Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Anyone shoot a 243 for elk?

I can't wait to try it, thanks. As I previously stated, I would have no compunction against using it with the 90 gr sirocco and would have if I had drawn a tag this season.

Whether one beleives it or not I had so many 3/8" groups with that .375-.416 Rem Mag that I didn't save any. They were too common. When I switched to the G.S. Custom bullets I worked up a load before I went to the range. At the first range from the bench the first one made a hole where the crosshairs intersect. The next whet through the same hole and the next opened up the group to 1/16". The velocities were 3,050, 3,055 and 3.050.

One time I decided to use Nosler 300 partitions. I fired three off hand at 100 yards the group was six inches. Then i fired three from sitting at 300 yards producing a group of six inches again. There was a guy there who asked me to fire one at 500 yards. I set up on the bench with sandbags and fired three. The group was 2 7/8". The guy exclaimed, "That's a big squirrel gun."

The following is from my article, The making of a rifleman.

One day while hunting, I saw a deer about 100 yards or so in the distance. I couldn�t hold on it because my respiration and heart rate were too high. Obviously I was walking too fast. The next day while s-l-o-w-l-y sneeking though the woods, I saw a legal buck across a clearing from me about seventy yards away. Right then I realized I was not walking too fast the previous day: I was having so much fun, I had buck fever. I knew there�s no chance of a successful hunt without sitting down to steady myself. Fortunately the deer was not aware of me, yet. I was still one layer of foliage inside from the clearing. Creeping forward allowed me to sit down with the barrel protruding beyond the vegetation.

Despite this very stable position and holding an eleen pound rifle, I could still see the crosshair moving and waving all over the place. Even in all my excitement I realized they were moving, but only in the kill zone so I yanked the trigger; except that�s not what happened. Instead of my trigger finger coming back, my whole body lurched forward, including my trigger finger! Of course the rifle didn�t fire. Embarrassed, I told myself, �Try this one more time.� Gaining enough composure, I tried squeezing the trigger. This time the buck dropped at the shot. Without meat in the freezer, a hunt is nothing more than a walk in the woods. Might as well carry a camera.

A new shooting procedure began. The bench was still used to hold the rifle; but only as a leaning support. Now I literally ran the hundred yards to the target board, stapled up a target and ran back. I grabbed up the rifle and quickly loaded it. Bang! Bang! Bang! as quickly as I could work the bolt and get on target. A quick controlled squeeze of the trigger worked much better than the slow deliberate target type offhand shooting previously employed. Again, all I wanted to do was hit the target paper; anywhere. Then I changed that to a paper plate. When all the shots were always on the paper plate, I was ready for the next season. I didn�t realize it, but I was training my shooting muscles like an athlete trains for competition. This required practice.

Now I have a rifle with almost no recoil so I practice dry-firing. It also is a little over half the weight of the .375-.416 Rem. Way cheaper and just as much fun. Also I can do it without leaving home.

And where was this article published?

It's not published yet; although I have had four published over the years. I had John Lachuck go over it. I made the corrections and will get around to submitting it sometime. It was very much fun remembering the steps to become a profecient rifleman.

John and I have been shooting a lot. He complimented me one time by telling me I am the best pistol shot he has ever met. But I sorta cheat. I use a Freedom Arms .454 with a 2 1/2-8X32 Leupold Vari-X scope. Many times I have fired the whole cylendarful under 2" at 100 yards. Jack rabbits up to 100 yards are hardly ever missed; standing or running. Very nice set up.

Who's John Lachuck? and has he ever used a 243 on elk?
So this "article" you wrote isn't anything somebody had enough faith in your credibility to pay you for when they published it?

That's quite obvious to everyone here.

I'm sticking to my call. Ringman is the most deranged member on this site.

Ranch13,



Google him up. You may be suprised.

He is the orginator of the .44 Magnum. He edited all of Elmer Keiths stuff for Guns & Ammo. Maybe you need ot google Elmer Keith too. If you saw Elmer Keith's book you would see right inside the front cover, "Edited by John Lachuck". He has lots of trophy mounts from North America and Africa. I don't know if he killed any elk with a .243.

"faith in your credibilty" is an odd way to suggest I have submitted it and was turned down. I wrote a book in 1996 and got around to submitting it in 2007. Is that because the publisher didn't have "faith" or because I didn't sibmit it in the interviening years?

Just for my fun and others reading pleasure I will post the "article" in the general section. After you read it maybe you can give me some pointers. There is always room for improvement. Especially since I have not got into long range shooting and hunting.

My pointer is 'shoot'm where it'll kill'm' and I'm sorry you have issues with that in field positions... and glad I and those I know don't now that I've been alerted to the possibility.

Kent

Good one Ringman! Some guys just don't have any sense of humor!

Ringman and I know each other from the Campfire here.. we live in the same town and I run into him a the range from time to time... we don't hang out together, or run in the same circles locally....

so we are beer drinking buddies or anything like that...

as far as his abilities to shoot small groups at long range... well I have witnessed many times his practicing and meticulousness...

I can also verify personally witnessing him turning in groups like that with a wide variety of different rifles... from his 257 Weatherby, to some of those big wildcats he has...

he may walk to a different drummer at times than mainstream guys, but he is far from a nut, and that different drummer he walks to, he can take it all and put it together in the ways that count...

he's not a bragger, and not someone who will make unverifiable claims... I've personally witnessed some of his 'claims' just because I happened to be using the same range on the same day he was....

just passing it along...

.

This is also where my expertise lies, also. My shots were within 150 yards.

With any rifle, you should place your shots or pass on the shot. I took 4 cows with a 243, no problems with any, but I don't loose my head on the shot...I aim for a specific place on the animal. I used the 100g Hornady Flat base and a 95g Partition with IMR 4350 and win primers. My hunting partner was also using a 243 with 100g Factory core locts...he had killed over 100 elk...very old timer.

Interesting subject,especially if you're a 243 fan.I've never hunted elk with a 243 but I believe if you keep your shots under 200yds. and use a well constructed bullet i believe it's definately possible as long as you wait for the proper shot to present it's self {broadside shot}

I love the 243 for whitetails.I guess there's a couple ways to look at the senario: if you're going on an elk hunt once in a life time or once every couple of years and you dropped $6k on the hunt and you might not get the opportunity to get close enough or the perfect shot doesn't present itself then i'd want more gun than a 243.But if you live in an area where the elk live and you get the opportunity to hunt them once a week where you can be patient to wait for the right shot then i'd take the 243.

I'd take a well place shot from a 243 rather than a bad shot from a 300 win. mag.

Nearly 10 pages more since the thread was risen from the dead, and she didn't even use the 243.