Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 243 on Elk

I have a fair amount of experience with the 6mmand 243 on bigger animals in my hunting camp in Africa. What I have seen amazes me and dissapoints me every other animal with these small bore guns. Elk are as tough to kill as most African Plains species so I think it's a fitting comparision.

I have never seen an elk shot with a 243 or a 6mm and would never shoot one with either. There is a big difference between killing an animal and finding one. I have seen Elk shot well with big to very big cartridges travel a heck of a long way. One thing people just have to accept is the responsibility of the hunt. It may not be a practical species for every single person alive to hunt for. If the cartridge needed is too much for the hunter to use then the limit of the hunters potential has been exceeded.

I have seen well hit Kudu, much less difficult to crumple or stop then an elk run hundreds of yards with a couple drops of blood when hit with a .243, I have seen Impala run at least a hundred yards when hit with a .243 and leave no blood, same with blesbok and balck wildebeast. These animals are much smaller then elk and less difficult to kill. On the other hand I have seen Kudu shot and fall where they were standing the same with warthogs.

The .243 and 6mm are just not the kind of consistant killers of big game that the cartridges over 30 caliber are. My daughter was 9 years old when she began shooting my down loaded 30/06. It was shooting 125 grain bullets at 2500 fps. This is an easy to shoot load with very little recoil. I would not have even considered her shooting elk with it. However I could have swapped out the ammo for a premium 165 grain bullet with a full load when she shot an elk and she would never have known it under the excitement of the hunt. I have done this with my wife for many years now. She shoots that 30/06 with loaded down ammo and hunts with full power loads. She has never felt the recoil a single time when shooting game.

Consider that the 243 may be easy to shoot, but also consider that the loss of a big animal will disturb her for life. In my opinion the 243 is marginal for an experienced shooter.

Thank you JJ Hack for lending some sanity to this thread. I wouldn't even conisder the 243 a good deer cartridge much less an elk cartridge. One of the reasons is that people choose the 243 because they are intimidated by anything bigger. They are not big fans of practice because of muzzle blast or whatever. So you have a situation where they close both eyes and yank the trigger and hope that the bullet will be guided to the animals vitals by divine intervention.
Last year my brother in law had his wife shoot a 243 for deer season. At the last minute he decided to substitute the 80 gr bullet because she was a little bothered by the recoil. It ended up with her wounding an 8 pt buck
which required several hours of three stooges tracking. This included going out without a flashlight or gun and jumping the deer which then ran even further into the swamp. They finally went back and got a light and a gun and put it out of its misery. Out of fairness I handload for a friend and force him to use 100 gr Hornady interlocks and he has cleanly killed several deer which are shot from a stand about 20 yards away. He practices a lot. I would like to say that Bob Hagel once wrote that you should not use a cartridge that will do the job under ideal conditions, you should use a cartridge which will do the job when everything goes wrong.
Great White North

Most of the problem with people using the 243 comes from examples like just stated above. Using bullets that weren't designed for game on game.
I firmly believe there are more cripple loss each year to the supposeddly "suitable cartridges" than there are the 243. And quite a bit of the bashing the 243 gets is from folks who never used one, just regurgitating what they've heard or read.
I spent alot of time guiding deer hunters in the Black Hills of Wy. I always had my 243 on hand. There was no limit to the amount of ribbing I took about my peashooter rifle being no good in that kind of brush. But guess who got to go crawling thru that brush with which rifle to find the crippled deer that had been shot with the "better" cartridges.
Its all in the bullet placement, and bullet construction, and the hunters ability to follow up on a shot whether it looked good or not.

Couple of things.

1.) First - the 243 is not an elk cartridge. I have seen it take a cow moose at close range. It was with a 95 gr Barnes X and a real stiff load of H414. Blew a rib back through the lungs. Moose went about 30 feet before piling up. My wife was the shootist. She asked me for a bigger rifle on the way to the downed moose. I gave her one.

2.) I cut down an old 30-06 Tikka to fit my wife and daughter. It is now their rifle. It doesn't fit me anymore. I started looking at ways to reduce the recoil without sacrificing performance. I settled on a 150 grain Nosler Partition bullet at 2800 fps ahead of a 46 gr charge of IMR3031. It shoots 1" groups at 100 yards. Virtually NO recoil to speak of. Both my wife and daughter shot deer this year. Three shots fired - three perfect hits at 190 and 195 yards. By the way, they are both 5'4" and around 120 pounds.

