Best Ammo for Hog Hunting

Five of 16,174 live ammunition listings are marketed at hogs, every one of them single-source and priced from $1.60 a round — so the real question is which cartridge you can afford to shoot in volume.

AmmoSpotter Research Desk By AmmoSpotter Research Desk
Published 8 min read
Best Ammo for Hog Hunting

Is "hog ammunition" even a real product category?

Barely. We searched all 16,174 live ammunition listings for a title naming a hog, a boar or a pig. After stripping out the false positives — and there are plenty, because the shelf is full of dove-and-pigeon birdshot — five listings remain:

  • Hornady Full Boar in .243 Winchester, at $1.600 per round
  • Winchester Hog Special in 7.62x39, at $1.600
  • Gorilla Pig Punisher in .300 Blackout, at $1.775
  • Fort Scott Brush Hog in .308 Winchester, two listings at $2.332 and $2.350

Every one of those is stocked by a single retailer, so there is no price to compare. For scale, 206 listings carry the word "varmint" and 88 carry "deer".

Why hogs are the one hunting purchase where cost per round matters

A deer hunter fires one or two rounds a season. At that volume, the price of ammunition is irrelevant — buy the best-constructed bullet your rifle shoots well and never think about it again. That is exactly the advice in our deer ammunition guide, and it is correct for deer.

Hogs break that logic. Across much of the South there is no closed season, no bag limit worth the name, and landowners who actively want them gone. People shoot a lot of hogs, often at night, often more than one per sounder. The round count starts looking less like deer hunting and more like a training budget.

So the selection criterion changes. You are no longer buying one perfect box. You are buying a cartridge you can keep buying.

Cost Per Round Calculator

The only number that matters when comparing ammo. Shipping included.

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Which hog cartridges actually have a bulk tier?

This is the finding that should drive your decision, and it is the one no amount of ballistics discussion will surface. Here is the pack-size depth of each commonly recommended hog cartridge in our live index — how many listings exist at case quantity, and the largest pack available at all.

CartridgeLive listingsListings at 500+ roundsLargest pack
.223 Remington4002314,000
5.56x45mm NATO140271,000
7.62x39mm7671,000
10mm Auto22211,000
.308 Winchester4081500
.300 Blackout2050250
6.5 Creedmoor244060
.350 Legend53060
.44 Magnum83050
.45-70 Govt99020

Read the bottom half of that table carefully. Every one of the 99 live .45-70 listings is a 20-round box. .350 Legend has 52 of 53 listings at 20 rounds. .300 Blackout — the cartridge most often recommended for suppressed hog work — has no case quantity whatsoever, and 158 of its 205 listings are 20-round boxes.

Of .308's 408 listings, 388 are 20-round boxes and exactly one exceeds 250 rounds.

.223 Rem & 5.56 NATO Price Index

Live · Oct 22, 2026
Market floor / round
$0.450
Market average
$1.055
Lowest box price
$6.99
30-day trend
▼ 1.1%
Compare all .223 Rem & 5.56 NATO deals by cost per round →

7.62x39mm Price Index

Live · Oct 22, 2026
Market floor / round
$0.350
Market average
$1.214
Lowest box price
$6.99
30-day trend
▼ 0.6%
Compare all 7.62x39mm deals by cost per round →

.308 Winchester Price Index

Live · Oct 22, 2026
Market floor / round
$0.650
Market average
$1.983
Lowest box price
$11.99
30-day trend
▼ 1.1%
Compare all .308 Winchester deals by cost per round →

.300 Blackout Price Index

Live · Oct 22, 2026
Market floor / round
$0.700
Market average
$1.525
Lowest box price
$12.89
30-day trend
▼ 0.5%
Compare all .300 Blackout deals by cost per round →

Four widgets, one conclusion: the cartridges with volume shelves are also the cheap ones, and the gap is not small. If you shoot hogs in quantity, that compounds every single trip.

