The author tries his hand at hog hunting with a .44 Magnum handgun and learns some lessons along the way.
Brad Fitzpatrick
Florida has a significant pig problem. It started in the 1500s when Hernando de Soto and his band of hearty conquistadors searched for new lands. Since de Soto and his crew had a taste for pork and couldn’t count on finding native pigs in the new lands they had yet discovered, they packed several hogs in the holds of their galleons and set forth for the new world.
Naturally, when they arrived, several of de Soto’s porcine passengers escaped into the unexplored interior of Florida, where they rode out the next four centuries in relative comfort in the sub-tropical climate.
Pigs are exceptionally adaptable, and given free range across a place as fertile as Florida, the hog population has skyrocketed. Even today, as the remaining interior of Florida is being consumed by golf courses, grocery stores, and trailer home communities, the wild hog, Sus scrofa, still survives here in large numbers. This burgeoning pig population damages crops, water control structures, and fences and threatens to reduce or eliminate populations of native plants and animals.
Thanks a lot, de Soto.
Pigs are considered a nuisance in Florida and a target of opportunity. And, central Florida’s ranch country has abundant opportunities to shoot hogs. However, the terrain is such that most shots are relatively close, and in some cases, a fast-handling gun is far more critical than a flat-shooting gun. If there was ever a place to test the effectiveness of handgun ammunition and optics, it would be the dense pine and palm forests of south-central Florida’s ranching country.
When I exited the jet bridge in my long camo pants and boots that still bore the bloodstains from last fall, I looked slightly different than the clusters of families headed for the coast or nearby theme parks. I picked up my bags and headed just outside the coastal town of Melbourne to Kempfer Ranch, which is just a 15-minute drive from the beachside town but a universe away.
The sprawling acreage of Kempfer Ranch, which is owned by “Hoppy” Kempfer and his family, has been a working timber plantation and cattle ranch since the days just following the American Civil War. And, in the sawgrass flats and dark pine forests, you can’t help but realize that this is what most of Florida looked like long before Mr. Disney broke ground on an amusement park up north near Orlando. This is wild Florida, full of gators, snakes, and even bears and bobcats. Oh, and there are lots of hogs.
I came to handgun hunting in my thirties, and my instructor was the wonderful Paul Pluff, who now works as part of the marketing and public relations team at Sturm, Ruger & Company. Paul is an ardent handgun hunter who routinely takes game at well over a hundred yards with a revolver. Pluff told me when I mentioned to him that I wanted to pick up the mantle of handgun hunting that today’s guns, optics, and ammunition are capable of impressive accuracy and terminal performance out to 100 yards and beyond. Still, very few hunters are willing to invest the time and energy practicing to shoot a handgun accurately at triple-digit distances.
I’m not as good as Pluff, but I do like hunting large and small game with a handgun. With my Ruger Super Redhawk in .44 Magnum I feel completely confident that, with a solid rest, I can make effective, ethical shots. But that kind of confidence requires not only a good gun but the right ammunition and optic.
Fiocchi recently launched their Handgun Hunting and Wilderness Defense ammunition, part of their Hyperformance hunting line. Fiocchi understands that any good centerfire hunting load, whether rifle or handgun, begins with the right bullet. For this reason, they chose to load their Hyperformance Handgun Hunting ammunition with Barnes’ XPB bullet. Like other Barnes bullets, the XPB is a monolithic, lead-free bullet featuring skives in the nose that initiate expansion. The bullets retain virtually all their mass when they impact a target, and that combination of consistent expansion and superb weight retention is what makes Barnes bullets so popular for hunting everything from whitetails to grizzlies. The primary reason I was in Florida with my Super Redhawk was to determine how effective the new load was on hogs.
You can handgun hunt with iron sights, but an optic helps improve your accuracy under almost all conditions. The Super Redhawk comes with machined scope ring cutouts and one-inch scope rings, so adding a Burris 2×20 Handgun Scope was quite simple. It’s amazing how much adding a magnified optic—even a 2x optic—improves the accuracy potential of most shooters. The Burris is also a very light scope at just seven ounces, and the capped windage and elevation turrets make adjustments fast and simple. With the scope mounted and zeroed, I set out into the pine forests in search of feral pigs.
The morning hours were spent chasing alligators (Hoppy Kempfer had an extra gator tag that needed filled), but that left the afternoon open for hog hunting. Pigs were scarce the first day; we saw just one small black-and-white boar that turned and darted into the low palmettos as we passed by in the pickup. The following day, I sat in a treestand near a power line cut and waited for the pigs to move near the dark. Being in the stand provided the time I needed to build a shooting rest, and with a tripod and sandbag, I stabilized the revolver on the rail surrounding the stand.
Sitting still also made me a blood offering to the hordes of mosquitoes that appeared from the swampy water and descended over my head like a shifting black cloud. I can’t recall seeing more little monsters at once, and the bug spray I applied did very little to slow their onslaught.
Late in the afternoon, a mild breeze began blowing from the southwest, sufficient to drive most mosquitoes from my face. By sunset, the breeze had died again, and the woods were quiet except for the buzz of tree frogs and crickets and the occasional drumming of woodpeckers. A single raccoon waddled down the trail, and almost on his heels came two hogs. A black pig led the way, and behind her, a black and white pig stopped long enough to root in the soft earth.
Fortunately for me, the pig stopped directly in front of the stand and the muzzle of the revolver. That turned out to be a regrettable move for the hog, though. I steadied the revolver and tucked the crosshairs just behind the shoulder. When everything came to rest, I fired.
Petals of flame exploded on both sides of the muzzle at the shot, and afterward, I was temporarily blinded by the muzzle flash. Soon enough, I could see the hog running a half-circle before diving into a palmetto stand. A rustle and snort followed, and then quiet returned with the growing darkness.
The pig had made it only a few yards before piling up, the Barnes XPB bullet punching through both shoulders and leaving a quarter-sized exit hole that provided plenty of blood to follow. She was a big sow, mature but past her prime, and she weighed an estimated 150 pounds. The sky was black and lined with stars when we finally managed to get a truck to the area and load the hog. The mosquitoes were back, and I was only too happy to leave.
Handgun hunting requires its own set of skills, and it also demands patience. Even if you spend the requisite amount of time training and learning to shoot well, you’ll also need to ensure that you have a solid rest in the field and only take high-percentage shots at distances that do not exceed your shooting abilities.
Gear is no substitute for training, but with proper equipment, such as a good optic and premium ammunition, hunting with a handgun is effective and enjoyable. Just make certain you bring plenty of bug repellant.
