How Marine Corps scout snipers could earn the real 'HOG's tooth'

What the Marine Corps used to call Scout Snipers are known as Reconnaissance Sniper Marines. And while the last Scout Sniper class graduated in 2023, it was a grueling course, famous for both its difficulty and the ritual that came at the end. Those who graduated from the Scout Sniper school were honored on “HOG’s Night,” celebrated at the end of every class.

It was there that the newly-minted Marine Corps Scout Sniper was handed the HOG’s tooth, a 7.62 round, the traditional marker that he’s no longer a PIG (“Professionally Instructed Gunman”) and has earned the title of “Hunter of Gunmen,” or HOG.

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But there’s another Hog’s Tooth out there. One that isn’t given at a ceremony. This one has to be taken.

Before we all drown in Facebook comments, let it be known that the point here isn’t to rank one tradition above the other. These are two different customs that happen to share the same superstitious root.

The old sniper’s belief was simple and it dates back to British snipers in World War I: somewhere in the world there’s a single round with your name on it. If you could get your hands on that bullet first, the logic went, it couldn’t kill you. You’d be carrying your own death around your neck instead of waiting for it to find you.

That’s the idea behind the real Hog’s Tooth.

hogs tooth scout sniper training — Before graduating sniper school, scout sniper Marines were called “PIGs” or “professionally instructed gunmen.” (U.S. Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Emmanuel Ramos)

Earning the HOG’s tooth starts the same way every other HOG earns his status: by actually becoming a Scout Sniper and getting into a fight. There’s no skipping the school, no shortcutting the deployment, no faking the experience that comes with both. You have to be the guy other snipers are looking for before you can go looking for one of them.

The moment that matters comes when the scopes finally cross. A true sniper duel isn’t a movie scene: It’s two patient professionals who have already spent days or weeks stalking each other, reading wind and terrain, waiting for the other man to make the one mistake that ends the stalemate. When the shot breaks and the enemy sniper drops, the job isn’t finished.

Now you have to move,often under observation, often in territory that belongs to the other side, and reach his position before anyone else does.

marine corps hogs tooth PIGs usmc — Candidates for Scout Sniper Platoon dig deep to complete the two-week preparation course. (U.S. Marine Corps/Sgt. Austin Long)

If the scene is still intact when you get there, you take the rifle if you can. What you really want, though, is the round still in the chamber. That’s the one that was meant for you. Pull it, separate the bullet from the case, and string it on 550 cord the way generations of HOGs have done. Wear it close. According to the legend, that specific round can never kill you now. It already belongs to its intended target.

The rest of the battlefield can still try. The superstition only promises protection from that one bullet—the one you took from the man who was hunting you. That’s the real Hog’s Tooth. Not the one they hand you on graduation day, but the one you have to go out and collect yourself.