bullet
Handloader
- Dec 26, 2007
- 4,975
- 18
It was 45 degrees, ground fog blanketed that Oak bottom that ran along the edge of a pine thicket. Sunrise was about to take place and I could not wait for the sun to burn the fog away and warm up the damp morning. For two weeks I had been hunting a big boar who thought he owned that bottom and the creek that ran long the edge. He was an early morning fellow, who would only make his run along this span of woods in the early hours just at day light or shortly there after.
He put me in a tree one morning a month earlier when I was walking to my deer stand in the dark. I heard branches breaking and like some one beating on a drum as he pounded the ground coming out of a thicket toward me. All I could do was reach for a tree next to me as my rifle fell to the ground and I climbed for all I was worth. For 15 minutes he stomped and rutted the ground as he ran a round in circles, before he finally decided to leave as fast as he had arrived. I told myself right then that he was mine and I was not going to be run out of the woods by some boar who thought he owned the place. Well, he did own those woods that morning and proof of that was the fact, I was in the tree and my rifle was on the ground.
During the two weeks of hunting this big boy I put out corn, doctored the grown with stuff a friend gave me and assured me it would bring him out into the open during the day. Well, I found myself hunting that spot and working that area all one day. On my way out that evening I notice that his tracks were right in my tracks for about 200 yards. It was so hard to believe that this boar was actually tracking me and had made note of me during the day.
Well the fog was beginning to lift and I could see a good 40 yards or so without any trouble. I knew from the size of this one that I was not going to use my deer load. My Ruger Mk II 30-06 was loaded with a round that I had used on earlier hunting trips in my life. It was a 180gr Partition in front of H4831. I chose this bullet for this hunt because I needed something that would shock the animal up close and at the same time continue on through the boar with good penetration. I knew the Partition would shed most of it's front and send little missiles throughout the initial impact area creating a shock effect while tearing a ragged wound that would bleed free and not close upon itself inhibiting blood lose. If I was lucky enough for and exit with the back half of the Partition I would succeed in a quick kill by letting air in and blood out.
I will admit that I was concerned about being on the ground in close quarters with this boar because he had an attitude. So, I put four in the magazine and one in the chamber. You would have thought I was back in Africa with lion it the bush. An hour or so had gone by and I decided to back track my own tracks. I hadn't gone 75 yards and there he stood just 25 yards from me in the trail I had just come down. I threw up my 06 and put a round just to the right of his ear that went down the neck muscle, through the bottom part of the rig on his back breaking the right shoulder, going just under the spine and exiting in front of the left ham. He collapsed in his tracks as I bolted for a follow up that I did not need. What and exciting moment that was and I just stood there trying to realize all that had happened in that brief but indeed a full moment.
That big old 468 pound boar hit the ground that day because a man by the name of John Nosler in 1947 made a new bullet, the Partition. In 1948 the year I was born he went into business. I kind of like the idea that a man with a great idea made a great bullet and started selling it the year of my birth. Now in my years of hunting I have tried almost every bullet make there is today and not only on paper but on some kind of game from here to Africa.
I spent two different years helping Game wardens in Mississippi thin out deer, hogs and coyotes. I killed not counting what I hunted for during hunting season those two years, 52 coyotes, 41 deer and 16 hogs. Now that is just in two years of my 30 plus years of hunting and killing game. I have seen what bullets do and all kinds of bullets. I have seen game killed in Africa, Europe much less here in the USA. I am hear to tell you the bullets that tore flesh, disrupted bone and skeletal structure, rupturing blood vessels, making big wound channels, letting air in and lots of blood out quick, were the devastating killers and game expired very fast if not immediately. Nothing like seeing it happen in person. In my humble experiences of hunting I believe that the Nosler Partition is the best all around bullet a person could use to dispatch game on a consistent bases.
