What a Rookie

Two weeks in a row I took Carlos and Mark (my brother in law) hunting.  In those hunts I shot several times and afterwards thought I needed to have my eyes checked because the hogs ran off and after searching the fields, in the dark, we were not abler to recover the hog.  I kept telling myself, there's no way I could have missed that hog, it looked like it was at the end of the barrel.  On another hunt I walked into the field where 12 hogs were tearing up the ground.  It was a full moon and the wind was blowing from them to me and I could just about smell baby back ribs on the grill already.   Looking through my night vision scope I stalked them and got to within about 30 yards from one of them.  I could see him with the light of the moon and didn't need the night vision  scope.  I was close.  I fire and they all took off running, going in circle and running right back at me.  I believe what turned them was Mark yelling "they're coming back at you".  He and Carlos were about 60 yards away from me watching through the night vision monocular.  I also was watching the hogs run through my scope and said "I got them", and they must have heard us because they turned and ran about 40 yards to my right.  We searched the field again but found no hog.  There's no way I could have missed!!!  Maybe my scope is off?

Three days later the property owner told me he found my hog.  He said it made it across the road and ran about 20 yards into the next field.  A week after hearing that Carlos and I wet out and after dropping Carlos off on the backside of the the field, he told me he saw another hog I shot laying next to the fence.  That hog ran over 400 yards and then dropped.  Tough little sucker.

Today Carlos and I went out early so we could try out some new loads Carlos had reloaded for our AR15's.  We decided to go with a heavier bullet instead of the traditional 55 grain bullets.   We bought the Hornady 68 grain Hollow Point Boat Tail.  Carlos loaded 10 with BLC-2 powder and 20 with Varget, both powders made by Hodgdons.  We set one target at 100 yards and the other at 200 yards.  After firing 5 shots of Blc-2 we walked down range to see the results.  Not good.  Apparently Blc-2 does not like the heavier  bullet.  A couple of weeks earlier we shot 5 rounds of 55 grain bullets and the bullets were going through the same hole.  But with the 68 grain bullet, it did not group well at all.  It was well in excess of a 3 inch group.  Next we tried the 68 grain bullets that were loaded with Varget.  WOW, the results were great.  Probably under a quarter inch group with 3 bullet holes touching.  This is the load we're gonna use.  Carlos wanted to try the 200 yard shot and we still had great results with about a half inch grouping and that's because it was pretty windy.   Next we decided to check my Marlin 45-70 reloads.  I'll just cut to the chase, it's dead on at 100 yards with a half inch grouping.   Now lets try it at 200 yards.  After 3 rounds we decided to cancel on the 200 yard shots.   Aiming at the top of a 4 ft target holder the bullet hit about 4 inches up from the ground on the target holder.   One heck of a rainbow shot.    

Now that we got the shooting out of the way and we're dead on, lets get set up for some night hunting.   Carlos wanted to hunt the tripod which is located on the opposite end of the field.  After getting him set up I went to a new spot.   Well Sort of new.  In the past we've hunted from the tank and watched the hogs come out from our right side or east of us.  Today I went beyond where I thought their entry point was going to be and then 100 yards into the field.  The only bad thing about that was with all the rain we've had their were a bunch of skeeters in the field.  For you city folks, put mo in front of skeeters.  As I sat in my Jeep waiting there had to have been a hundred skeeters and other flying bugs with me so I got out my handy dandy Thermacell and lit it.  A few minutes later they were all gone.  At around 2050 hours I could see hogs coming into the field right where I thought they would come from.  It was getting dark so I had to hurry but I also had to be ever so quiet so they wouldn't get spooked.   Ok, plugs in my ears, 45-70 aiming down range, hits in sight, sun going down, lets get it on.  The good thing about having good optics is that even in low light you get a good picture and it was now 2105 hours and with my Nikon scope, I could see the hogs so I picked one out.  As I squeezed ever so slowly I heard CLICK.  WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT!!!!!!!   It was supposed to go Kaboom, not click.  What happened?  As I looked at my rifle I realized I pulled an Angel.  I had the safety on.  WHAT A ROOKIE!!! I told myself.  I quickly took the safety off and prayed the hogs had not heard the click, even though it sounded loud with ear plugs on.  I looked through the scope and lucky me, they were still there tearing up the ground.  Lets try this once again.  Aim, squeeze slowly, KABOOM, and even with ear plugs on I could hear the feet music of WHACK, followed by wwWWEEE, then silence.  That 300 grain sierra hollow point had hit it's mark and hit it hard, and that hog was not going to be tearing up anymore fields because he was art.  Carlos who was over 400 yards away said he heard the bullet hit and it was loud.   We retrieved the hog and decided to wait a little longer in hopes they would come out again.   It's a good thing we waited since at 2300 hours 3 little piggies came out and they were hungry.  They tore up the group about 60 yards away from us but before Carlos could get set up the critters went back into the tree line.  It wasn't more than 3 minutes later that they came out of the treelike to our right about 75 yards away.  Carlos got set up and had them in the cross hairs and I whispered, safety, make sure the gun is off safety.  Carlos looked at me with a puzzled look, checked the safety then looked like he wanted to say this ain't my first rodeo, but before he could say anything I said, believe me I know what I'm talking about.  Carlos aimed and fired and I watched another hog go down.  There was no squealing and we had another hog art.  Two hogs for the night is not bad.

See ya at the next hunt.