My experience is from several years ago when my brother had a 243. He was using cup and core bullets on blacktail which generally run 110-125lbs.
I was with him when we saw a buck at about 150-200 yards. He shot it and it showed no effect and began to run. He shot 4 more times without any effect. Finally the deer just tipped over. When we skinned it, 4 of his 5 shots had gone through the lungs and there wasn't anything from the diaphragm forward that wouldn't pass through a window screen.
After hunting with the rifle for 5 seasons, he got tired of the meat damage and marginal performance and got a 308.
Granted this was not with today's premium bullets but my personal take is that if you want a coyote rifle that can take an occasional deer or are a very experienced hunter who can choose your shots, a 243 is OK but it would never be my first choice for a new hunter who may not wait for an ideal shot presentation or does not have the experience to recognize a hit and track down the animal.
You say there wasn't anything left of that deer's vitals but call it marginal. Not trying to be an a$$,but how do you think a larger caliber would have helped stop that animal with shots in the same place?
Do you know of any other shots he made with the 243 that would have been more deadly with a larger caliber? That's what I'm really trying to find out. If a bullet was stopped by a shoulder socket or something along those lines where we can say with reasonable assurance that a larger caliber would have put the deer down.
