Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 243 Winchester 90 Scenar 'test'

You MUST dring the Kool-aid. Resistance is futile . . . .

Pretty piss poor performance. Varmint bullet.


Sam good idea to save them for the coyotes...

Well guys, I couldn't believe how the bullet behaved in the deer so I shot one into some water.

Look familiar?
(15 yards so impact velocity was high)




Now to be clear I am not knocking this bullet. It's quite accurate out of my 243 Montana and of course it's not labeled as a 'hunting' bullet.

The only reason I posted this in the first place is to let people know that using this bullet for hunting anything bigger than a coyote might be a bad idea.


I'm one of those types that much prefers to be 'over-gunned' in the first place. Have yet to see the disadvantage of shooting deer with a 270.....

(granted a 243 with a tough bullet would probably work just as well, just couldn't resist riling up the stunt shooters.....grin)



Went back to the deer yesterday and an eagle must have gorged itself because that sucker could barely lift off the ground. Flew 100 yards and I swear it looked like it was trying to puke up meat when it landed. Never did get more than 10-20' off the ground.

Crazier things have happened. I've seen Sierra bullets with no core. If you weren't paying attention to the weight when seating the bullet, you'd never know until you tried to kill something with it...

Buzzards got to eat, same a worms Sam

Sam,

Thanks for the report.

I've had so much success over the last few years on deer, antelope and hogs (some of the hogs were heavy too) with the .243 that I'm likely done with the .270. I've used Federal Fusion 95's and Hornady Whitetail Interlock 100's (both are cheap) and 95 grain Ballistic Tips. The accuracy and terminal ballistics were impressive with each. Some of the shots were fairly close and good tests of the bullet's toughness. One 95 BT entered a running buck's spine 10 feet from the muzzle and simply removed a large segment of vertebrae.

I don't have much experience with "target" type bullets on game. I did kill an antelope buck (at 200 yards on the dot) this year with a handloaded 105 Hornady Amax. That buck died instantly but the bullet did explode into tiny fragments and no exit occurred. The Scenar fragments you recovered were big by comparison. I plan to shoot some hogs this winter with 105 Hornady Amaxes and BTHP's, and Scenar 105's too for further testing.

Hope you're well.

I doubt that it's all that important when shooting deer. Or at least less important than keeping hits in the chest area. Over the years I've seen deer killed with all sort of rifles and loads. Not all bullet performance was great, or even good. Deer die easily...

That said, I have had really superb performance with ballisyic tips...

As to the scenar 90, seems a bit discouraging to see this on your second deer with that bullet. If it's accurate and you can put hits in the chest area, I might be tempted to give it a test run with a few more deer.

Any bullet will have it's quirks and anomalies. Places like Bamalama and Tennessee, with their generous deer limits are like bullet testing labs. Long drive from Montana though...

That wouldn't worry me one bit for deer.

I've killed truckloads of deer, to only find jackets, or nothing... matter of fact, they usually die faster when boolits ain't found..

Not much left with bergers.

Better not let ScenarShooter see this. powdr

Bergers, hornady,nosler by, list goes on and on... the best killin boolits are never found...

Thanks for the write up. i agree that deer ain't hard to kill but IMO that is pretty poor penetration. Hell I've seen many a deer zerged with the same shot placement with 22-250s that had better penetration. Like most have stated in this thread, the 95 NBT offers a good combination of expansion and penetration.

Super accurate bullet.

Try chest shooting a WT, 90 Scenar at 3,450 fps.

I did that ONCE with my .240.

Once is enough. Nastiest clean up ever at the skinning shed.

Made soup out of the chest, even had a few grains of corn floating around.

Now, if my .240 was an 8 twist instead of 10, I'd try the 105 gr. Scenar, which is highly esteemed by serious hunters.

With the 10 twist, I found the best, most accurate combo, 100 gr. NPT/MRP.

For now, that's my 6mm bullet and I'm sticking to it...

The 90 gr. Scenar would probably perform great at the right speed.

DF

MM, the deer was almost devoured yesterday and the coyotes hadn't even found it yet. Eagles and magpies had a feast!


Ted, all good here. If I get bored enough this Winter I might try to work up a load with 90 AB's or the 95 Partitions. More than likely just keep the 243 as is with 90 Scenars loaded for the random coyote and the 270 140AB's for the random buck deer.


John, Calvin, Judman, too many other good hunting bullets out there for me to bother experimenting with a pancaker. It seems about 2/3 of the bucks I shoot are either moving or quartering one way or another so more penetration is obviously a good thing.

Not saying the 90 Scenar won't work, I just don't see the point of chancing it.


Powdr, pretty sure Pat uses a 6.5 Scenar of some sort, not sure on the weight. And of course he has had great success with it.


Woodson, I've shot a few deer and antelope bucks with a 22-250 and 55 grain soft points and thinking back they all exited. I'd take that combo any day over the obviously thin skinned Scenar.


DirtFarmer, good point, they might work great at a slower speed, hell if I know. Looking at notes I was getting around 3150fps in the standard 243.

Seems the 105 gr. Scenar is a well respected BG bullet; Pat, even Stick likes it.

I don't know what the "right" speed may be for the 90 gr. From what you report, 3,150 fps is still too fast.

For me, there are way too many good bullets out there to waste time fooling with that one.

I've moved on.

DF

I recall you're not a fan of the 95 SST, but I've seen some used on deer the last few years. Their performance exceeded what the OP experienced with the 90 Scenar by a good margin.

Sam,

I have had the same thing happen with a couple of "hunting" bullets, though in both instances the core kept penetrating and killed the deer.

The first was a 130-grain Sierra Gameking started from a .270 Winchester at right around 3000 fps. A forkhorn mule deer was bouncing up a hill about 100 yards away, and after a miss I timed the bounce right on the second shot and put the bullet in the short ribs on the left side. The buck collapsed right there, and when skinning and butchering I found the empty jacket just inside the entrance hole, and what was left of the core in the right shoulder.

The second was 105-grain Speer Hot-Cor from a .243, the deer a medium-sized buck whitetail at around 250 yards. The bullet landed high on the ribs and, again, the jacket stopped right there at the entrance hole. The core hit the bottom of the spinal column and dropped the buck right there, though a finisher was required. Didn't find anything except jacket fragments. (Still run into people who think Hot-Cors are "bonded" bullets.)

I doubt your Scenar didn't get a core at the factory. It would never have made it 150 yards to the deer....

mathman,

I'm not an SST fan, either.

I found them to be inconsistent, explosive sometimes, poking a hole at other times. To me, there are better BG bullets.

IMO,

DF