I know it’s the best for hogs (deer for that matter) but it is a bit pricey. Are there any viable alternatives that are less expensive that also perform well?

I’m setup to roll my own BTW. I’ll probably hand load.

I shoot the cheap Remington white box 120gr stuff and don’t worry about it. If I’m serious I grab the 6.5 Grendel and don’t worry about it. My Thermal rides a 5.56 shooting Hornady 75gr Black box. I used to run the steel case stuff but after five duds I quit that stuff. I like the Speer 110gr jacketed HP for dispatch in the trap. No exit! To me premium bullets seems to be a waste on .300 BO velocity. The better the fragmentation the better chance of death in the brush. I have been wanting to try a hard cast 170gr lead flat nose out of my RAP but I haven’t gotten around to it. I’m thinking the long slow bullet might bend and tumble creating a decent wound channel. But I keep getting sidetracked.

I've recently switched from Barnes 110gr Tac-Tx to Fiocchi 125Gr SST. Less than half the price of the Barnes. Equal results on hogs thus far. (Suppressed 8.5" SBR, BTW)

110Hornady V-Max

I've heard good things about the 125 SSTs.  Need to try them myself but haven't.  The 110 barnes are what I use now and they are fantastic, albeit pricey.  Interested to see what everyone out there likes...

You can roll your own for less than half of what you can buy them loaded for.

.60 cents for a projectile, still an all around expensive round.

I have acquired several factory 125gr SSTs and hope to try them out this fall.  So far they shoot reasonably well and their point of impact is roughly the same as my 110gr Barnes handloads...so testing should be easy enough once I get onto some pigs (or deer)...

Kind of wish I would have bought a few more when my LGS had them on the shelf...but I wanted to test first.  Tested the same night, but the next day as expected they were all gone.  Oh well.

I handload 123 gr Gold Dots (sized to 309), but I haven’t had a chance to try them on Hogs yet.


I also bought some Makers TREX 125 gr to load up.

125gr Nosler Ballistic Tips are cheaper if you can find them.  Good penetration and expansion.

I like to hear more of this as I'm looking for a good cast bullet for the 300 BLK!

I have a hog problem at my home and looking to take care of it!

Remember, ANYTHING you can land inside the 8-ring will change the mind of of whatever it is.

The 150-grain "M80" type bullet flies well out of 300BO.

Inexpensive and abundant.

If you really NEED a quality expanding bullet to kill game quickly, buy a couple boxes of premium bullets. Unless you are hunting pigs professionally or some such, those couple boxes will last you a really long time.

OK, I was able to both get a hog with and test the 125gr SSTs into some water jugs this weekend.  Last night I hit a ~250-275lb boar with 2 of the SSTs at around 30 and 40yds.  Found the boar a short distance away but neither shot exited and there was zero blood trail.  Not terribly surprising given how large he was and the quartering away shots that I took both times.  At least one of the shots got the lungs... where he fell there was a small amount of blood in the immediate area from his mouth as he rolled around a bit.  
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Then this morning I tested a couple shots into lined up milk jugs filled with water at around 30yds.  Not scientific, but it's something I've done with MANY loads I've used so I have a good idea of what to expect based on how things go with the jug testing.  Both attempts to capture one of these SSTs failed.  Both times the shot was true (very close to the center of the front jug) but the bullet exited the side of the jugs (I think on the 3rd jug on both attempts).  One time most of the bullet jacket remained in the 2nd jug and I was able to capture it.  Zero lead was found in any of the jugs.  These appear to expand and come apart rapidly (8" barrel was used).  I think some to the lead core material also penetrates fairly well...but not always in a direct line.  The jacket material definitely separates as you can see in the pic below.  I was thinking these would stay together better at the blackout's relatively low speed...but that was not what I saw.

Fiocchi 125gr SST:
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For reference the shots I've taken with the 110gr Barnes Tac-TX loads usually land in the 5th or 6th water jug with good straight line penetration.   Some bonded 308win loads I've tested also stopped in the 5th or 6th jug...so similar penetration distances, although the 308win loads tore up the front jugs a lot more than the 300blk.

Barnes 110gr (I think this was from a 16" barrel at 15yds...so a fair amount higher velocity than they'd see in my 8" rifle at typical hunting distances.  In my other tests the Barnes have never lost any petals):
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I think I'm going to stick to the Barnes for hunting use, especially on deer since I don't want to have a bunch of lead in the meat.  Hope this helps some of you guys.

Barnes bullets are awesome, hands down some of the toughest.

ETA....nice cutters on that pig

That kinda surprised me I figure the SST's would hold together a bit better from the Blackout velocity.