7.62x39 by Cost Per Round, Boxes and Cases

Prices updated Oct 22, 2026
See all matching deals →

Does the word "hunting" on the box cost you anything?

Yes, but not in the way you would expect. We compared the price per round of listings whose titles contain "hunt" against everything else in the same cartridge:

  • .308 Winchester: hunting-titled floor $1.080 vs $0.600 for the rest — but the averages are $2.06 and $1.965, essentially identical.
  • 7.62x39mm: hunting-titled floor $1.260 vs $0.302. More than four times the price, for the cheapest example of each.
  • .223 Remington: $0.659 vs $0.350.
  • 6.5 Creedmoor: $1.465 vs $0.910, and averages of $1.961 and $1.963 — identical to three decimal places.

The pattern is consistent: the hunting label does not raise the average price, it deletes the bottom of the shelf. You are not paying a premium for a better bullet so much as being excluded from the cheap FMJ that makes up the floor. Which is reasonable — you cannot hunt with most of that FMJ anyway — but it means "hunting ammo is expensive" is the wrong way to think about it. The expensive part is that your cheapest option disappears.

One honest exception: in 12 gauge the comparison inverts, because the genuinely premium shells are waterfowl and turkey loads that never use the word "hunting" in the title.

Which bullets can you actually buy for this?

Terminal performance on a mature boar is where most hog articles spend their words. We are not going to, because we do not conduct terminal testing — our ranking methodology sets out exactly which claims we refuse to make, and this is one of them. If you want to understand what the numbers on the box do and do not mean, muzzle energy versus velocity is the place to start.

What we can tell you is what exists to buy. Counting listings by bullet-construction word, within each cartridge:

CartridgeSoft pointBondedHard castSolid / mono
.308 Winchester4412014
.223 Remington27207
.350 Legend15301
7.62x39mm10101
.300 Blackout8104
5.56x45mm NATO1205

Two things jump out. Hard cast is zero in every rifle cartridge — it exists in handgun calibers (98 listings catalog-wide, mostly 10mm, .44 Magnum and the heavy revolver rounds) and essentially nowhere else. And the 5.56 designation carries exactly one soft-point listing, which matters more than it sounds.

Hog-Suitable Loads, Priced Live

BARNAUL AMMO 7.62x39 125Gr SP Lacquered Steel Case 20rd
Cheapest expanding bullet on any hog-capable rifle shelf

BARNAUL AMMO 7.62x39 125Gr SP Lacquered Steel Case 20rd

A 125-grain soft point in 7.62x39, steel-cased and lacquered, at the lowest cost per round of any expanding rifle bullet we track in a hog-suitable cartridge. Single-vendor, 20-round box. If you own an AK-pattern or 7.62x39 AR and want an expanding bullet rather than FMJ, this is the entry point.

$8.99$0.450/rdCheck PriceDetails
HSM VARMINT .223 REM 55GR SOFT POINT 50 ROUNDS PER BOX
The .223 soft point, in a 50-round box

HSM VARMINT .223 REM 55GR SOFT POINT 50 ROUNDS PER BOX

One of only 27 soft-point listings in .223 Remington, and unusually sold in a 50-round box rather than 20 — which is why its cost per round lands well under the 20-round soft points. Listed at two retailers, so it is worth comparing before you buy.

$32.49$0.650/rdCheck PriceDetails
DoubleTap Hunter Brass 10mm 230-Grain 20-Rounds HCSLD
The only hard-cast class in the catalog

DoubleTap Hunter Brass 10mm 230-Grain 20-Rounds HCSLD

A 230-grain hard-cast solid in 10mm Auto, multi-vendor. Hard cast returns zero listings in every rifle cartridge we checked — if you want that bullet construction, it exists in handgun calibers and essentially nowhere else, which makes it a sidearm decision rather than a rifle one.

