Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints 243 for coyote

Fur friendly flat shooting loads...please share.

Fur friendly and .243 don't exactly mesh all that well, but if that's all a guy has it will have to be made the best of.

I've had okay luck with a tougher deer-type bullet like the 100 grain NP, but even than, there were some wrecks.

None really.. The gov't trappers like either the 70 grain Blitking or 65 gr. Vmax.. I have used both plus a bunch of others.. But sometimes they tear a pretty big hole.. But they are coyote killers.

I can tell you a 65gr vmax out of my 243 is about as fur friendly as a wood chipper! But there's not a lot of fur value for coyotes in my area either. Like Lonny said try a less explosive bullet but if you don't hit the spine, head, or knock out his running gear, expect him to run if the bullet just punches a 6mm hole in and out even in the vitals.

Any of you guys ever load them down?



Travis

Hornady 70SX in the ribs.

Blaspheme!

While I was pleasantly surprised most of the time with my 243ai and 75 gr Vmax's, a few times they did a number on them. I'd get another caliber if you want to save fur.

70gr Blitzking, 87gr Vmax and 55gr NBT have all worked from mine, not real good on pelts though.

fur friendly and flat shooting and .243 don't go together. It's like putting sweet and juicy and grapefruit in the same sentence. You can have two of the 3, but the 3rd piece doesn't quite fit.
But if you just want'em dead, .243 will deliver.

FMJ .243?
E-tip, ttsx, GMX

60 grain sierra hollow points loaded hot work well. My dad hunted fur for a living in the 80's and he shot a lot of coyotes with this. They go in and blow up before exiting. A majority of the time there was no exit hole. There were always exceptions, but it worked most of the time.

I have an ammo question. I'm working up a varmint load for my .243 using Hornady 58 gr VMAX. Does anybody have experience with this bullet? How does in perform between 200 and 300 yards? Thanks.

I've shot quite a few with a 95 grain Berger hunting VLD at 3060 that worked rather well....

Best bet is try to get a small exit (very sturdy bullet) or load down a real frangible one.

The last 5 or 6 I've shot with 95 gr. Fusions just had an in and slightly larger exit.

Of course the first couple looked like they swallowed grenades. IIRC, those were the moly coated Fusions.

For pred calling I generally just stick with .223/55gr. soft points.

+1, hard to beat

I would try the Barnes Varmint Grenades. IIRC the .243 Varmint Grenade is about 63grs, and should be able to be pushed to something really fast and flat velocity wise (I don't have my books handy and I am pretty tired right now) they are designed to literally come apart upon impact. Early Barnes commercials and video's showed a Varmint Grenade blowing up inside of a grape. Their construction is a thin J-4 jacket, packed with - literally- copper and tin DUST, not even a solid soft lead core, and the jacket tip is scored and folded down to a fairly open, empty, deep hollow point. If any bullet is going to blow up inside of a coyote, this is probably going to be the one. I load them in .224 36gr guise as my all time favorite ground squirrel or gopher bullet and even built a rifle specifically to shoot these bullets well i.e. a Lilja 3 groove 1 in 14 twist heavy bench gun in 223 and it really does a number on the little guys. If I only had a 243 to use on varmints of any and all kinds, I would try these first. Second choice would be a Speer TNT, lightest I could find. I still use these in my older Sako 222 with very good explosive results.

I load the 60 Sierra HP in a 243 wssm and it kills coyotes like no other bullet I have shot. As far as saving fur you can forget that. I have shot them in the leg and they drop dead. Great bullet that disipates all its energy in a few inches. I shot 2 this summer with the same rifle and my deer load (100 grain Sierra sp and had to make a follow up shot on both, with little fur damage. Best of luck !

Yep, 243 and fur friendly do not belong in the same sentence. I don't try to save them myself, but the daughter got a chance at a big tom Bobcat and he wasn't repairable afterwards. I have since built her a dedicated AR calling rifle in 223.

They will flatten a coyote at 300 yards, never have had a yote get up from one.