Hunting Deer and Hogs With An Airgun
by Tom Claycomb
One day my buddy Bill Olson, publisher of Texas Outdoors Journal, invited me on a combo axis deer/hog hunt. But I’d have to shoot an airgun.
An airgun for deer? And hogs? Hogs are hard enough to kill with real rifles. Would this work?
Bill assured me it would. We’d be using the brand new Umarex 50-caliber Hammer rifles and hunting with Adventures Missions and Retreats on the Clear Water Creek ranch down near Menard, Texas. Sign me up!
I then began a mad scramble to line up plane tickets and rides to Uvalde, Texas, to hook up with Bill. I hadn’t been to Uvalde since I was rodeoing for Texas A&M. That time I took a bad stomping and had to be hauled to San Antonio to get patched up. I hoped pestering a feral hog with an airgun wouldn’t lead to something similar. It almost did!
Before driving to the ranch for our hunt, Bill and I had dinner with renowned whitetail biologist Bob Zaiglin. The next morning we enjoyed breakfast with Speer Ag, bought some of their corn for bait, and pointed Bill’s truck toward the ranch where we were met by Scott Huggins, the owner of Adventures Missions and Retreats. He took us to the gun range to zero our new Hammers.
The pre-charged pneumatic Hammer rifles are powered by compressed air in their on-board reservoirs. We filled these with a portable UMAREX Ready Air compressor. It’s powered with a 120-v wall plug or truck battery. It’s a handy compressor for pre-charged pneumatics (PCP) airguns. The Hammer uses a 2-shot magazine. This doesn’t sound like many, but these big bores consume so much air volume that you have to recharge them after about three shots anyway. To maintain full power, it’s best to charge after every 2 shots.
We sighted it in and I quickly felt comfortable shooting to 100 yards, easily hitting the vital zone of a deer-sized animal with each shot. I was shooting a 350-grain lead pellet which, at this size, is really a bullet. And a substantial one. At a muzzle velocity of 875 fps it carries 595 foot-pounds of energy. Would that be enough to handle axis deer and feral hogs? We were about to find out.
It was a magical hunt. I’d never seen an axis deer before this. The adults are spotted like whitetatil fawns. Buck antlers are reminiscent of elk antlers, but the deer are no bigger than an average whitetail, if that. In fact, hunting these deer (imported from India) was a bit like hunting elk in my home state of Idaho because axis deer “talk.” They don’t bugle, but they bark.
Bill and I sat in a Barronett pop-up blind to start. We soon heard axis deer talking all around us. That first evening a sounder of hogs foraged within 20 yards of us but on the other side of some brush. No clear shots. After lunch on the second day our guide, Robert Shipman ,asked if I’d like to go hunt “safari style,” which was his terminology for spot-and-stalk hunting. “Heck yea, that’s how we hunt in the mountains.”
After 15 minutes I felt even more like I was elk hunting. The axis bucks were rutting and barking, the equivalent of elk bugling, I guess. Yes, these exotic deer rut in June in Texas, and that makes them easier to find.
We slipped along slowly, stopping often to kneel down and glass ahead with Riton 10x42 binoculars. Robert’s regular binocular had broken, so Bill loaned him his Riton. A powerful binocular might sound like excess in Texas brush, but by kneeling we could glass well ahead for deer lying under the brush.
We must have been pretty quiet because we walked within 20 feet of a sleeping boar. Before I could aim and shoot, he woke, jumped and tore out of there. But he wasn’t fast enough. I dropped the hammer on the Hammer and flattened him. But as fast as he went down, he that quickly jumped up, made eye contact, and here he came.! “Watch out, he’s charging!” Robert shouted.
The hog was behind some brush and, since I only had one shot left, I was waiting until he cleared. He ended up being seventeen steps from us. He stumbled as he came, feeling the effects of my first shot, so I gave him the second and down he went. Wow, that’ll get your blood pumping. But I was starting to appreciate the power of a 50-caliber airgun.
The next day, same routine. We hadn’t been hunting more than 20 minutes when we heard a herd of axis deer about 200 yards off. We slipped up to 100 yards, then crawled another 50 yards over rocks and around prickly pears. I could see huge bulls, er, I mean bucks, raking brush like elk rubbing pine trees. Several does meandered through the brush like a harem of elk cows. I laid my rifle across my guide’s back. The bucks were partly obscured by branches, but three does filed past in the clear. I lined up on one and touched off the big fifty. At the cough of the rifle all heck broke loose. The doe jumped, then bolted, scaring the rest. Axis deer were running every which way. Except the one I’d shot. She expired after a 35-yard dash.
Wow, I’m all in on this big game hunting with airguns!
SPECS ON THE UMAREX HAMMER
.50 caliber big game hunting air rifle
Pre-charged Pneumatic (PCP) operates with high-pressure air
Optimal operating fill pressure = 4,500 psi
Each shot regulated to 3,000 psi
3 full power shots + 4th shot at near 90% power from one fill of air cylinder
24 cubic inch non-removable carbon fiber tank
2-round chamber magazine (includes 2)
Removable magazine means Hammer can be unloaded
3 mechanical safety devices
Straight pull speed-bolt with 8 lbs cocking effort
2.5-lb trigger weight
Built-in manometer (pressure gauge)
Picatinny riflescope rail
PolyOne designed and U.S. manufactured stock
AR Magpul style grip
Integrated rear sling stud
3 slots in forearm grip to accept M-LOK attachments
Quick Disconnect Foster fitting for easy air-fill connection
43.75-inch overall length
8.5 pound overall weight unloaded without scope
29.5-inch barrel length with full-length composite shroud
1:24 twist rifled German-made barrel made by Walther
Ability to easily degas (remove all air)
Designed, engineered, assembled and tested in the USA