$21.79$1.090/rdCheck PriceDetails
Winchester Hog Special Power Point 7.62x39mm 123gr PSP Ammo, 20Rds
The one load actually named after the animal

Winchester Hog Special Power Point 7.62x39mm 123gr PSP Ammo, 20Rds

A 123-grain pointed soft point in 7.62x39 sold explicitly as a hog load. It is one of only five listings in our entire ammunition index marketed at hogs, it is single-source, and it costs more than three times the cheapest expanding 7.62x39 above. Pinned here because it does not appear in the live 7.62x39 blocks on this page — the listing carries no caliber value in the feed.

$31.99$1.600/rdCheck PriceDetails

Is 5.56 enough, and does the shelf let you choose?

Set aside the terminal argument. There is a purchasing argument that gets missed.

The reason .223/5.56 looks so good in the pack-depth table is the bulk FMJ shelf — 500 and 1,000-round cases of 55-grain ball at the market floor. But that ammunition is FMJ, and FMJ is a poor choice for an animal built like a hog. The moment you want an expanding bullet in this bore, you leave the bulk tier entirely: you are buying 20 or 50-round boxes of soft point at roughly 1.5 to 2 times the bulk floor.

So the real 5.56 proposition for hogs is: cheap practice, moderately priced hunting ammunition, and a deep rifle and magazine ecosystem. Our 5.56 and .223 guide ranks the loads on live cost per round, and the .223 and 5.56 deal index is where to watch the floor.

The 7.62x39 case is the mirror image and is underrated here: it has a genuine case-quantity shelf and ten soft-point listings, including the cheapest expanding rifle bullet in this entire article. The 7.62x39 index carries the full shelf.

And .308 is the deep end for bullet choice — 44 soft points, 12 bonded — at roughly double the floor and with effectively no bulk tier. The .308 index and our .308 ammunition guide have the detail.

Lowest Box Price on .308 Winchester

Prices updated Oct 22, 2026
See all matching deals →

Note what that grid returns: the cheapest .308 boxes on the shelf are steel-cased, and one of them is a 140-grain soft point. Steel case is a legitimate way to cut the cost of a hunting cartridge that has no bulk tier — check your rifle's chamber and your own extraction history first.

What about a shotgun?

For close work in thick cover, buckshot and slugs are the traditional answer, and the 12-gauge shelf is deep: 92 buckshot listings and 41 slug listings, with buckshot starting cheaper per round.

12 Gauge Price Index

Live · Oct 22, 2026
Market floor / round
$0.360
Market average
$0.997
Lowest box price
$6.09
30-day trend
▼ 1.4%
Compare all 12 Gauge deals by cost per round →

But the pack-depth trap applies here too, and worse than the table suggests:

The 12 Gauge Bulk Tier, Cheapest Per Round

Prices updated Oct 22, 2026
See all matching deals →

Every row in that block is a target load — #7.5 and #8 birdshot in 200 and 250-shell cases for clay shooting. The 12-gauge bulk tier is essentially all birdshot. There is no case-quantity buckshot or slug equivalent, so a shotgun does not escape the volume problem; it just hides it behind a cheap-looking market floor.

The parts of this that are not about ammunition

Three adjacent costs and constraints worth planning for before you buy a case of anything:

  • Suppressors. Night hunting and multiple shots per sounder are the two reasons hog hunters buy cans, and it is a cartridge-shaping decision — it is what pushes people onto .300 Blackout and its missing bulk tier. Read the suppressor buying guide before you let the can choose your ammunition.
  • Shipping. Ammunition shipping is restricted in more places than people expect, and no retailer in our feeds publishes a shipping cost, so every price on this page is item-only. How to check shipping restrictions covers it before you order a case.
  • Lead. Some jurisdictions restrict lead projectiles for some hunting; if that applies to you, lead-free hunting ammunition maps what is actually available.

On the legal side generally: whether hogs are game or nuisance, whether you may hunt them at night, over bait, from a vehicle or with a light, and what licence you need all vary by state and sometimes by county, and these rules change frequently. We will not state any jurisdiction's current rule as settled — verify yours directly with your wildlife agency before the hunt.

