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Please pardon my ignorance. I am an American and I am seeking to understand what you New Zealanders find so appealing about a chopped. 308/7mm08 bush pig setup. What is the appeal? What is the net advantage?
P.S. I am a Southeastern U.St. deer hunter and most shots are 100 yards in. Essentially one clean shot is all that is required.
Putting a suppressor on protects your hearing. Putting a suppressor on q 24" barrel is unwieldy and bloody heavy. By cutting the barrel back to 16/18/20" makes the rifle handier and often the same or shorter than the original barrel. By hand loading with the right projectiles you do not lose any performance.
The woods/forest we hunt deer in are bloody thick and limited visibility. A handy rifle is nice at the end of a long day deerstalking.
This. Most pictures I have seen of hunting in the us is like our beech forest and you can see 40+m. It's not unusual in nz to have less than 5m visabilityQuote:
Originally Posted by stug
Nice short handy rifle = less frustration in the thick NZ bush / jungle
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@bill f
Having a short compact rifle (Bush Pig) for hunting in the thick bush is a distinct advantage both in being able to move through the bush without getting tangled up and also for quick pointing when required.
Btw our wild Razor Back pigs are short and compact and love living in the thick bush, hence the term Bush Pig.
As has been said typical shooting distances I've encountered while bush stalking are between 5 and 50 meters.
Here's a couple of examples of the types of terrain you could expect to encounter bush stalking in NZ.
Semi Open Pine Forrest, shooting distances up to about 80 meters
Attachment 70692
Typical North Island Bush, shooting distances less than 50 meters
Attachment 70693
I like to hunt the thicker bush with my Rossi 92 44mag with a 16" barrel.
Hope this helps with your question.
Cheers
Pete
The only issue I can see is suppressors are not commonly used by hunters in the USA. (from what I have read I understand they are seen as "specially dangerous".
I suspect it would be unpleasant shooting a short barreled rifle with no suppressor. I have done it once by accident ................ never again
16" in .308 still allows accurate shots past 200m, and the calibre is well suited to shorter barrels, with proportionally less velocity loss than most other calibres. A shorter barrel = less whip / harmonic vibration, and is therefore stiffer than a longer tube, for the same thickness. There is a lot of info about this on the web.
A short, handy rifle with a suppressor is ideal in these situations. NZ has no licence / permit requirement for using suppressors, so that is also a big plus. As said, the average shot distance is way less than 80m in dense north island forest.
Hunting with suppressors is getting more and more popular in the USA specially in the more Free states ( ie not California nor newyork), but I understand you guys are limited to a 16 or 16.5" barrel, which is short enough to make a good bush pig rifle.
Just buy any good bolt action rifle of the shelf like a Remington 700 or 7, kimber, tikka in 308, chop it at 16.5", get a lightweight suppressor fitted and shoot 130 to 150 gr loads and you ll never look back. You can put a nice little leupold scope with a CDs turret if you want to reach up to 300 yards with out too much trouble.
Attachment 70700Quote:
Originally Posted by stug
Here's my interpretation of a bush pig. Due to some of the clearings down here and my love of both Tops and Bush hunting I went down the middle. Weatherby vanguard 308 20" barrel, DPT suppressor, Burris sixX 2-12, STUG carbon fibre stock. All of the others have nailed it and as such I won't repeat them lol!
The definition has changed a bit too... when I first heard the term in hunting circles 'bush pig' referred more to a cheap rough ugly short rifle that was handy in the bush and you didn't care about covering with scratches etc. Now people have flash shiny expensive short rifles they call bushpigs as well.
In the USA they are more commonly called scout rifles, unsupressed and scope forward of action which is ok for close range shooting, having a unsupressed rifle is hard on ones ears and especially a dogs. It's no longer a handicap have a short barreled rifle because with good quality dailup scopes, rangefinders and a ballistic app around now bullet trajectory isn't problem for the longer range shots.
Thanks for all the posts.
And the last time it was cleaned was when it went in the box for shippingQuote:
Originally Posted by GravelBen
I don't think I'd ever refer to anything as a bushpig. Except a pig, in the bush.
Agree @GravelBen but I seem to give my alpine rifle a much harder time than my bush pig.Quote:
Originally Posted by GravelBen
I've heard certain women referred to as bushpigs as well, but not to their face!Quote:
Originally Posted by gimp
It seems a little uncouthQuote:
Originally Posted by GravelBen
I've believe I've encountered one or two of them hanging around the traditional watering holes in Tokoroa, Ngongotaha and Dinsdale. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by GravelBen
Cheers
Pete
Never heard of that saying before GB guess the ladys are a little more refined south of gay gore :thumbsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by GravelBen
Thats because it is a little uncouth.Quote:
Originally Posted by gimp
Ditto...and long before anyone used that term refering to a rifle.Quote:
Originally Posted by GravelBen
Yeah I like to refer to em as "bush stumpies" but as guys have already mentioned. They are a short barreled close combat rifle for use in the dark'n'danky NZ bush.
There will be an awesome article coming out in NZ Guns n Hunting regarding such topic in the next couple of months :thumbsup:
Short, light and heaps of smackdown
i just brought a compromise to a bushpig rifle a forbes 20B l/hand 308 ultra light rifle has a 21" barrel, its lite well balanced and my arms aren,t 6" longer after a hard day in the bush so reluctant put a suppressor on it at this stage but if i do it will have to be chopped to get it to balance again.
the one good thing about a suppressor is make sure it has a musslebreak in it and then your rifle will be soft to shoot like the one on my 300wsm it has a double internal musslebreak in the suppressor and is a pleasure to shoot no sore ringing ears or flinch from rifle kick back :thumbsup:
calling a swamp donkey a bushpig is quite a complementQuote:
Originally Posted by gimp