I would recommend for you to do a little research before getting a too small cartridge for a too big game animal. Sure, they may work under ideal conditions, but conditions are not always ideal.

Common sense would dictate a different cartridge. But the common sense is not all that common anymore.

Let me start off by saying I detest the 243. For no rational reason. I love the 240 Wby, and they are two peas in a pod....

That said, I have some experience with recoil shy shooters. What I have done is concoct about 100 training loads each for the kids and wife, using Hodgdon "youth loads" (www.hodgdon.com), and H4895. Alternatively, Speer has reduced load data in their manual. With these, they get all the practice they want (and a 12 year old with a pile of ammo, plenty of targets and a new gun is a sight to behold!).

When time comes to pull the trigger on the real thing, none of them ever noticed that the recoil was twice that of the practice round. My wife got both her elk and her antelope this year, with near perfect shots. Never said a thing about recoil......

Load the 7/08 with 140 gr. TSX's, put on a scope with lots of eye relief, and no elk is safe as far as she can hit the right spot. JMO, Dutch.

With the numbers of cartridges available in over the counter rifles now, as compared to 40 years ago, there really isn't any reason to start someone on the 243, and I'm a firm believer in the ability of that pip squeek cartridge.
I don't have any experience with the 7-08 but I do the 7x57, and I have to question if a young/new shooter can't handle the recoil of either of those loaded with 140-150 gr bullets , with a good recoil pad and stock adjusted to fit, whether that shooter has any business shooting at live game at all.
To many times new shooters are dumped into a position of having to use a rifle that don't fit well, and then is expected to have to make shots at distances , under conditions , that the person mentoring probably doesn't have any real business pulling the trigger on.

BS, BS, BS -- no

Does anyone recomend the 115 Grain Barnes Original? What's the story with this bullet?

264- is this the same .243 that you're limited to factory loads for deer hunting? If so, I don't think the Barnes Originals are available in loaded ammo so the 115 gr. bullet isn't an option. Or have you decided to start handloading? If that's the case and you want to use one bullet for deer and elk I'd recommend a Barnes X or 100 gr. Nosler Partition as an adequate deer/ marginal elk bullet. I've shot a lot of deer and antelope with a 6mm Rem. and it's always worked but I wouldn't deliberately take it elk hunting.

dale

Sonnie
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
art

Depends on a lot of stuff.
I have a friend that swears by the 243 for elk. He hunts with a rifle like he hunts with his bow. No shot till the elk is blowing snot in his face. This individule also regularly shoots 85% or above on our Department qualification course.
If you hunt in this manner & use a good heavy for caliber bullet then OK, otherwise absolutely not..
If you are looking for a light recoiling accurate round for smaller statured folks, the 6.5x55 Swede is one of the great secrets of the shooting world. The 7x57 is another. Of course using heavy for caliber bullets & Practicing with your round being used 'till personal limitations are established & then not exceeded.
Another thought to keep in mind, going too big & scareing the shooter with the noise & rrecoil is counterproductive. I remember reading a comment by a professional guide something to the effect that he would much rather see his hunter with a well used 30/06 than with a unblemished big magnum. ( he was speaking of big bears & such). The idea of course is that a well placed small caliber bullet works better than a missed shot with a big one.
I think there is someone on the board whose "signature" reflects that.

My old Army roomate from the Platte river valley area of WY and his 2 brothers all took there first few elk with .243's...He never mentioned any problems with it...as a matter of fact he still had his rifle, a Winchester, and used it quite successfully deer hunting at Ft. Bragg.

If people can launch low SD and BC pistol bullets out of a sabot from a smokepole and hammer elk than I don't see how anyone would argue against a 95-100 grain wonder bullet being adequate. Now if you're the guy that has to shoot and try kill no matter the angle or range then anything short of a 155mm howitzer is probably insufficient.

Mike

I agree. It's a real problem and, after a lot of thought, I think the idea of downloading the 7-08 is probably right on. Prolly 140 Partitions at 2700 or so.

I've killed elk and moose with small cartridges, but it's always been when I was hunting deer and got an opportunity to kill the larger critter. Stuff happens and the best rifle for the job is the one that happens to be in your hands.

