I continue to be amazed at how easily animals seem to materialize out of nowhere. THREE hours I had been watching this group of cattle and the fields around them. I would do a complete pan and scan every couple of minutes. I did one and then turned around to scan through the trees behind me into the next field and when I turned back around, there was this large boar in the middle of the cattle. He snuck in very well, LOL. I watched him for over 3 minutes as he strolled through the cattle. He did not appear to be there to eat, but seemed to just be passing through. As he was among the cattle, I had no shot. I needed to wait until he was behind them. That point finally came and he didn't slow down. I tried lip squeaking to see if it would catch his attention, but that failed (as it usually does). So I went ahead and shot him on the move.
He was a bit farther out than I thought and the shot hit farther back than I expected. So I ran the calculations and the shot hit about where it should have hit given the hog's distance and approximate speed, bullet speed, and time of flight. Even though the hog didn't look like it was moving quickly, the time of flight allows for a lot to happen and in this case, it allowed for the hog to travel about a foot.
The Hornady SST 123 gr. factory ammo entered the back of the left shoulder, punching through hide, shield muscle, shoulder blade, muscle, rib, lungs etc., rib, muscle, shoulder blade cartilage, muscle, shield, and hide before exiting the front of the right shoulder, but with only a part of the bullet. Entry side damage was actually much more pronounced than exit side damage, which is unusual, unless only a fraction of the bullet is exiting.
