Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles How 'bout a re-hash on the .243 Win. cartridge? ( since I just won a rifle )

I posted about winning a Remington 700 SPS Stainless in .243 Win.
I officially gave it to my oldest Daughter.
Other than the obvious fact it's a necked-down .308 and can push an 80-gr. at 3300fps...

WHY SHOULD I LOVE THIS CARTRIDGE?
Please give me some good, positive information I can share with my Daughter.
THANKS!

The rifle in question: ( fast & crappy cellphone pic )

They can be very accurate, low recoil, and enough power for deer and antelope. Easy to find loaded ammo and an excellent starter centerfire. Great for varmits as well. More of an all around rifle than several other chamberings.

Well here is one for starters.

The 243 Win is the MOST commercially successful US sporting rifle cartridge between .22 and .270 cals of the last 50 years.

It must be doing something right.

For anyone who uses good bullets and can shoot, it will do anything that really needs done on a deer inside 400 yards,IMHO.

Nearly zero recoil and 55gr BT's or 63 Gr Barnes Varmint Grenades at 4100FPS! Them is fun, fun, fun....

Good start, guys!
Screamin' velocity and commercial success is quite a statement.

You see this pile of racks in the pic...they were taken with a .243win. along with many other bucks & does. How 'bout that for "positive information".

Destined to be a classic round, because of its killing power on deer size game and varmits, and accuracy, there is a thread here by a guy who took his Elk this year with one, maybe in the Elk forum. My Ruger 77 with a varmit barrel shot great, and what recoil???
Bob

Rack-a-licious!

Awesome.

Here is the tread I mentioned about the 243 Elk shooter
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=466257

I'd say - you did your part and in doing so, a 243 won't let you down.

Paper to deer/hogs, a 243 has it covered, cheap to shoot, ammo everywhere, and light recoil/blast allowing many hunters to actually hit vitals w/o flinching and wounding or missing game.

Drown out the naysayers of 243s and listen to those who have killed with them, and take it hunting and it will surprise you.

The 243 is probably one of the most maligned cartridge on big game, and most any 'failure' on deer sized game can be traced to 2 things:

1 - Used the wrong type of bullet since many bullets are offered for varmint/target.

2 - Shot placement

Given the ease of shootability and flat accurate nature of the 243, I'd guess the problems have largely been #1.

Never hear of deer getting away w/a well placed 95 Ballistic Tip, Parition, Barnes, and many other fine bullets.

Well, I'll be the ney sayer here. I don't care for a .243 Win.
I would try to swap it for a .260 or a 7-08.

How many deer have you actually shot with a .243? Pictures would earn you bonus points.

Your preferences would have been spot on, before the advent of todays much better bullets. Today, 223's can do what used to be the work of a 30/30 and a 243 is what a 270 used to be and so on. Even on monster sized bucks at very long range I have not used anything bigger than a 257 WBY for deer in decades. Shot plenty of big boys with .243 80-90gr Barnes X bullets of various itinerations as well. 260's and 7/08's are going to kick more, be slower out of the muzzle, and for no gain in killing power unless one os going for Elk, and for those I would want more rifle than any of the three (though if that was all I had, I would load them with the heaviest Barnes TTSX I could get and simply be more picky about my shots)

If you and or daughter want more zip and smack, really easy to make the rifle into a 6/284, 6mm Remmington, 6mmAI etc as well.

See, that's what I was thinkin' originally, except, why bother with those two when you can jump to a .308?
Then I started seeing something I never even bothered to look at before because of some kind of prejudice I can't even justify...
All of a sudden, I see a caliber that was not in my inventory that has all kinds of 'cool' going for it!
FAST. ACCURATE. VERSATILE.
Varmints to predators to deer-size game / maybe even elk? WOW.
Gotta admit, though, FAST is what caught my eye.

I did a sight in check on my 243 today. It's shooting very well with the 95 Bal Tip and the 80 TTSX on top of max loads of 4350 and 4064 respectively.

I'll probably hunt with the TTSX first since I haven't used that one yet. Somehow I don't think there's a buck in the woods I'd hesitate to pop with it.

Why love the .243?


Because it'll do stuff like this with zero recoil.

I Did this at the 200 yard line with the Tikka T3 .243 Burris 3-9 FF II 70 grain Nosler BT with 45 grains of H4350 Federal 215 primer. 3212 fps velocity (rather mild load). Three Shots I measured at .780

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+1 on the recoil hillbilly, my .243win 2 weeks ago at the range.

200yd-4 shot group-.660
41gr IMR4350-95gr Bergers

cell phone pic

My son can do this with a .223. Imagine what you can do with a .243....

Nice Mike, congrats. A-7 correct?