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Handgun cartridge effects on hogs and armadillos.

9K views 28 replies 14 participants last post by  VINCENT 
#1 ·
I was reading the thread on handgun calibers and wanted to see what the results were of the people who shot hogs and armadillos with different handgun cartridges. I can read about paper ballistics or different studies on the internet all day, but I guess I can relate to hunting stories better.
 
#3 ·
I dont use anything. I have never seen an armadillo this far north. A specific poster on the thread I mentioned said he tested new handgun calibers on them and I thought it sounded interesting. Plus he said he ate them and I wanted to make sure he was still alive, seeing as they can carry leprosy. I didnt want to hijack the thread, so I started this one.

Now if we did have them here I would kill them with whatever my newest gun is at the time, which is my new mosin. Now that would be interesting.
 
#5 ·
Hi, that would be me. I have heard the leprosy thing for 50 years! and have never seen a case. I closely inspect every wild animal I harvest [including fish] for sickness, lesions abnormalities etc inside and out. dillos are delish :thumb: just the legs tho, there isnt much else on them.
As far as damage caused by different ammo I have had it blow right thru or stay within the body, in both cases I skin them out and check the damage inside and out. I use dillos {ballistically} because they are 7 to 9 inches wide and have soft armour which i think helps the realism because they have small bones. also they are incredibly hard to one shot stop! you can blow a hole right thru em and they'll still run 30 yrds at full speed.I probably have 20% drop,20% run less than ten yrds and 60% run up to 30 yrds or so.
I have used 9mm, 38/40/45 cal in whatever was the hot new thing at the time,[ 1980/present]what ballistic charts/fbi/marshall sanow/magazines were hyping at the time, my latest and best round to date was pdx1 out of a glock 23 at a large dillo at 12 yards.
Without going into boring detail my findings in general are these:
1.shot placement is KING! spend your money on training not crazy rounds.
2.leaving aside sales hype,bullet design really has come a long way,25 years ago 38/9mm were useless on dillos, they are now quite effective. but looking at the internal damage/exit wounds 40/45 is still somewhat better.
3. For years I subscibed to the lighter,faster school of thought ie. corbons quik shoks, because bullet designs at the time caused the heavy slower bullets to not expand reliably, over penetrate and cause less internal damage.I now have done a complete reversal, again due to bullet design/performance and use the heavier bullets,ex. 180 grains pdx1 in 40 cal.they expand hugely,reliably, do awesome damage inside and out, keep their jackets, less over penetration, better performance against hard targets etc.
4. So in a nut shell all the above calibres with good modern ammo[golddot,winchester etc] will due the trick although I stil prefer the larger cals.
it is more what you shoot with the most accuracy/comfort.If you want good ballistics with alot of rounds go 9 mil, better ballistics less rounds 40 cal,best balistics even less rounds 45. Due to the exellence of the latest ammo offerings, calibre picks take on less importance to me and accuracy takes on more.
5. just my opinion about ammo that seemed to do the most damage/feed, perform/reliably,out of a magnum research 9 mm,glock 23,colt commander,38 charter arms snubbie.

Win pdx1/fed hst/golddot in the heavier loads.It just depends on what your gun feeds the best and what you shoot the best. all 3 fully expand, do horrific internal damage and only over penetrate a couple of feet 90% of the time, stay in the animal 10% of the time. Again my shots are mostly side on , between 10 to 15 yards, yes i measure.:D:

sorry to run on like this on something as weird as shooting dillos :rofl: hope this helped. :zombie

P.S I'm tired of writing but on a brief note, shooting hogs is a whole nuther thang! perhaps its the heavier bones I dont know but the larger cals seem to do a much better job for me.
 
#4 ·
I can't speak for handguns, but I've shot armadillo's with a bow, with shotguns using everything from field shot to 3" mag 00 buck and 22lr and never stopped one after a single shot. The one I shot with my bow was from a deerstand at dusk. He took off through the brush carrying my arrow with him. Never found it. Tough critters.
 
#6 ·
Thanks Budog. I found that very interesting. I have for the longest time been in the large and slow school of thinking. I just bought a ruger lcr in .357 mag and was thinking how effective everyone says it is for defense and hunting. Now I'm going back and forth on which I like better my old XD .45 acp or this new revolver. My mind has to always be doing something and so I always come back to catridge comparisons quite often just for the fun of it.

And I appreciated the long post, it was detailed and informative.
 
#12 · (Edited)
Large and slow



If you rethink that LCR (nice revolver btw), look at a Charter Arms .44 bulldog. Small, light, large, and slow. Nice little piece...

I may pick one up for myself.

They are all over GA, and we had one in our sights one night in a friends field. Ran out of 12ga trying to kill it (well, the guy shooting 'at' it ran out), so another guy whips out a mini Glock in 9mm and proceeds to nail it - blam, blam, blam. Right between us, no ear protection, shells raining down. Spun that 'dillo like a top, it was like a shooting gallery - every time he'd hit it, it'd change direction. Never did slow it down. Ah, good times, with gunpowder and bourbon...
 