So what should you actually buy?

If you shoot hogs occasionally and already own a deer rifle, buy a soft point or bonded load in whatever you own and stop reading. The cartridge question is a non-issue at low volume.

If you shoot hogs in quantity — which is the whole reason this guide exists — the live data says: pick a cartridge with a volume shelf, accept that your cheap ammunition will be FMJ and your hunting ammunition will not be, and watch the floor rather than the average. Prices on this page move; the forces behind that movement are worth understanding if you are buying by the case. Set an alert on the cartridge you settle on and let the price come to you:

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AmmoSpotter earns a commission when you buy through links on this page. It never changes what you pay, and it never decides what we recommend — our picks are ranked on live cost-per-round data pulled from every retailer we track. Full disclosure.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best cartridge for hog hunting?+
There is no single answer, and the honest selection criterion is one most guides skip: which cartridge you can afford to shoot repeatedly. Hogs have no closed season across much of the South, so a hog rifle burns far more ammunition than a deer rifle. On live prices, .223/5.56 and 7.62x39 are the only hog-capable cartridges with a real bulk tier; .308 gives you the deepest choice of expanding bullets at roughly double the cost per round.
Is 5.56 enough for hogs?+
That is a terminal-performance question and we do not run terminal testing, so we will not rule on it. What our catalog does show is a constraint worth knowing: the cheap, high-volume 5.56 and .223 listings are almost entirely FMJ, and the 5.56 caliber designation returns only a single soft-point listing. If you want an expanding bullet in this bore you will generally be buying a .223-labelled box at well above the bulk floor.
Is .300 Blackout good for hogs?+
It is a popular choice for short, suppressed rifles, and the expanding supersonic loads are readily available. The cost is the limiting factor: .300 Blackout's market floor is well above .223/5.56, and there is no case quantity on the shelf at all — the largest pack we track is 250 rounds, and 158 of 205 listings are 20-round boxes.
What does hog hunting ammunition cost per round?+
It depends entirely on which cartridge you choose, which is the point of this guide. The live price index blocks on this page show the current market floor and average for each option — .223/5.56, 7.62x39, .308 Winchester, .300 Blackout and 12 gauge. Ammunition marketed specifically for hogs, of which there are five listings, runs from about $1.60 to $2.35 a round.
Can you hunt hogs with buckshot or slugs?+
Both are common close-range choices where cover is thick or a rifle is not practical. The 12-gauge shelf carries 92 buckshot and 41 slug listings; buckshot starts cheaper per round. Be aware that the 12-gauge bulk tier is almost entirely birdshot target loads for clays — there is no equivalent case quantity in buckshot or slug.
Can you hunt hogs at night, and does that change the ammunition?+
Night hunting, baiting, bag limits and whether hogs count as game animals at all vary enormously between states and sometimes between counties, and the rules change. Verify your own jurisdiction before you plan a hunt. The ammunition consequence is indirect: night and suppressed shooting push many hunters toward .300 Blackout or subsonic loads, which are the more expensive options on this page.
Topics .223 / 5.56 NATO .300 Blackout .308 / 7.62 NATO 12 Gauge 7.62x39mm Cost Per Round Suppressed Shooting Hunting

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AmmoSpotter Research Desk

About the author

AmmoSpotter Research Desk

Price & Ballistics Research

The AmmoSpotter Research Desk analyzes live retail pricing across every ammunition, firearm and accessory listing we track. Recommendations here are ranked against real cost-per-round data pulled daily from the retailers we monitor - not against manufacturer marketing copy.

  • ✓Tracks 180,000+ live product listings across 6 retailer feeds
  • ✓Records price history on every listing, every day
  • ✓Cost-per-round methodology applied to all ammunition rankings
  • ✓No product is ranked without a verifiable in-stock retail price
  • ✓Affiliate relationships never influence rankings

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