Just stayed 4 days on several hundred acres near Roma. Property owner has a problem with feral pigs. Emus and skippies are a bit of a problem too, but his 15 working dogs are well fed thanks to the presence of those animals. Property owner is renting a cabin and allowing pig shooters to stay and shoot but the shooters are not dinting the pig population. Property owner is applying for a grant to get some Ariel shooing done. Im not sure that even an Ariel program would do much. Are there any sporting shooters on here? I would like to know what a 308/7.62 round costs from a gun shop and what a reloaded round costs as a comparison.
Whats the relevance of my story? Property owner is interested in hosting a farm stay type situation but needs to look at the revenue coming in from shooters versus farm stay clients. He already has certain safety rules in place for the shooters but would not have shooting going on at the same time as farm stay.
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Iza
Semi-permanent state of being Recreationally Outraged as a defence against boredom during lockdown.
There was a trial done on inserting detonators into apples and spreading around in known pig areas with a very successfully outcome in reducing pig number. When they bite into apple it blows a hole in their head. Then the do gooder stepped in. Childeren could pick up and eat apples, Cruel to pigs, detonators make bombs, etc.
I understand the risks i volved but every options has risks, just a need to manage. A practical solution has now been abandoned, leaving it open to undercover illegal methods that risk environment and people even more.
From property owner prospective he is attempting to reduce pig numbers and keep on the right side of the laws.
Bottom line it is a good idea, not for me, I can't hit a dunny door from the inside with a rifle and a shot gun requires me to be just too close to a feral pig.
Just stayed 4 days on several hundred acres near Roma. Property owner has a problem with feral pigs. Emus and skippies are a bit of a problem too, but his 15 working dogs are well fed thanks to the presence of those animals. Property owner is renting a cabin and allowing pig shooters to stay and shoot but the shooters are not dinting the pig population. Property owner is applying for a grant to get some Ariel shooing done. Im not sure that even an Ariel program would do much. Are there any sporting shooters on here? I would like to know what a 308/7.62 round costs from a gun shop and what a reloaded round costs as a comparison.
Whats the relevance of my story? Property owner is interested in hosting a farm stay type situation but needs to look at the revenue coming in from shooters versus farm stay clients. He already has certain safety rules in place for the shooters but would not have shooting going on at the same time as farm stay.
Ring or email SSAA (Sporting Shooters Association of Australia) they will have members only too willing to help out.
Using common military calibres such as .223/5.56mm or .308/7.62mm Nato rounds can be bought cheaper than most other commercial factory ammo. Don't know if they are still available, but we used to buy ex military 30.06 ammo by the boxful, cheap as chips.
I spent many decades reloading for various calibre rifles and my shotguns, it can be expensive to set up and requires quite a bit of study if you intend to do it safely. If you can get hold of cheap military ammo the only snag re using that ammo for hunting is that they come factory loaded with "ball" projectiles. No! that doesn't mean the projectile is a round ball, it just means that the projectile does not expand on soft tissue animals/people as required by war time rules.
You can buy a cheap bullet puller and replace the ball projectiles with proper expanding boattail hollow point bullets and still come out cheaper than buying new factory ammo.
When we were buying cheap ex US military 30.06 ball ammo it was for pig shooting out the back of NSW. The ammo was so cheap I never minded shooting a pig twice if the first round went straight through the pig without dropping it because most of the pigs out in dry summer country used to wallow around water troughs and had a large hard dry clay suit of armour stuck to their sides, the nickel jacketed ball ammo used to blow large chunks of that off the pig/boar and knock him off his feet, sometimes a second shot was required but hey, cheap ammo :)
We've been having problems with pigs at our place lately. The arrive in the wee hours and they dig, turning large areas of level paddocks into uneven mudpiles overnight. NSW govt Local Land Services have provided a trap, and I bait it and shoot the pigs. We seem to have got rid of the group of pigs that were visiting but another lot will start roaming the area eventually. I don't like shooting animals and will only do it if they are destructive, or if badly injured. A .223 is a good size rifle for pigs and ammo is relatively cheap.
