Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 105 A Max in 243 ?

Anyone used these for deer out of a 243?

if so how did they work.. a friend wanted to load these up for his son to practice with this summer and then use for his first deer season this fall.. the kids is 12..

any feed back would be appreciated..

thanks
seafire

Sorry, no help here...

We're sorta stuck on the 85 TSX.........

with the little experiance i have with reloading my buddys .243 we found that for deer the amax seemed a little to frangible. i personally would look at the 100grain nosler partition

I know of several of the long range guys that shoot them around here. They hunted with them last year and I believe both got exits on the deer they shot. I know one said the exit was the size of a half dollar. I'm in the process of building a 243AI right now and may give them a shot as well. It's not a dedicated deer rifle, but I wouldn't turn down a shot if that was the only bullet I had. YMMV

I've not been able to get them to shoot well enough for me in my 10 twist 6/06 but if they did shoot well I'd use them.

Flinch has a lot of experience with the AM's and if he says they work then that's good enough for me.

I mean we're talking deer here, my grandson could most likely get total penetration from about any angle with his first rifle and it's a Red Ryder...

If they shoot they'll do him just fine.

Dober

Dober, I am suprised that they didn't do well in your 6/06, as they seem to like going fast. I've found that they seem to like 3150fps, and then drop off until 2250 ish and up to 3350. I have had them work in 10 twists before very well.

Also to the OP, they are absolute hell on deer. I shot several with them last year, and see no reason to change.

R.

I tried a couple diff times as I really wanted to work with it but they just wouldn't fly, same with the Bergers.

Dober

maybe the gunsmith slipped you with one of those one in 12 twists he had laying around and figured you wouldn't notice the difference...

I saw that tongue in cheek.. but it has also been known to happen...

I had a barrel sent to me that I ordered.. and had ordered a slower twist and it came thru with a faster twist.. I am sure it was more along the lines of an oversight that intentional... however when bullets wouldn't stabilize that should have, and I took it back to the gunsmith, he measured the twist and found out that we had been sent the wrong one.. it was corrected by the factory and they paid the smith to install the right barrel..

I wouldn't mind them on a meat hunt but if something big is a real chance, particularly at closer ranges, I would go with a bullet with a stouter build.

I've shot a few with amax in 223, too much destruction for me, but thats just my take on it.

The other thought... you might have accuracy issues with it due to barrel twist... at least I would not run it slow.

As to accuracy issues with the bullets, Hornady has had issues with the amax in the past, used to be with 75s I could measure the OAL of the bullet out of the box and tell you if it would shoot or not and be right on.. I know they replaced appx 10,000 of them for us twice in the past since they were probably not totally formed right. But when they do shoot, they shoot very well. But do NOT try to shoot one with the tip missing.... they don't impact anywhere near close to the tipped ones..... IIRC they are off at 600 yards to the tune of close to 24 inches, low usually...

The Speer 105 .243 is a tough bullet that works great on Deer . I think the A-Max is a target bullet , it's performance on Deer would be real iffy . (Ethics)

the amax have been proven to work fine, they do just fine on deer as long as you like ballistic tip type performance. They are no where near an ethics question.

So the OP is unethical because you're guessing.

No Actually I know the A-Max is a match bullet and I was trying to not insult the OP. I wasn't trying to insult anyone . If you boys want to give Hornady a call , they'll tell you they aren't recommended for hunting !

Hell I had a Hornady guy tell me Nosler Partitions aren't recommended for hunting. Must be so.

No, actually you're basing your opinion on a guess. There's plenty of guys here who've used A-Maxs on critters, whose actual experience differs from your guess.

Amax is great deer bullet. Very violent, from what I've seen. Anything slower that 1-8" twist barrel wont stabilize 105 gr. Amax. I would go 1-7 or 1-7.5" I f I were to build 243 tailored to that particular bullet. It also likes to be jammed into lands too.

A 1:9 and even a factory remmy 1:9.125 is generally sufficient for the 105 AMAX's. Bergers or DTACs are another story.

John, I like the 95 BT, 90 SSII, and 85 TSX for deer/hogs, but my LONGEST deer kill was 6BR, 26" Pac-Nor custom Ruger #1, lasered at 400 yds to the edge of the field I was hunting, dropped a buck around 200 yds moments before reloading, setting my Kepplinger trigger, and using my mil-dot to center double lung a doe at the edge - 400 yds, golf ball sized exit, deer stumbled, struggling to stay on feet and dropped around 25 yds max from hit.

105 amax, 28.5 Varget, 2850 MV, around 2k impact w/1k lbs.

My current BR has a 1-10 so I used 95 bt on 2 deer last fall, deadly