Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 243 Win bullet suggestions

I'm a 243 nut, and I'll try to explain why.

My children and I have killed deer with factory loads in 100g Federal Blue box, 85 Federal Premium TSX, 95 Fusion, 80 Hornady GMX, and 80 Barnes Vortex TTSX. We've also used some others, and 80 TTSX in hand loads.

All have worked well.

The Federal Blue Box 100's are cheap and accurate. We've recovered 1 or 2 from very dead deer.

The 95 Fusions have probably been the most accurate in a variety of rifles, and have performed very well on game. We haven't recovered any, including some shot through some fair sized hogs.

95 Fusion kills:

As you can see, the boy is fairly dangerous with his Faux Ti 243 and 95 Fusions. His rifle shoots them superbly, and I haven't seen much reason to change.






However, I will say that the 80 GMX, 80 TTSX, and 85 TSX put the 243 right there with lots of cartridges with a lot more powder and recoil.

Plus, they make the already flat shooting little cartridge into a bit more of a laser beam - especially at most hunting distances.

With these bullets, the 243 hits, penetrates and kills bigger stuff all out of proportion with its mild recoil.

Examples:

85 TSX

Free range axis that showed up at the right place at the right time (for me, not so much for him...grin).

Center punched both shoulders, bullet exited, went 70 yards on 3 legs with a good blood trail. He was at least 275 IMO. I expected to find the bullet in the off shoulder, but all I found was a petal and an exit hole.



80 TTSX

Daughter whacked this axis doe. Doe was quartering to her at maybe 75 yards, and she put it on the point of the shoulder and got a big exit behind off shoulder with a massive blood trail. So, close shot with great penetration and expansion. Never worried about shot angle with the 80 TTSX. They were spooky and fixing to leave, and she needed to shoot right now. With the 80 TTSX, I never thought twice about telling her to shoot. If we needed stem to stern penetration, we'd get it with that bullet.



One last example...

80 GMX

This big bodied buck (for our area) was quartering away at over 250 yards. My oldest daughter shot him prone off my pack, and I never worried about it busting that off shoulder and exiting - which is exactly what it did. In behind near shoulder, center punched the off shoulder. Buck staggered, gathered himself, and made it 75 yards on 3 legs before piling up.

With the flat shooting little 80 GMX and a 200 yard zero, just told her to hold a tick above half way up and she hit him perfectly.

[img]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c...mFirstBuck1-2011NewYearsFireworks180.jpg[/img]

I could go on, but I might start braggin' on my kids instead of talking bullets!

DJ

DJ,

I for one don't mind you bragging on your kids as long as you include your superb write ups and pictures! Keep them coming...

Oh, and I've got my oldest a model 700 youth LH .243, loaded up some 70 NBT's with a light load for him to get trigger time. Somebody told me those will even kill the snot out of deer...

DJ

I dig the pictures of the kids!! The smiles are priceless.

Thanks, Kimber7.

I've been trying to find time to write a bit about this year's hunting adventures.

I enjoy doing it, and it is good to chronicle it. Glad a few enjoy the stories!

DJ

Have started to put together .243 components for future adventures afield. Have also been flinging Barnes X's at deer and elk since their inception, without fail. Some factory twist offerings have set limitations until modifications can be made towards final goals. Sadly, Kimber's SAAMI 10-twist precludes more desirable BC's in the 95-105 grain range, leaving the Barnes 80 TTSX and 85 TSX. Given their same-same BC's (0.331 v 0.333), I chose the 85 TSX, thinking that the cute little blue nose cone does no favors for the extra T. Ultimately, there will be a 3-groove, 8-twist Lilja dupe for the Improved version. Maybe even a 6mm LRX offering by then too. Hope springs eternal....

This is an interesting thread. I bought my 9-yr-old son a Wby Youth in .243 to get him started deer hunting for the first time this year. I bought some Federal 85gr TSX ammo off the shelf when I picked up the rifle, because that seemed like the best they had. So, I sighted it in a week ago so that it would be ready for my son to start practicing. I was limited to a 50-yd range that day, but that rifle/bullet combo shot three-shot groups from a rest that all touched every time but one (and that was my fault). So, I was pretty happy. Then I looked and saw that Federal has stopped making that loading. It appears to have been replaced by Federal with an 85gr "Trophy Copper" loaing. What is that? Something new or just their name for an 85gr TTSX? It lookes like a TTSX on the Federal website. Is that lke how CorBon calls their TTSX lodings the "DPX Tip"? See http://www.shopcorbon.com/DPX-Rifle/243-Win-80gr-DPX-Tip/DPX24385-20/400/Product
I had a pleasant e-mail exchange with a CorBon rep, where they confirmed that these are TTSX bullets, and I told them that this was unnecessarily confusing and they should just call a duck a duck, or in this case a TTSX a TTSX. I love CorBon ammo, but that's a bit silly.

Anyway, I only had one box left of the Federal 85gr TSX after my range session, couldn't find any more easily, and wanted to get my son shooting something that would be around for a while. So, I ended up ordering some Barnes 80gr TTSX factory loads. I'm glad to read above that this performs pretty well. Hopefully, it will shoot as well out of that rifle as the 85gr TSX did. I'll find out soon.

Hi,I have used the 80 grain TTSX barnes factory load.
Shoots an inch or so for 3 shot groups at a 100 yards out of a Remington 7600 synthetic.Kills deer fine as well.
Bout $30.00 at local sportsmans warehouse.
Craig

Awesome pics there.

My wife, Cookie, does well on deer and pronghorn with 85 grain slugs. I borrowed it for black bear last year and tipped one right over. Face on and broke it's neck.

Wait, 85 gr. bullet on a bear? Really? I've been hoping to hear that would work. How big a bear? Not a cub, right?

Although I've not tried that bullet on deer I DO shoot it at ground hogs and Nosler lists it as a varmint bullet. Penetration might not be good.

The 80gr BT IS a deer bullet and as such, probably a much better choice and not much heavier if you're trying to keep recoil down.

Ive killed a ton of deer with 85 partitions ,that said may be easier to get something else with the way ammo is at this time .I hand load for all of my neads,good luck

I use them in my .243, great deer load.

Lots of great choices available today, however, make mine a Barnes.

Just about anything out of a .243 kills the crap out of deer. Stick to something 85-100 grs., put it where it aughtta go and get out your knife. It really ain't anymore complicated than that.

Cant disagree with that!

I used 80gr ttsx (federals I think), they worked great.

OK, but anyone have experience shooting black bears W/85gr. TSX's?

As a general rule, if it works well on deer, it'll work well on black bear.