Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ok, .243 on moose

I'd twist that .243 to handle the 115gr DTAC, and shoot bullwinkle dead in the heart from another area code - then send the boy to do the work.

Hey, what are kids for. >grin<

Just to keep things in perspective, though I won't say it can't or shouldn't be done, there aren't as many people who admit to using a 243 on moose as will join the bandwagon......and I know of people who've used 22 rimfires, both long and short, but obviously don't suggest that, so...



in spite of the fact that plain old CoreLokts and Interlocks can zip right through a moose under the right conditions, remember that they are truly big game animals, and are easily capable of stopping great bullets from more powerful cartridges than the 243.

Bullets pictured, l to r: 250 Speer Grand Slam around 200 yards 340 Wtby, 225 Barnes XFB around 200 yards 340, 170 Rem CoreLokt < 100 yards 30-30 WCF, 160 CT FailSafe >250 yards 7mm-08, 200 Nosler BT around 200 yards 340. All were essentially broadside shots; bullets were shot into the forward lung area which also included varying parts of the shoulder area, some encountering more/bigger bone than others. Every animal died by drowning; drill the lungs!

Last fall I was fortunate enough to hunt moose and a few other critters in British Columbia.

My Beaver Indian guide showed me his moose rifle with which he had taken a couple dozen moose.

It was a 22 Hornet.

He regarded my 300 WSM as overkill for everything but said it might be helpful if we had to deal with a big,mad grizzly,otherwise it was pretty useless to him.

He said he just shot his moose where the head joins the neck and got out his knife.

Shot placement trumps pretty much everything.

I am Part owner in a NW Ontario Deer Camp.We let a couple locals Moose Hunt there as they keep an eye on our property.They use a 250 Savage and 243 with what ever they can buy locally for ammo.They have never lost one to my knowledge with either caliber.Got nothing to do with Respect for the Animal and everything to do with proper shot placement.

You could shoot the 06 reducedmrecoil loads. They are sweethearts to shoot.

Your too late to the party, the fat lady sang already.

I've shot no mooses, but if I did get the chance I'd be packin' more heat than a .243.

To me it's a simple truism that "bullets from guns into vitals kill animals". So- of COURSE a .243 will kill a moose. How could it not?

A corollary truism is that there are limitations to consider with cartridge/animal pairings. A .223 on moose has limitations that a .338 does not. Both will kill, but the .338 opens up some more avenues for the Death Cab to use to get the participant to the big dance.

So in classic Campfire form this one has devolved into a black and white proposition, with one group nodding sagely that of course it will work; only DSMF's think otherwise! Meanwhile the other group is essentially saying they'd rather not work under the particular limits of this cartridge/critter pairing.

That's where I'm at. Compared to say an atlatl, a scoped .243 with a good bullet is an awesome instrument of death. It really is. However, my foggy memories of college physics tell me that if we hold as many things constant as possible- say, spitzer bullets of similar construction at similar velocities- a bigger cartridge can tear more chit up.

So that'd be my take. Tear more chit up. If the lad is recoil shy I'd work this summer to determine if he can shoot the '06 with 150's. If he can, then I'd load a monometal 150 and run that over the .243- or a more standard 180-gn bullet loaded to .303 velocities.

Just my opinion and I'm moose-less so it probably ain't worth the tome it took to type it out.

Just like Mule Deer said a few posts back.

Yup.

Maybe we need a thread on favoritest ass-shooting cartridge?

I'm tellin' ya this thread is a classic.

I'm laffin' so hard after the "blah,blah,blah" response, that I have to pause between key strokes.

oh, somebody help me! *tears runnin'*

not exactly sure where you will be hunting moose, but here in the nw US the moose are a good 300-500lbs shy of the alaskans. I also could walk up and kill most with a pocket knife, where in ak, I was in shock to see a mooses run from me like I was, well a hunter. were you moose hunting in an area like mine....I would worry more about having him shoot it somewhere easy to recover than the gun to be used.

Lots of comments from lots of folks. Bet quite a few of them have never shoot a moose before either. I have been moose hunting, but only got to help with the quartering. I have however owned and shot several of the mentioned calibers. Biggest animal was a caribou, with a 6.5X55. Don't really remember all of the deer, used everthing from an 9.3X62 to a 243. All of them killed the animals dead with good shot placement. Given the choices mentioned I'll still say the 6.5X55 with 120 to 140g bullets is a better choice for moose.

One could easily replace 'moose' in many of the previous posts with 'grizzly' and arrive at a very similar conclusion. But, many would say, that is crossing a line; perhaps not only crossing a line, but also stepping in steaming doo-doo, maybe berry filled doo-doo at that.

It's funny talking about recover of the moose. My moose hunt was in northern MN, it is a party hunt tag. My "buddy" shot a bull in a cranberry bog, at dusk.. It was heading towards the logging road. I was waiting to see what it would do when BANG, buddy shot. Spent a really bad evening in 3 feet of about frozen water quartering a moose. He was not very popular in the camp that night.

I don't think so, based on my perception that wounded griz have a far higher chance of killing the wounder than moose. Please correct me if I'm out on a limb with that assessment.

Granted, moose should really be regarded as DG at closer ranges, but I would have to think that griz (and browns) can absorb a lot more damage and still send you to the promised land.

Now, if the .243 is an AR-10 with a 20 round mag and TTSXs, we're talking a different game. ;-)

I'd still go .260 or 7mm-08 though at a minimum, myself. :-)

Sorry, but size really don't matter. Looks like the 243 is challenging the 250 Savage for "Darling of the Campfire"

Mostly made that post to stir some thought. Many local's stories and anecdotes will attest to the suitability of a 243 (or less) for a lot of things - including not only moose, but bears as well. My point is only to try to counter the sometimes tendency that moose threads often have where all perspective is lost and moose are nothing more than cardboard cut-outs which can be pushed over with a stick.

I am reminded of the caribou hunt I made this past March with a friend. It was strictly a meat hunt so we were hoping to bring back 10-12 deer. After we accomplished everything we had wanted in the first day and we were reminiscing over the events of the hunt, he commented that he was going to bring a bigger rifle (than the 243) the next time. Two reasons: wind was a factor at some of the distances we were shooting, so he was hitting some in less-than-desirable places, or missing, and he was not seeing evidence of the impacts like more energetic bullets often allow.

I have put four 140 grain bullets into a very ordinary/medium sized bull at less than 200 yards from my Swede. None made it out the back side. Two Partitions were against the hide on the back side; two A-Frames didn't get that far, all on broadside shots. I had time to put the binocs to my eyes and pick out the animal from a group of several for every shot after the first. It's not high on my list of many good choices. I won't detail my use of the 6mm on moose.

My caribou was taken on Adak, perhaps a little larger than the ones in the mainland herds. They are curious animals, we sort of chased them over several hills for a couple of miles. We would move they would move, always one hill ahead. After a couple of hours we just stopped at the base of a hill. Sure enought several crested the hill to see where we were. About 75 yards one shot bang flop hit at the base of the neck.