Having shot deer with the sst, and the Barnes,  I will never use the sst again. 12" 300 BO pistol shooting MN deer.
I know they are expensive, but they are simply the best option with BO short barrel velocities .

I have moved on to 6.5 Grendel  because the BO is just not very impressive,  but my wife still uses it for deer.

Yeah, I was expecting them to hold together better...disappointing.  I'll still use what I have left on hogs, but I'm no longer entertaining any plans of switching away from the Barnes 110s going forward.  They are just too awesome.

Yeah I don’t blame you. Use them for dispatch magazine on pigs that are down. Or calling coyotes.

https://makerbullets.com/proddetail.php?prod=308110TBLK

Awesome SD round, but I would think it's lack of penetration depth would make it less than ideal for hogs.

Mihec sells a 130gr HP mold that is awesome. I got it in a group buy on castboolits.gunloads.com though, not sure if it's a regular item.

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I would like to dispute this theory. Every pig in this pic was killed with 110gr Hornady VMax that I loaded with 19gr IMR 4227. The 300 blk guns are all home build using 8.3” Hanson barrels and were one shot kills. They are not little guys either.

Nice!

I stand corrected!

BTW, my bedside gun has an 8.3" Hanson barrel suppressed loaded with Vmax.

Curious about the details of shot-placement that killed those pigs.

I'm quite in agreement that the 110-grain expanding bullet will kill pigs for sure.

Especially interested to hear whether you got EXIT WOUNDS when pigs were hit with that bullet such that the bullet entered the chest cavity.

The 125gr SST that I hit that hog with killed him, and killed him pretty quick.  Granted he was still on his feet a couple of seconds after the first hit so I gave him a second one as he was departing the original area I spotted him in, but I suspect by his speed he was about out of steam at the point my second round hit him anyway.  

Most of the expanding supersonic .30 cal bullets out there should kill hogs pretty well.  The poster up above with his family proved that by cleaning up with all those dead hogs (nice work by the way!!!!).  I think if I were to pick a round for home defense I might actually prefer something like the 125 SST or a 110 Vmax.  They do seem to dump energy well.  

With the Barnes I can hunt deer (and get no lead in my meat) and I can hunt deer or hogs with the confidence that it will both penetrate well and most times will exit which gives me 2x or better chance at finding blood (and an even higher chance of finding any blood sooner into the trail (if trailing is necessary).  Plus, with hogs there is always the chance of getting a 2for or 3for and having some small hogs line up perfectly.  

For hunting, I have decided to stick with just the Barnes...to keep things simple.  I've rarely been lucky enough to have the gun I'm using at any point in time shoot different types of ammo in exactly the same point of impact out to reasonable distances (like you would want for various types of hunting you might do on a single weekend).  Right now I'm on a "try and use 300blk for almost everything" kick because having an 8" rifle with a suppressor is just so darn handy.  What would complicate/frustrate me would be having to remember and keep track of different drop and offset values for more than one type of ammo at those distances for hunting (non-lead for deer, cheaper stuff for hogs that I don't eat anyway etc).  I'd rather just go out in the field with single load that I am zeroed for and am familiar and confident with...I'm talking ranges between 50 and 250yds here...300 tops.  However, I do have the POI of subs noted in my scope cap for really close in use at 25 or 50yds...which is always handy and fun but not really essential.  That way I'm always set with the magazine that I have in the gun while I'm hunting.  
The Barnes cost a bit more...but honestly I don't get to hunt near as much as I would like (or nearly as much as some of the guys on here do!)... so I'm not impacted by it much.  If I was doing full on hog eradication I would opt for a cheaper solution.

I think I've solidly veered away from the OP's original intent of getting suggestions other than the Barnes....sorry OP

Two were head shots DRT. One was a neck shot DRT and the last a chest shot with no exit. It was the big one on the end. The heart and lungs were pretty much jelly. The 110 Vmax dumps it energy and does a good job of killing. It is really good on deer.

Many thinkyou need a howitzer to kill pigs, but they are very easy to kill. Shot placemat is key and I have never had one run off after shooting it. Granted most of the shots were I hunt are about 50yds due to the dense brush.

I have 10" 1:10 twist barrel that seems to really like the Hornady 110g GMX over 20.0g of H-110. Took a young sow with it recently and, while pretty much anything would have worked as it was about a 25-30 yard shot in the neck, she went down like a rock, it exited the other side and when we cleaned it the vertebrae were shattered pretty good.

I'm getting average of 2287 fps and just under 1" at 100 yards. 19.8g gave me an average of 2253 and just over 1".

Accuracy dropped to 1.5"ish at 19.6 and 19.4g.

I’d like to see what expansion is like from that round.

Dang, Doc!!!