See page 13 of the current regulations.
"Feral Hog Firearms"
"Any deer, bear, turkey or small game firearm".
Anything loaded with FMJ's are not legal weapons as above.
Not going to split hairs with anyone, but the regs say you can use any small game firearm which include .22 cal or smaller rimfire or air rifle... Seems to me that shooting a hog with a .22 unless you are very close and a very good shot would be less humane than other calibers in a FMJ. From personal experience, a .223 FMJ to the head has gracious plenty of knock down power and they don't run off. Bullet hits the hog, the hog hits the ground.
So.....Is it in fact legal or not to use non-expanding bullets for feral hog hunting. I don't think anyone's definitively answered that and I'm curious as well.
Page 13 of the current regs say any deer, bear, turkey or small game firearms for feral hog. Is FMJ an explanding bullet? If not, it is not legal.
Down at the bottom of the page it says that you can use ANY firearm for unprotected species. I don't think feral hog is a protected species. Odd that they have specified for hog. I imagine that is because so many people are hunting them during other seasons on state and federal land.
i live in OK where FMJ bullets are legal for use on hogs. You would not believe what a military FMJ 5.56mm M193 round will do to a hog. That bullet penetrates 6-7", turns 90 degrees and fragments. Those fragments shred the heart, lungs and diaphragm.
i've killed a lot of wild hogs with that bullet including a couple 300 pounders that just bang flopped. Also killed a monstrous Landrace sow that went over 450 pounds with that round.
I'm not going to disagree that an expanding bullet is a good choice, but FMJ (NATO rounds) are cheap. Not to ruffle feathers either, but we have so many hogs that we can't give them all away, so the majority of them end up as the buzzard buffet. We are shooting the hogs to protect the row crops and pastures on the private acreage. As others have stated, the FMJ is leathal on hogs and one well placed shot results in the hog down in it's tracks.
Whether it's legal or not, might want to check with the game warden that patrols where you hunt. I'll tell you right now, the game warden in one of the several places I hunt wouldn't give a rat's backside what kind of ammo I used as long as I was making feral swine dead. If you were behaving lawfully in any other way, would they ask you to unload and inspect your ammo? Maybe. Possibly. I don't know anyone it's happened to before.