Hog Hunting - .300 BO or 7.62x39?

I’m planning on going hog hunting next spring in either North Florida or Texas. Gonna purpose build a Hoggin’ AR.

After a bunch of research (and going down a rabbit hole on the internet that wound up in a truly frightening place that involved an Egyptian pyramid and little pickles), I’ve narrowed it down to either a .300 BO or a 7.62x39 build on a standard AR lower platform. I’m planning on a 16" barrel, probably a 1-4x variable optic…not a tacticool build but something that will run reliably out to up to 100m. It’s been a long time since I’ve hunted and want my shots to be ethical kill shots, so I think 100m is probably as far as I want to reach out.

Given current and projected ammo costs in addition to general accuracy and stopping power of each round, who leans towards .300 BO and who leans towards 7.62x39 - and why?

Thanks all in advance for your input.

For hogs I would go 6.8spc. Ar15performance (ARP) is the leader in barrels and if you buy one, get their super bolt. The problem with blackout is you will be limited to supers. But 6.8 can offer better specs for each. PSA also sells 6.8 stuff, and you can get mags, etc, (even an upper) from them if necessary.

6.8 is cool. .308 is really cool. Blackout and x39 are pretty cool too.

I’d say x39 for sure if the ammo ban didn’t screw up prices and supply because it was so cheap, but it’s not that much cheaper these days.

Having said that I (and many many others) have taken some huge boars with 5.56/.223 and even smaller. Just put the cross hairs somewhere between their eye balls and brain stem.

If you’re set on a 16" barrel for a purpose built hog gun and only those two calibers I’d lean towards x39. Otherwise I’d suggest 6.8 like GuitarGuy said in an AR15 platform or .308

Having lived with the swine for a while now, I’ll agree .223 will absolutely do the job if shot placement is good. That said, for someone traveling a ways to come do me a solid and try to get rid of the damn things, I’m going to say 300blk from the two options you specifically put forward. Only because you also said standard AR platform, and I would definitely be rocking an ak or ks47 if x39 was in the mag. I have taken plenty pigs with blackout supers and subs. It does the job fine.

I will say, on paper, 6.8 does sound like a really good alternative. No firsthand experience so I’ll leave it there.

For me it depends on the type of hunting. If chasing/walking around with no good support (shooting off hand) and therefore may need fast follow up shots, I’m going with 300aac as the recoil is slightly less than x39 IMHO. If from a stable position (blind, stand, platform in back of a chase vehicle) where you can take some time, I’m going with my PSA AR-10 in 308 with a 20” barrel for a spot-on ear hole shot.

You’ll have much better odds recovering them from vitals/center of mass too with that .308 and the extra energy. You can usually make that perfect first shot, but Texas and north Florida you’re almost certain to run into huge packs of them and have rushed follow-up/secondary shots on moving targets.

I can’t speak to the .300 BO. I haven’t shot one, even on paper. But, I have gone on a couple of hog hunts using steel case Tula 7.62x39 ammo fired out of a Saiga, which is the civilian sporterized version of the Izmash/Kalashnikov AKM. I can tell you how the 7.62 on that platform performed from practical experience.

The hunt was in Cayuga, Texas at a lease. The Saiga used a cheap Walmart red dot sight with no magnification. I had a light mounted along the front handguard. I hunted a stand facing a clearing where the range was 70-100 yards out. I spent time at the range zeroing both the iron sights and the red dot. At range, the AK pattern rifle firing cheap combloc ammo was able to hit groups of about 3 inches. Not the 1-inch groups that AR owners are used to seeing. However, in pragmatic terms, that was plenty accurate enough.

If you are hunting for sport, you probably don’t take a shot at a hog smaller than a certain size. I waited for a 100+ pounder to wander into the field before I considered taking a shot. At that weight, you’re hitting somewhere lethal within a 1.5 inch radius of your aim point. You can either try for the heart/lungs, which is partially obscured by the large shoulder blade of a feral hog, or you can aim just behind the ear for a neck/spine shot. The risk with the heart shot is that the heart sits pretty low on the breast area, so if your aim is off or your rifle less than accurate, you shoot high - into a thick, bony shoulder blade that prevents a quick kill, or you shoot low, and just graze the underside and watch him run away. The risk with the neck shot is more about shooting high and sailing the round over the top of the neck. However, as thick as the neck of a feral hog is, you’ve got a few inches of body in any direction from the point behind the ear. You really have to screw the shot up to miss that badly. Hogs like to feed at dawn and dusk, so you probably have to take your shot in low light.

