The best hog hunting rifles, by what the makers publish

What this page is, and what it is not

Two things you should know before you read further.

First, every figure here comes from the maker's own published spec sheet, re-read on September 26, 2026. Where a maker does not publish something — Bergara does not publish a thread pitch for the B-14 Ridge, for example — this page says so rather than borrowing a number from a retailer listing. That is the same standard we hold every optic on this site to, and it is on our How We Choose page.

Second, we do not sell rifles and we earn nothing on this page. Firearms are not sold through the affiliate network this site runs on, so there is no buy button here and no reason for us to push one model over another. The only things on this page we can actually recommend commercially are the optic and the light, and those are further down and clearly marked.

What we are not going to do is pretend a rifle is the answer to a hog problem. Texas A&M AgriLife's own material on selective shooting treats it as one tool among several, and its trapping material is where the numbers actually come down. More on that at the end.

Five features that matter for hogs, and why

1. A threaded muzzle. Not for fashion: a suppressor on a hog rifle keeps a sounder in place after the first shot instead of scattering it, and it protects your hearing at 2 a.m. Every rifle below is threaded. Note the pitch — 5/8"-24 on both Rugers, 1/2x28 on the Springfield — because it determines what fits.
2. A short barrel. Hogs live in brush and get shot from blinds, trucks and tripods. 16 inches (both Rugers, the Springfield) handles far better in a box blind than 22 does. The 20 inch Bergara is the longest here and it is a deliberate accuracy trade.
3. A rail, not a groove. A thermal or night vision scope is a one-piece Picatinny unit in almost every case. Ruger ships a factory one-piece Picatinny base; the Springfield is an AR flat-top with a full-length top rail. Bergara's B-14 action takes bases but the page does not specify what ships with it.
4. An adjustable trigger. Ruger publishes a Marksman Adjustable trigger user-settable between 3 and 5 pounds; the Springfield's nickel boron flat GI trigger is not adjustable. In the dark, on a rest, a clean light trigger is worth more than any other feature on the rifle.
5. Weight you will actually carry. 5.9 lb (Ruger 7.62x39) to 7.4 lb (Bergara .308) before you add an optic — and a thermal scope adds roughly a pound. That matters if you are walking a fence line rather than sitting.

The rifles, on published specs

Read that table for the pattern rather than a winner. Both Rugers give you the shortest barrel, the lightest weight, adjustable length of pull from 12 to 13.75 inches, a factory rail and a trigger you can set — for a published MSRP under the $1,000 mark. That is the most hog-relevant feature set per dollar on this page, which is why it leads.

The Springfield is the same argument in semi-auto form: a 16 inch mid-length gas system, a genuinely good free-float handguard with a full-length top rail and M-Lok for a light, and a 30-round magazine. It costs more than either Ruger at published MSRP, and it is the right answer if your problem is a group rather than an animal.

The Bergara is the accuracy choice and the odd one out. A 20 inch #5 contour barrel and a 7.4 lb rifle are built to shoot small groups off a bipod, not to swing in a box blind. If your shots are long and deliberate across open ground — and coyotes are on your list too — it makes sense. Bergara also publishes noticeably less than Ruger or Springfield: no trigger spec, no thread pitch, no base.

Bolt action or AR for hogs

The honest summary: if hogs come to your feeder in ones and twos, a short threaded bolt gun with a good optic is all the rifle you need and leaves more money for the optic. If they come in sounders of eight, the AR is worth the extra. Our thermal scope for AR-15 and night vision scope for AR-15 pages cover mounting optics on the semi-auto side specifically.

About the Savage 110 Hog Hunter

It is the rifle everyone names, and it is worth being straight about: Savage's own product page states "This model is out of production." When we checked on September 26, 2026, the 110 Hog Hunter page listed six SKUs — 55629 and 57018 in .223 Rem, 55630 and 57019 in .308 Win, all 20 inch; 57534 in 350 Legend at 18 inch; and 58133 in 400 Legend at 20 inch — all with 4-round magazines and dark green synthetic stocks, and noted the barrel is threaded for a suppressor.

It was a well-conceived hog rifle: a 20 inch threaded barrel, iron sights as a backup, a user-adjustable AccuTrigger, an oversize bolt handle and a detachable box magazine. If you find a new one on a dealer's shelf or a clean used one, nothing about the design has stopped working.

But we will not rank a discontinued rifle above four current ones, and Savage's page does not publish a twist rate, thread pitch, overall length, weight or MSRP for it — so there is less to go on than for any rifle in the table above. If you want that feature set new today, the Ruger American Gen II Ranch is the closest current equivalent, with a shorter barrel.

The cartridge is a separate decision

Two of the rifles above are offered in cartridges specifically because of hogs. The Ruger Gen II Ranch in 7.62x39 gives you a 30-caliber bullet in a 5.9 lb rifle; the same rifle in 300 BLK takes AR-style 10-round magazines and has a 1:7 twist for heavy subsonic bullets, which is the combination people pair with a suppressor.

SAAMI publishes the chamber and cartridge standards, but no maker publishes how a given cartridge performs on a boar's shoulder shield. What the published wildlife sources do say is on our best caliber for hogs page, and the two matchups people actually ask about are covered on 300 Blackout vs 5.56 and 6.5 Grendel vs 300 Blackout.

One thing worth saying here: a 300 BLK upper and a suppressor on a rifle whose barrel is already threaded 5/8"-24 is a cheaper route to a quiet hog rifle than most people expect, and quiet matters more on hogs than on almost any other animal because a sounder that does not scatter gives you a second and third shot.

The part that actually decides your success

Hogs are nocturnal where they are hunted. You can put the best rifle on this page in a blind and shoot nothing, because you cannot see. Almost everyone who has done this a while will tell you the same thing: spend the rifle budget once and the optic budget properly. The MDC field guide puts feral hogs at a length "to 5 feet," and identifying one at 100 yards in the dark is an optic problem, not a rifle problem.

Where to go next depends on the money. Our best thermal scope under $1,000 page covers the first real thermal tier, night vision scopes under $500 covers the cheapest optic that works after dark, and hunting hogs at night without thermal covers the light-and-feeder route that costs least of all. A rest matters too: see shooting sticks and tripods.

Night safety and the law

A rifle is not a hog plan

This is the part that matters most and sells the least. Shooting removes individual hogs. A sow that survives raises another litter, and our page on how fast feral hogs reproduce lays out what the published figures say about how quickly that undoes a night's work.

Trapping removes groups. AgriLife's trapping material is where the numbers actually change, and the practical version is on our how to trap feral hogs and best hog trap gates pages. Buy the rifle, by all means — and then build the trap. Our whole-property plan puts both in order.