Yes, I have decided to come back to an "Old Thing, A Good Thing, That Called Me Back", to my memories of success in early times of my hunting life. That day in those damp bottoms, as I pulled the trigger on that 06 and dropped that big boar, I was reminded of how great the Nosler Partition is as a bullet and game taker. I have come a long ways through the years, seen a lot. I have decided to finish my hunting journey using the Nosler Partition I started with the first time I loaded a round for hunting with my 30-06.
He put me in a tree one morning a month earlier when I was walking to my deer stand in the dark. I heard branches breaking and like some one beating on a drum as he pounded the ground coming out of a thicket toward me. All I could do was reach for a tree next to me as my rifle fell to the ground and I climbed for all I was worth. For 15 minutes he stomped and rutted the ground as he ran a round in circles, before he finally decided to leave as fast as he had arrived. I told myself right then that he was mine and I was not going to be run out of the woods by some boar who thought he owned the place. Well, he did own those woods that morning and proof of that was the fact, I was in the tree and my rifle was on the ground.
During the two weeks of hunting this big boy I put out corn, doctored the grown with stuff a friend gave me and assured me it would bring him out into the open during the day. Well, I found myself hunting that spot and working that area all one day. On my way out that evening I notice that his tracks were right in my tracks for about 200 yards. It was so hard to believe that this boar was actually tracking me and had made note of me during the day.
Well the fog was beginning to lift and I could see a good 40 yards or so without any trouble. I knew from the size of this one that I was not going to use my deer load. My Ruger Mk II 30-06 was loaded with a round that I had used on earlier hunting trips in my life. It was a 180gr Partition in front of H4831. I chose this bullet for this hunt because I needed something that would shock the animal up close and at the same time continue on through the boar with good penetration. I knew the Partition would shed most of it's front and send little missiles throughout the initial impact area creating a shock effect while tearing a ragged wound that would bleed free and not close upon itself inhibiting blood lose. If I was lucky enough for and exit with the back half of the Partition I would succeed in a quick kill by letting air in and blood out.
I will admit that I was concerned about being on the ground in close quarters with this boar because he had an attitude. So, I put four in the magazine and one in the chamber. You would have thought I was back in Africa with lion it the bush. An hour or so had gone by and I decided to back track my own tracks. I hadn't gone 75 yards and there he stood just 25 yards from me in the trail I had just come down. I threw up my 06 and put a round just to the right of his ear that went down the neck muscle, through the bottom part of the rig on his back breaking the right shoulder, going just under the spine and exiting in front of the left ham. He collapsed in his tracks as I bolted for a follow up that I did not need. What and exciting moment that was and I just stood there trying to realize all that had happened in that brief but indeed a full moment.
That big old 468 pound boar hit the ground that day because a man by the name of John Nosler in 1947 made a new bullet, the Partition. In 1948 the year I was born he went into business. I kind of like the idea that a man with a great idea made a great bullet and started selling it the year of my birth. Now in my years of hunting I have tried almost every bullet make there is today and not only on paper but on some kind of game from here to Africa.
I spent two different years helping Game wardens in Mississippi thin out deer, hogs and coyotes. I killed not counting what I hunted for during hunting season those two years, 52 coyotes, 41 deer and 16 hogs. Now that is just in two years of my 30 plus years of hunting and killing game. I have seen what bullets do and all kinds of bullets. I have seen game killed in Africa, Europe much less here in the USA. I am hear to tell you the bullets that tore flesh, disrupted bone and skeletal structure, rupturing blood vessels, making big wound channels, letting air in and lots of blood out quick, were the devastating killers and game expired very fast if not immediately. Nothing like seeing it happen in person. In my humble experiences of hunting I believe that the Nosler Partition is the best all around bullet a person could use to dispatch game on a consistent bases.
Yes, I have decided to come back to an "Old Thing, A Good Thing, That Called Me Back", to my memories of success in early times of my hunting life. That day in those damp bottoms, as I pulled the trigger on that 06 and dropped that big boar, I was reminded of how great the Nosler Partition is as a bullet and game taker. I have come a long ways through the years, seen a lot. I have decided to finish my hunting journey using the Nosler Partition I started with the first time I loaded a round for hunting with my 30-06.
