Texas hog & deer rifles
What works on feral hogs at night and on whitetail from the Hill Country to the brush, and the rifles we have in stock for each.
Texas has somewhere north of two million feral hogs and about five million whitetail deer, and both are hunted almost entirely on private land. That changes the rifle question. A hog rifle gets used year-round, mostly after dark, at close range, and often with a suppressor. A deer rifle gets used from the first Saturday of November until January from a box blind over a feeder or a sendero, at whatever distance the country allows. Plenty of Texans own one rifle that does both. Most end up with two.
Hogs: the year-round rifle
Feral hogs are an unprotected exotic in Texas. No season, no bag limit, no license needed on private land with the landowner consent (Parks and Wildlife Code 42.002), and night hunting with lights and thermal optics is legal on private property. That is why the Texas hog rifle is an AR-15: it is light, it holds enough rounds for a sounder that scatters, and it takes a thermal scope and a suppressor without fuss. The .300 Blackout is the default chambering because subsonic loads are quiet with a can and supersonic loads hit hard inside 200 yards. A 6.5 Grendel or an AR-10 in .308 buys reach on open ground. Whatever you carry, hogs are tough and the vitals sit low and forward; aim for the shoulder, not behind it.
The F1 Firearms parts shelf on this site exists partly for this job. A skeletonized handguard and a light barrel take weight off a rifle you carry all night, and a good muzzle device tames the second shot on a running sounder.
Whitetail: the November rifle
Texas whitetail hunting is mostly sit-and-wait from a blind, and the distances depend on the country. In the Hill Country west of Austin, deer are small-bodied and shots through cedar and live oak are seldom past 150 yards; a .243, 7mm-08, .270 or .308 in a bolt gun is more than enough. In the South Texas brush below San Antonio the deer are the biggest in the state and a shot down a sendero can run 300 yards, which favors the flat cartridges, 6.5 Creedmoor, .270 and .308, and a scope you can dial. In the Piney Woods of East Texas and the Cross Timbers around Fort Worth a .30-30 lever gun still fills tags. Any centerfire rifle is legal for deer; rimfire is not.
Glass, lights and cans
A hog rifle needs a light or a thermal and a sling more than it needs a fancy trigger. Thermal scopes have come down in price and turned night hogs from a chore into the most popular hunting in the state. Suppressors are legal to own and hunt with in Texas after federal NFA approval, and a can on a .300 Blackout is the single biggest quality-of-life upgrade in hog hunting; we do not sell NFA items, but the rifles here are threaded for them. A deer rifle needs a scope in the 3-9x or 4-12x range and a rest in the blind, and it needs to be zeroed with the exact load you hunt with.
Seasons and licenses
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department sets the seasons and publishes them in the Outdoor Annual every August. For 2026 in round terms: archery deer opens the last Saturday of September; the general season opens the first Saturday of November in both zones and closes the first Sunday of January in the North Zone and mid-January in the South Zone; muzzleloader follows in January. Dove opens September 1 in the North and Central zones and in mid-September in the South Zone. Quail opens the last Saturday of October and runs to the last Sunday of February. A Texas hunting license is required for all game animals and game birds, hunter education is required for anyone born on or after September 2, 1971, and hogs on private land are the one exception to the license rule.
Rules change every year. Nothing here replaces the current Texas hunting regulations at tpwd.texas.gov. Check the season, the county and the legal means before you go, and check the lease rules too.
Buying a hunting rifle in Texas
No permit, no registration, no waiting period. You must be 18 or older to buy a rifle from a dealer and not prohibited under Penal Code 46.04 or federal law. Order here, name a Texas FFL dealer at checkout, and finish Form 4473 and the background check at their counter. Scopes, slings, ammunition and F1 Firearms handguards and barrels ship straight to your door. See the Texas gun law page for the rest.