The light was low, and getting a good view of the lower silhouette of the hog’s foreleg/chest area against dark ground was more difficult from my vantage. The head profile and silhouette was clear, so I opted for the neck, just behind the ear. If the accuracy of the rifle/ammo was off by an inch and a half, it would’ve been the difference between hitting the brain, or hitting the spine, or hitting a bunch of circulatory/respiratory apparatus in the neck. My shot was about 75-80 yards, the hog was about 120 pounds. My light had trouble casting a great deal of illumination out that far, but it was enough to get a discernable profile of the hog’s head through the red dot optic. The hog was in a group, and it took some patience before he presented a clear enough shot, free of the smaller pigs. But as it was, I made a clean trigger pull and hit an inch off of where I believe I aimed. The hog went down instantly.

Feral hogs are ludicrously tough. You can watch the Youtube videos of them running off even after a good shot. For that reason, the lease I hunted at did not allow hunts with 5.56 ammo. Too small/not powerful enough and thus a safety issue. Plus it can affect the ethics of the kill. My father took a 135 pounder with a .308, and my veteran buddy knocked down a 125 pounder with a 7mm rifle. I gave my hog 20 minutes before I walked up on him. I could see how good the shot was, and that the hog had been dead still since he dropped. But when I got within 10 feet, the thing popped up, and tried one last gasp at running off. Made it two steps before collapsing again, at which point I shot it in the head with a .40 S&W sidearm to finish him off.

From your post, I gather you’d be shooting with a more accurate AR-pattern rifle, with a better optic with better magnification. You should be able to take a shot at 100 yards with either 300 BO or 7.62x39 and get a clean kill. You’ll get all the stopping power you need out of either round, so cost and your use case and personal preference are the main factors I’d guess. I opted for a cheap gun with cheap ammo for hogging, and frankly, it worked great. I’ve taken 3 hogs with that rifle, and only that one ever moved again after the initial shot. If cost is a concern, you can run a cheap rig as long as you properly zero the thing and plan on using it in the effective range. If you want competition-level accuracy, or you are going to take a 200 yard shot on a moving target using a 4 to 6 power scope, I’d say go for the 300 BO. But for my money, the cheap and slightly more challenging shot actually enhanced the quality of the hunt for me. The shots my dad and buddy made were practically cheating compared to mine. Each had at least a 4x scope at 100 yards at slow movers milling around a feeder. I had to pick one out of a crowd that was more agitated, and hold the trigger at the break point until he drifted into the right sight picture for a split second. Really fun hunt. I don’t think you can really go wrong with either cartridge you mentioned, given the rifle you specified. Either way, happy hunting and maybe let us know what you decided and how it went.

You’re getting a ton of solid advice and most of this has already been stated but I’ll chime in anyway. If you really want a true AR-15 platform, go with the .300 AAC. Standard magazines, less potential for feed and extractor issues. Also, if you think you might want to add a can in the future .300 makes the most sense to me. You might even consider a shorter barrel like a 10.5", since the performance doesn’t suffer much and I have found that some commercial .300 subsonic rounds are actually supersonic through a 16". With all that said, I would lean heavily toward x39 in a KS-47 (not technically an AR-15 platform). Again, magazine availability is a factor, since the x39 mags for a standard AR lower are less common and some are sketchy. The x39 rounds are much less expensive around here (think 3:1) and being able to lay in a few thousand rounds for cheap gives a warm, fuzzy feeling. I also think the x39 hits a little harder in most readily available factory ammo. There’s really no wrong answer here - go with whichever appeals most and don’t look back. Hell, if you’re like me (and most on here) you’ll end up with both eventually… and a .308… and an AK… and…

I have taken several Hogs and Deer with both….x39 and the 308.
Of all the Animals I’ve taken with the 7.62x39…… I have NOT had an exit wound on the animal…….that said all of them died very quickly & ethically.

All the animals taken with the 308 had large exit wounds. The power of the 308 compared to the x39 cannot be disputed. It also kills quickly & ethically.

The x39 is lighter to carry around in the field and the recoil is mild. Of course the 308 is heavier and the recoil is a little more stout……but it’s not punishing by any means.

If there is a concern of “pass through” bullets hitting or ricocheting and hitting domestic animals (often hogs are in the field among cattle or other livestock) or possibly causing property damage….go with the x39. If it’s not an issue……the power of the 308 is always a good hammer to hit those hogs with.

Just my 2 cents worth.

You have more than one size screwdriver and wrench………
You need more than one size rifle too. Rifles are just tools.
Get yourself one for every job. You NEED at least 3 or 4.
Small……17 or 22
Small high power……223 or 5.56
Med……300 BO, or 7.62x39, or a
Short action……308, 358, 7.08……or a Long Action…270 or 30.06.

308 all day.

6.8 would be and is my choice.