I've killed a bunch of elk and I have a fair idea where to hit them. Would I personally purposely go in the bush, hunting for elk with any bullet in a .243? Mmmmmm, probably not.

Several years ago, I killed a couple of elk with a .25-'06 with 120 Partitions and they did a hell of a good job. Thinking that I'd pushed my luck far enough, I backed off and continued using my standard guiding rifle; a Remington 700C in .30-06 with 150-grain Nosler Partitions. Hey, it works and I was never afraid of the rifle.

It was only later that I discovered the .280 Ackley and it works better.

The .30-'06 is still great and I've used it to kill over fifty Afrikan animals. Stuffed with 180 Hornady Interlockeds or Partitions, it still swats critters over DRT.

Steve

Whitetail in MT,
I can get the 115 grain Origional from Superior Ammunition (Superiorammo.com) I hadn't found it whent I posted the thing with factory loads.

I guided elk hunters for awhile, a little over 20 years. I wouldn't go out and buy a .243 for an elk rifle, but I sure would have a lot more confidence in a guy that could shoot a .243 well, than I would in a guy shooting a magnum that he was afraid of. When working as a licensed outfitter my advice to my hunters was that if they weren't already shooting a mag, don't go out and buy one just to hunt elk. Most guys did better with the deer rifles they were acustomed to. IMO a magnum is best used by those looking to increase their range beyond the 300 yds that the '06 based rounds are adequate for. I wouldn't hesitate using my .243 on elk, assuming relatively short ranges, say 150 yds or so, heavy Barnes or partition bullets, and broadside shots. I think of it as a varmint round that, with proper bullets and positive shot placement, can be used for elk.

This thread has gotten away from the original intent of the opening question. It was not whether an experienced marksman, hunting guide, or confident big game hunter could use a 243 and get away with it. It was whether or not a fist time elk hunting teen age young lady with little to no big game experience should be able to use this round on an Elk.

There is no doubt that a 243 can, and has killed many elk. Nobody will ever know how many have run off to die a miserable death after taking a tiny little .243 bullet though.

As stated before by me, sometimes you just have to accept that not every animal is a logical target for every hunter. There are some people that will just never be able to handle the fire arms needed to hunt every species. As backward and slow to evolve as Africa seems at times they have set some logical and very functional minimums for big game. I hate anyone intruding on my desires but I have to respect that it's the right decision after many years and thousands of animals which have formed these opinions, or as it stands now RULES.

Even archery has minimum draw weights for many species. I have accepted the fact that I will never shoot several species there with my archery equipment. My accuracy is fantastic, my equipment is the best available. But my draw weight is only 70 pounds max( and that is pushing it!). I need 80 lbs to hunt buffalo legally, and I cannot shoot 80 pounds with my frequently dislocated right elbow.

I have to move on and hunt the things I can handle. Much like an inexperienced hunter who would like to have some instant gratification. Elk do not come easy without the effort, practice and dicipline to manage the size of a rifle needed to do the job right.

I do not mean to sound harsh or without feeling. However I see quite frequently so many folks that seem to think big game hunting is like fishing where you try to take on the biggest fish possible with the lightest gear. We have no catch and release with bullets. One bad shot and you have caused the sickening and horrible slow death of a very valuable animal. The majority of which will then begin looking for another animal when they don't find the first one. How fair is that to the rest of the hunters who have done everything right, learned to use the right tool and don't get an opportunity for a shot because of the dropping population of Elk? This is often caused by those who attempt big game hunting without the dicipline, or experience to do it right?

If a hunters tag was punched with the very first time they pulled the trigger at an animal, .... I promise you there would be a hella lot more practice and proper firearms in use. There would also be a hella lot more game alive in the bush as well.

Thank you Jim, It's been awhile but i'm back. -- no

JJ,
Well said!
Paul

I think that every hunter should consider his tag filled as soon as he pulls the trigger. If he @#$%s up the shot than he should have to suffer, and rip his tag in half.

By the way JJHACK, I got the answer I wanted, (That the 243 will work if the shot is placed perfectly, the bullet is of the best kind, and the animal isnt one of those super-tough-freaks-of-nature) and I dont care where this thread goes now, as long as it's interesting.

With the muzzle brakes out there now there's no reason to not use enough gun. I'd rather see someone use a .270 or a .308 with a brake on it and give the benefit to the elk but that's just me.