Pig hunting with the Dragunov

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Grantman

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Although this hunt was about 3 months ago I thought I may as well put it up seeing as I had some pics of it and all.

This was the first time I’d shot anything of any significant size. The neighbouring farmer had been having a pig problem and asked me, the no hunting experience noob neighbour with guns, to see if I could do anything about them. The pigs would root up lengths of his pasture land and even worse he had recently planted a paddock with turnips and wasn’t to keen on the pigs hoeing through them when they started growing. Every so often I would trek up the back of the farm packing my dragunov tigr to see if I could spot the little destroyers rooting around. I’d been up time and time again and seen virtually nothing but rooting. On a couple of occasion I’d briefly spotted a couple of very small piggies who disappeared into the bush pretty quick.

One evening I received a phone call from the farmer who said he could see a bunch of pigs and he described the location to me. This was the best chance I had yet of disposing of some pigs so I made short time getting my gear and heading up the hilly area at the back of the farm to where I understood the pigs were. Turns out I messed up the location slightly and ended up waffling around over the paddocks for a while before finally happening upon a group of pigs as I came over a short rise. The pigs would have been about 50-60 meters away on the top of another slight rise with a bit of a bowl and a few dead trees between us. The bunch consisted of a number of piglets and 3 larger pigs.

This was basically a cull to me, for the farmer’s sake, and I was going to shoot anything that moved in order wipe out this corner of the problem completely. I had my chance and I was going to inflict maximum carnage as best I could! I quickly ducked and backed down the rise, went prone and edged my way up until I could see them. They were somewhat behind the dead trees so I waited for a clear shot. After a few moments they started to come around the left edge of the bowl and I commenced hammering 203gr SP Barnaul from my Dragunov. The first and largest pig would have been approx 50 meters away and one shot through the neck area dropped it as I rose to a crouch and swung to the right to get a shot at a pig that was fleeing toward the bush line. I managed to put a bullet somewhere through the head/nose region, hard to remember. In any case that was the last moment for that piggy. I wheeled back to the left to get a bead on the remaining significant pig that was amazingly still coming toward me in the left of the shallow bowl without realising my position. 2 shots finished it off quick smart. Seeing the first pig thrashing around I sent another shot directly into its side because I thought it looked very lively when in fact it would have been merely death convulsions. Scrambling to reload I whipped out my 5 round mag, dropped it and popped in my second magazine and took aim at a piglet only about 15 meters away and squeezed the trigger. NOTHING HAPPENED! Realising I’d failed to release the bolt I desperately released it and let it slam closed. The piglets were milling about and I managed to bump off three of them, one receiving the benefit of two bullets as one was a skimmer. So in the end I had fired 9 shots and had 6 bodies littered about from approx 10 meters out to 50 meters. The Dragunov was an absolute wrecking ball. I couldn’t have done it without the semi auto and even though I botched the reload as I was scrambled to exchange magazines. The pigs hadn’t seemed to realise what was going on or where I was located.

Being the hunting noob that I was I gave the pigs to a nearby worker’s dogs. Since then, on successive shoots, I kept the decent sized pigs and they ended up being gobbled by some friends of mine. The night photos were taken the same evening after I’d gone back home and released my first magazine was still back in the paddock somewhere so I grabbed my camera and went back to recover it. By the time I took the pics night had taken over.

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The family’s all here.

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Pig number 1

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203gr 7.62x54r can make a bit of a mess at close range (only 1 shot for this guy).
 
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Looks like a good cull...

More pics please...
I might have missed this, but what on earth are you doing with all the meat?
 
You shouldn't be shooting 200 grain bullets out of any semi-automatic rifle. A Dragunov or Tigr can handle heavy ball (up to 180 grains) okay, but it's still not recommended. I'd recommend you stay below 170 grains. Otherwise you will damage your nice rifle (oh how I envy you) over time. The real Dragunov can handle heavy ball much better because it has an adjustable gas valve. The Tigr has a fixed valve so the heavier ammo will result in harder impacts.
 
