Helicopter Hog Huntin'

[North Shore]

Texas style..

This Texas federal hog shooting chopper video (LOACH on the job) is fascinating. The pilot has a fixed rifle (sounds like a 270) with optics rigged back to his helmet and eye-piece. He doesn't miss and his scout-chopper flying skills are down pat with the hogs behaviour and pack or group running style. This came from Greg Cooper who has a huge ranch SE of Brownfield, TX, south of Lubbock. I don't know where the chopper hog hunting op is but it is clearly West Texas. This is a long run video but the hogs get it! I don't see them dropping flags or stakes from the air to ground-mark their kills so as to go find them easily but I assume they "know" the country or wait for the turkey buzzards to tip them off. The pilot is really good!
http://vimeo.com/21181307

[old_man]

Texas style..

The pilot has a fixed rifle (sounds like a 270) with optics rigged back to his helmet and eye-piece.

It actually looks to me, not that I know what I am talking about, that it is the passenger doing the shooting.

Cool video. Not that I really like looking that animals being shot and all that.

[into the blue]

Interesting flying. Although to be honest, this is not hunting - nor can it be called a sport. It is just plain slaughter with no purpose other than killing. For hunting to be genuine and sportsmanlike, an animal must have a fair chance of escape. That's my opinion, at least.

[North Shore]

You are correct, hunting is a bit of a stretch. However, it appears that the pigs are feral, and so this is an efficient way of culling them.

[Nark]

My next lay over in El Paso, I'm calling this guy!

The rifle looks and sounds like a .223/5.56 variant. The clicking you hear in the first 5 minutes is the bufferspring.

[North Shore]

NArk, a few questions, if I may? I'm assuming that a decent sized pig weighs ~ 200lb+. It seems that one shot takes the majority of those animals down - which is remarkably good shooting (to hit a small moving target from a moving platform!) or does whatever it is that they are firing have a huge punch? Or am I just used to Hollywood, where shot people stagger around with several holes, and a pound of lead bullets in them, and still manage to recite 1/2 the Bible before they die?

[Nark]

North,

A couple things:
He is using an EoTech optic, which places a red dot on the target. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. I have a similar optic setup on my M4. Wherever the red dot is (as you look through the optic) that is where the bullet is going to impact.

If you can remember Kinetic Energy = Mass x Velocity:

The 5.56 is an incredibly fast round. It's pretty light (55gr to 63gr). The wiki link states kinetic energy somewhere around 1700 joules.
5.56 NATO

Compare that to my Glock .40 &W, (I use 155gr rounds), which produces around 700 joules.

438gr=1 oz

As for the Hogs, I'm not sure. They go down fast and hard in the video. It might be their genetic make up, in that one round will disable their ability run away (I'm thinking muscular/skeletal) . However some of the pictures indicate a fair amount of blood coming from their mouth, which means the heart was still pumping before they died.

This is an interesting quote from the article: if you aren't interested in reading the whole thing:

Despite complaints that the 5.56 round lacks stopping power, others contend that animal studies of the wounding effects of the 5.56×45mm round versus the 7.62×39mm have found that the 5.56 mm round is more damaging, due to the post-impact behavior of the 5.56 mm projectile resulting in greater cavitation of soft tissues.[30] The US Army contended in 2003 that the lack of close range lethality of the 5.56×45mm was more a matter of perception than fact. With controlled pairs and good shot placement to the head and chest, the target was usually defeated without issue. The majority of failures were the result of hitting the target in non-vital areas such as extremities. However, a minority of failures occurred in spite of multiple hits to the chest.

Edited to add:
My hunting rifle has a 6,200 j energy rating.
A .50 cal has between 17,000 and 20,000j depending on the load.

[Stian]

I can’t believe, people use war weapon for hunting! Is not hunting or sport on this video, is just someone who don’t have any respect of life, using helicopter for exterminate species just for play.

I Just hope, he was paid by the government for reduces the overpopulation.

Hoping I’m not the only one who think like that!!!

[The Mole]

That would be fun flying. Its flat, small trees, lots of great places to land, calm winds in the early morning. On the down side your slaughtering animals and flying a robbie.. You can't even call it a sport when your useing a helicopter, you could run them till they dropped dead...

[B_Boomer_54]

No offence, but that has to be the most white trash hunting video I have ever seen.

Trigger happy yanks always shooting something eh? I mean, I understand the reasoning but common ..................

[Nark]

I am proud to be a trigger happy yank.

Tomorrow I'm on call, and it's snowing to high hell. I'll bring out the collection clean 'em, and post a picture of the new family.


Stain;
Are you the kind of guy who uses a credit card to clean your car window, or the back of a screw driver to pound in a nail?
Using the right tool for the job make a difference. But you knew that...

[The Mole]

No offence, but that has to be the most white trash hunting video I have ever seen.

Trigger happy yanks always shooting something eh? I mean, I understand the reasoning but common ..................

You should get out more. Heli hunting is common place. In New zealand its Deer, Oz wild pigs, Canada wolves. That's right wolves.

[B_Boomer_54]

No I don't think I need to get out more. Sniping "Hogs" from choppers is not your everyday thing. I could come up with nothing on youtube or google where I could see / read about Canadians doing the very same thing to wolves. That being said, if it truly is an epidemic down there , then fine. But they seemed to be having a lot of fun slaughtering animals. Not your everyday thing.

Nark, out of curiosity, how did you come by the Av Canada forums? I am not familiar with your history. I would think that a trigger happy yank would be one of the last people to register and stay in the know about Canadian aviation drama and such. Fill me in!

[Nark]

I was born and for the most part raised in Canada. Flew/ramped in Northern Canada for a number of years before I hoped the fence into the greener pasture that is the US.

I don't have to register my arsenal, so I stayed.

[B_Boomer_54]

I was born and for the most part raised in Canada. Flew/ramped in Northern Canada for a number of years before I hoped the fence into the greener pasture that is the US.

I don't have to register my arsenal, so I stayed.

NICE!