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The recoil does not feel as bad as it looks. I never get a sore shoulder from it - recoil pads are excellent these days. The only things (not a problem since I'm learning to live with them  ) is that when firing the right hand barrel from the forward trigger, the rear of the trigger guard belts my middle finger (which will bruise after several shots) and when firing the left hand barrel the stock pushes more into my cheek and will leave a red mark (and soreness). I try and be optimistic and now when I fire the RH barrel I'll say "well at least that didn't hurt my face", and then for the LH barrel "well at least that didn't hurt my finger".

I was out looking for pigs on this hunt, and would have had a go at a fallow deer with a good set of antlers, so I had my CZ 375H&H with scope set up for a 200yd point blank range for deer sized targets (ie falling within a 6" diameter strike zone all the way out to 200yds - this includes allowance for accuracy, which is reliably MOA).

Once I'd got a pig or two, I was going to swap to the Merkel to see how that would go. I was somewhat optimistic. The property I went on is very popular for hunters as it is close to Brisbane and the Gold Coast (3hr drive from either) and is always under hunting pressure. While it is good for fallow deer it is also not a very good area for pigs, but they do appear from time to time.

Most of the state (Queensland) has had good rains late last year and early this year (Brisbane actually flooded - almost 40 years since the last major flood). This has produced lots of feed and the pigs have bred like crazy. A friend of mine has access to a property at Tenterfield (another hour south of where I was) and he had recently seen large mobs of pigs out there. This area is similar and generally the pigs are few and far between.

So I was optimistic when I headed out there. Overall I didn't see any deer, no foxes, only 1 live rabbit (and 2 dead ones), a very much alive Taipan and I did see one pig. I'd headed out from the accommodation shed in my Jeep just on sunrise one morning and came up over a hill only 1/2 mile from the shed and spotted a large single boar stopped at the boundary fence in the gully.

Now I'm not a morning person and was very tired, very cold (had both the car front windows down for better vision), was driving into the sunlight and was battling a thin layer of frost that keep building up on the windscreen. So my mind was all over the shop and not particularly focussed. Anyway I stopped the car and got out, without sudden movements or noises, went around the vehicle to come back and open the passenger side door and pull the rifle out (the CZ is too long to pull out of the passenger side from the drivers side without hitting the gearshift, the handbrake, the roof and the roll bars).

The pig moved away slightly as I cycled a round into the action. It was less that 100m away but I crouched down and squeezed off the trigger and click...in my attempt to be quiet when I'd loaded it I'd short cycled the bolt and hadn't picked up a cartridge from the magazine. Idiot!!! I did manage to cycle a round and fire it but was in a less than ideal position as the pig had moved away further up the hill and now some tree branches in the foreground where causing some obstruction. Anyway I fired but the bullet struck just behind him, and then he was off.

Apparently he was looking for the holes in the fence, which had only recently been repaired, so he was a regular in the area. I focussed on that paddock for the next couple of days but he was well gone.

At least I got a tree and a rock with the 500NE