barrel back to 16/18/20" makes the rifle handier and often the same or shorter than the original barrel. By hand loading with the right projectiles you do not lose any performance.
The woods/forest we hunt deer in are bloody thick and limited visibility. A handy rifle is nice at the end of a long day deerstalking.

Here's my interpretation of a bush pig. Due to some of the clearings down here and my love of both Tops and Bush hunting I went down the middle. Weatherby vanguard 308 20" barrel, DPT suppressor, Burris sixX 2-12, STUG carbon fibre stock. All of the others have nailed it and as such I won't repeat them lol!

The definition has changed a bit too... when I first heard the term in hunting circles 'bush pig' referred more to a cheap rough ugly short rifle that was handy in the bush and you didn't care about covering with scratches etc. Now people have flash shiny expensive short rifles they call bushpigs as well.

In the USA they are more commonly called scout rifles, unsupressed and scope forward of action which is ok for close range shooting, having a unsupressed rifle is hard on ones ears and especially a dogs. It's no longer a handicap have a short barreled rifle because with good quality dailup scopes, rangefinders and a ballistic app around now bullet trajectory isn't problem for the longer range shots.

Thanks for all the posts.

Originally Posted by GravelBen

The definition has changed a bit too... when I first heard the term in hunting circles 'bush pig' referred more to a cheap rough ugly short rifle that was handy in the bush and you didn't care about covering with scratches etc. Now people have flash shiny expensive short rifles they call bushpigs as well.

And the last time it was cleaned was when it went in the box for shipping

I don't think I'd ever refer to anything as a bushpig. Except a pig, in the bush.

Originally Posted by GravelBen

The definition has changed a bit too... when I first heard the term in hunting circles 'bush pig' referred more to a cheap rough ugly short rifle that was handy in the bush and you didn't care about covering with scratches etc. Now people have flash shiny expensive short rifles they call bushpigs as well.

Agree @GravelBen but I seem to give my alpine rifle a much harder time than my bush pig.