I think you should never shoot a wild hog with anything less than a 9 mil and make sure you have a lot of bullets in the magazine. But for snakes a 22 pistol works fine if you use rat shot. Here in West Central Texas we have to worry about lots of rattle snakes,wild dogs, mountain lions, wild hogs and mean feral hogs so I carry a 45 long colt revolver. Nothing threatening has ever escaped its rath, however, it is very heavy and gets tiring to carry after a few hours in the field. So if you are worried about snakes 22 rat works and too, wear a good pair of leather work boots. Most viper family snakes strike people on the feet and lower ankle but their fangs are not known to penetrate good leather. I am already armed with a shovel and a 9 inch hand digger (both of which I sharpen before every outing) so i can handle most problems without drawing my pistol. I only carry it out in the country. In my area people view guns as tools. We grew up that way. We never considered using them on each other. Be safe and Happy Hunting.