We get pigs coming in from Blue Mountains National Park, they effectively turn over 2/5 acres in the night then disappear back to their "protected" National Park. Large mobs of Kangaroos also come in every night, at least all they do is eat the native pasture.
The main problem is; most of my neighbors are, like me, getting too old to treck through the bush in the wee small hours to shoot feral pigs, foxes and rabbits. The PP Boards are pretty quick to take annual fees, but they do little to eradicate problem weeds, or cull destructive pests, coming out of the protected parks.
We can't open up to shooters coming in, as Forest Gump said; "you don't see the nuts until the chocolate is bitten into". Past experience with "professional shooters" is that some are so gung hoe and think they have the right to annihilate whatever is behind every set of eyes illuminated in their spotlights.
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Possum; AKA:- Ali El-Aziz Mohamed Gundawiathan
Sent from my imperial66 typewriter using carrier pigeon, message sticks and smoke signals.
Daughter does competition long range shooting with a custom .308.
She loads her own rounds.
Aside from the fact she can get better consistency from her own loads, the cost is substantially less than buying factory loads.
Of course you need to buy the equipment to load your own which isn't cheap.
I do a bit of reloading but since the start of the war in Ukraine the components have been very hard to get, especially powder and primers. When they are available at the moment they're often 2 or 3 times more expensive than they used to be. Landy
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In life it is important to know when to stop arguing with people
and simply let them be wrong.
Daughter does competition long range shooting with a custom .308. She loads her own rounds. Aside from the fact she can get better consistency from her own loads, the cost is substantially less than buying factory loads. Of course you need to buy the equipment to load your own which isn't cheap.
I ued to be a comperition Pistol shooter, I reloaded all my centerfire ammo 44 mag, 357mag, 38 special and 32 S&W long, loading between 200 aand 500 rounds a week, I was fortunate to have a Star Auto reloader. Added to that I would also shoot 22 long and shorts buying a half a case 2500 rounds of each every 6-8 weeks. also .22 air pistol.
I would shoot 4 time a week non compertition week, I would practice 7 days a week in the lead up to a major compertition.
Daughter does competition long range shooting with a custom .308. She loads her own rounds. Aside from the fact she can get better consistency from her own loads, the cost is substantially less than buying factory loads. Of course you need to buy the equipment to load your own which isn't cheap.
Good on her Greg. Reloading for better accuracy and "tuning" the rifle is a very satisfying and rewarding path to go down.
Another ex pistol shooter Gundog. I had a Ruger stainless steel revolver in .44 mag with 8 3/8 barrel. I like the Springfield P9 semi auto in .357 magnum and you could put .38 special ammo through it for practice. For rabbit shooting I had a Ruger 10/22 semi auto carbine with the 10 shot rotary box magazine. If the rabbits were a long way away I used a custom built and scoped 22/250 improved, using handloads it was wicked accurate out to 400mtrs in calm conditions.
ps, did a lot of trap and skeet shooting but not much handgun target work, there's some jokes about target shooters I can't repeat here :)
She does very well at it.
When I last visited the range with her they were shooting over 1000 metres and she dropped one shot out of the bull for the day.
She was asked to represent the ACT in the interstate teams but her work load prevented her from taking the time out.
I taught her to shoot with a .22 when she was quite young. She like to come hunting with me and has always been a natural shooter.
Simple online search for 308 Factory loads suggests about $2.60 a round. Quite cheap for a sporting shooter getting maybe 10 to 20 pigs in a weekend recreation hunt. The costs get up there for a property owner needing to cull lots of feral pigs. Apparently, a feral sow will have a regular 30 piglets a year.
My Property owner friend is now researching pig traps. Still not sure of making much of a dint in the feral population.
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Iza
Semi-permanent state of being Recreationally Outraged as a defence against boredom during lockdown.
The pig traps work well for us. Access to where we believe the pigs are living is not viable, and they only visited our property randomly (and middle of the night). A trap can get multiple pigs at a time as it's just a pen with a swing-shut door. Unfortunately we know the pigs are going to be on ongoing problem.