The pigs were given to a neighbouring worker for his dogs. I received a bit of flack for that so had a friend butcher the decent sized pigs I successively shot. My friends have been gobbling them up and reckon the wild pork is pretty good.

The Tigr’s milled receiver and short stroke gas system means it can handle heavy loads that would probably blow the dust covers off a PSL. Ideally lighter loads would be the favoured option but here in NZ the lightest load is Highland AX 180gr SP. So all the NZ’s with Dragunovs are pounding heavy bullets through there dragunovs with no problems. The gun dealer I purchased this rifle off obviously knew the ammo state in NZ when he began importing dragunovs from Izhmash, so they’re confident that tigrs will chomp through this ammo okay. Of course if I had lighter stuff on hand I’d be using that instead.

My tigr
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Amazing, people and places all over the world are so different. But I swear I killed those three big hogs first cousins in Texas this past Deer season. Great Photos, Beautiful Country, Nice Rifle.

My youngest Daughters first hog, yep she's hooked.
 

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Amazing, people and places all over the world are so different. But I swear I killed those three big hogs first cousins in Texas this past Deer season. Great Photos, Beautiful Country, Nice Rifle.

My youngest Daughters first hog, yep she's hooked.

That's a good size pig your daughter shot chas08, good on her. What gun did she use?
 
here in california, farmers have discoverd they can charge $500+ to let you fix their pig problem.

pretty cool neighbor you have
 
Yes he was keen on me getting up there and dealing to them. He had good information that a well known pig hunter in these parts had purposefully released them into the area for future sport. Asking me to go and wipe them out was the best option for him because there was no way he was going to deal with the other chap after that. Having newbie hunter neighbour go up there and bump off a bunch of pigs and feed the carcasses to dogs would probably be seen as pretty disgusting behaviour to that other seasoned pig hunter. Not that I was thinking about that at all after shooting them, but in hindsight it was probably suitable punishment for that fellow releasing them in the first place.

$500 bucks to fix the farmer's problem? Wow, hunters must be more desperate than the farmers.
 
man, I could go for some of that!

My M-39 Mosin and My SVT-40 are my"choice" with my '39 being the year round reliable of the two.....but a Dragonov would probly make the other two jelous over time...~LOL!~:D

Wolf pack shooting at a distance comes to mind......:evil:
 
That's a good size pig your daughter shot chas08, good on her. What gun did she use?

Sorry for the delayed answer. She shoots a Remington 700 BDL in .270 With a Leupold 3x9 Vari-X II, That is"HER"gun. Thats what she shot the pig with. But she also likes to hunt with my Bushmaster V- Match.
 
7.62x54 is an awesome hunting round. Nice shooting.

NEVER EVER let the little piglets get away from the Frying pan or smoker unless they are destroyed as the one in the pic. The big ones ain't so tasty, the little ones are blooming good.

Recipe (works well with any kind of pork... Even the old ones. But seriously, if it is over 300 lbs, do not bother eating it unless you have a good cook around and you are hard up. Might want to soak it in beer right after cleaning as well.)

Take little pig, clean and quarter. Fire up grill. Get a marinade of 1/4 cup Soy Sauce, 1/4 honey and soak the piglet quarters for at least 15 minutes (not more than 1 hour). When coals are ready, slap piglet on the grill and cook well done.

In a sauce pan put some cornstarch (tablespoon), 1/4 cup sherry, 1 teaspoon or table spoon (depends on preference) of soy sauce and reduce until thick and bubbly. Serve the pork drizzled with sauce over white rice.

Enjoy! Goes well with an ice cold miller light and a few good friends.
 
I've heard the little pigs are full of flavoury goodness and it looks like that recipe would amp up the tastiness 10 fold.

An SVT-40, now pig hunting with one of those would sure be fun :) Gimme!
 
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