#7 ·
budog is pretty much right. I wouldn't eat an armadillo though. I've shot them with 7.62 Tok, 38 S&W and even a 7.62 Nagant. They really aren't that hard to kill, but they do tend to run away before they die. I never shot for the head though. I did kill one with a Webley in 38 S&W and it not run away. I think I shot it four times though, twice and it stopped running. That was probably more luck than anything.
I finally started using a Norinco 12ga SxS coachgun just so I could haul them off and they wouldn't rot where ever they wanted to. On the plus side, if they run away they usually go into their burrow, so they kinda bury themselves. As long as the burrow is not under your porch.

Hogs are a different thing altogether. They are tough. You need a larger caliber if you can't ensure really good shot placement. Not sure I'd even use a 45ACP on one unless it was in a pen or was a finishing shot and I could shoot it in the head. In that case, smaller caliber with decent velocity should even be fine.

Edit: Your 357 should work on hogs, but you still will want good shot placement. Those things can get really mean if they are injured and decide to take fight over flight.
 
#10 ·
A .22 will do just fine for dillos, as for the leprosy thing, if that was the case my ancestors would have had it. I've got a dillo stew recipe handed down to me from my great great gramma. It was written down in 1843. Tastes really delicious. :thumb:

Can't comment on the hogs as I have never shot 1.
 
#15 ·
Wow

That is great!

I just rented a S&W Airweight .38 and a .38 LCR for a back-to-back comparison. LCR hands down. Better recoil management and I preferred the dao trigger.

I would love to end up w/ a .38 LCR, a .22 LCR, and the Bulldog. That'd be the best of all worlds!

Thanks for sharing.

IB
 
#18 ·
For the record

I wasn't drinking while shooting, but some of the others were. I don't encourage drinking and shooting, but ******** are everywhere. Nobody knew the guy had the 9mm. Our ears were ringing for hours.

We shoot the armadillos because they tear up a working Black Angus cattle farm down in Middle GA. There are a number of animals that do a lot of damage to this working farm.

IB
 
#20 ·
I wasn't drinking while shooting, but some of the others were. I don't encourage drinking and shooting, but ******** are everywhere. Nobody knew the guy had the 9mm. Our ears were ringing for hours.

We shoot the armadillos because they tear up a working Black Angus cattle farm down in Middle GA. There are a number of animals that do a lot of damage to this working farm.

IB
OK :thumb:

But - maybe you should think about hanging out with a different crowd .
Why would you want to put your life in danger like that ? A drunk ******* whith a gun is an accident waiting to happen .
 
#22 ·
Armadillos are extremely damaging. Just one of them can tear a yard up pretty bad in one single night. They'll dig holes big enough to turn your ankle in or get your lawnmower stuck in pretty quick. I could easily see the problems if you're running livestock. Not to mention they are an invasive species. I guess if you enjoy filling holes in your yard daily they could be fun to have around.
I hunt, but don't take extreme pleasure in killing anything, personally. I don't consider killing anything without utilizing it in some way acceptable at all. The only exceptions to my rule against killing anything and letting it go to waste are poisonous things in my yard and armadillos.

Sorry, typed this as you were posting.
 
#24 ·
I dont enjoy killing animals, but I have no problem doing it when neccessary. I dont hunt for trophys. I dont judge those that do, but I am a meat hunter. I only kill something that I am going to feed my family with or something that I need to protect my family from. Or to put down an animal that is suffering.
 
#26 ·
I just remembered my uncle once told me his recipe for armadillo. You get a dillo and take the shell off of it. You then nail the shell to a board and throw the rest of it away. Then stick the shell on the board in the oven at 250 for three days. Then you take the shell off the board, throw it away and eat the board.

I never did know whether he was joking or being serious until he said the punch line and started laughing.
 
#27 ·
I grew up using a 22 for armadillas, darn things jump way up straight in the air. I have since grown into high powered rifles....:D:

I have leveled a few when bird hunting too.

I use a 44 mag for the piggies......that's if I can't make it to my rifle!


Down here in Texas, not only are armadillos destructive varmints but also hogs, prairie dogs, porcupine and coyotes.

I shoot on sight. Maybe 1 out of every 4 or 5 pigs are what I'd consider edible.
 
#28 ·
I love shooting armadillos. I shot one's head clean off as though he had been cleaved from the shoulders with a Ruger Mini 30 with the Russian hollow points in the small brown box.

Shot one with an bow. Ran into the hold with the arrow protruding. yes, the arrow stopped him from entering the hole, but played hell on the arrow.

Have killed many with the .22 Magnum.

Love killing hogs! They have all tasted great to this point.
 
#29 ·
personal experience- .22 magnum took more the 7 rounds to the head to finish off a 250 LBS hog. (after 7 the rest of the mag was emptied rapidly and then the job was done so i am unsure which round finished the job)
this was from 4 feet or less.
.357- 1 round to the head from 4 feet away. instant drop and spasm for about 10-15 seconds.
 
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