Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Hornady .243 100 grain boat tail soft point Interlock

What are your experiences with this bullet in the .243 Winchester? Its listed BC I'm surprising to see is higher (.405) than the Nosler 95 grain BT and the Hornady manual lists several 3K fps loads.

Thanks,
Expat

It can make dramatic kills one whitetails. However, it can also shed its jacket at shorter ranges.

For terminal ballistics I prefer the Nosler, but I understand that one is hard to come by these days.

We have been using the Hornady 100gr since the 70's and it's worked well on our Texas hill country deer. With the larger deer field dressing 140lbs or so but most smaller and mostly 100 yard shots.

But, I don't think you will get near 3000fps with that bullet.

I have 2 older Rem. adl's with 22" barrels. I can run over 2800fps with one but the accuracy load is about 2750fps with 40gr IMR4350. (which is fine with me,,we had been killing deer for years with it and thought it was going faster,,,I just recently got a pro chrono....ha!)

The other adl, I haven't tried with the Hornady but the 100gr factory core lock read about 2670fps and the Federal ammo with 100gr partitions was 2800fps.

I'm interested in others experiences too.

edited to add: this is only an example of one...and my 2 guns are very old....

i have been useing hornady 100 gr btsp for a long time, put it in the right place and you can kill anything you shoot with it. form 10yrds out to as far as you feel comfortable shooting a critter, but i have had trouble finding them this last year. rio7

I have used the 100 gr btsp Hornady and it works just like ms squared said a better choice is the regular 100 gr Hornady SP interlock. More than a few years back before the manual writers got their tits in a wringer the IMR manual showed 100 gr bullets being loaded with up to 47.0 grs of IMR 7828 at well over 3000fps. latest Hornady manual shows a 45.0 gr max around 2900fps. I need to replace my stock of 100 gr HornSP handloads I will work up to what I reguard as a safe load not what some litigation lawyer tells a manual writer.My 700 has a 22" barrel as well, their isn't much bc difference between the 2 and at under 350 yds it simply isn't an issue. I'll probably get hate mail for this but I think on deer and antelope it is the best 6mm bullet out there in c&c format. Actually works on those animals better than the 95& 100 gr NPT's. good luck MM

Have you compared it against the 95 grain Ballistic Tip?

Magnum man,
Pleas enlighten me as to how the 100grain Hornady soft point works better then the 95 or 100 grain Nosler partitions?

Factory hornady custom 243 with the 100 btsp. 5 shots with my 22 inch rem700 adl 100 yards. Hunting partners 9 year old killed 4 WT with it this year. One was just over 200 pounds and it broke both shoulders and was found under the skin on the off side. I normally reload but a couple 3/4 inch three shot groups at 200 yards and I figured there was no reason to reload for it

I'am also new to the .243 win for deer game. So yes I don't
know what to except, most of my shots will be from 20-70
yards out, so what can this bullet can do that the nosler's
won't. In thick woods if a deer runs and you don't have a
exit wound it would be a awfully hard to track?

I have done alot of research on the 243 as a deer gun and I
think this is why the 243 gets a bad rap. as a deer cartridge

I don't want to sound like I'am a arm chair deer hunter.
So what bullet to use in thick timber?

jr1968

I'm curious about this as well, but was going to load them in my sons 6mm for a hunting bullet for antelope, deer, and elk. The elk hunting will be very limited and selective of shot taken. I hunt with a 243, but am using the 105 vld's but I don't have the magazine length to use them very effectively in his 6mm. I have used the BTSP 162's in my 7mag and they worked very well in it.

I have a 6mm Rem in a '98 Mauser and the Hornady 100 grain interlock is my choice for whitetails. I use a lighter bullet for pronghorns and don't use anything that small on (even) cow elk.

Whitetails are more like big varmints than big game and premium bullets are just not needed for even 200 pound animals. I find the .243/6mm class of rounds fully adequate for deer hunting......and as a matter of fact, even preferable to such heavier recoiling calibers as the .30-06 and magnums.

Posted my replies yesterday but they seem to be missing.
Mathman I've a load worked up for my 243 with the 95 gr bt but haven't had the chance to use it on game yet so no comment on it.

Shrike, I didn't say the 95 & 100 NPT don't work I said I prefer the 100 gr Horn SP interlock because it works better. I allways wait for a broadside double lung shot on antelope and deer with a 243/6mm. The Hornady gives me a bigger dia wound channel thru the lungs than the 95&100 NPT's as well as a larger exit hole. You get a fast 30-50yd death run or less with the Hornady and a longer one with the NPT's in my experience. Antelope is some of my favorite eating so NO I never shoot them in the shoulder, you only get about 30-35 lbs of boned meat , so why screw up any of it? The lungs are the largest vital organ and you can easily hit them there without busting up the fore quarters. Now a good friend and hunting pard likes to shoot them thru both shoulder blades to put them down instantly and more than a few times we've found a decent wound channel thru the shoulders and vitals between them yet find his 100 gr Core-locts from his 6mm Rem under the hide on the far side. yeah they work well too but I like exit holes. As some of the other posters said you don't allways get anywhere near advertised factory velocity. Knowing what your load really does helps you use it to your advantage.

msuhunter, I also have experienced those factory Hornady custom loads and thought they were very good.

I hunt wide open areas for antelope and never with others in the immediate vicinity so before someone thinks to start a pissing match on shot placement, you do it your way and I'll do it my way after 58 of them, I do know how to get it done. Magnum Man

It worked well for me. I got 3000 fps from a 22" barrel with my handloads. The old Hornady Light Magnum factory load listed this bullet at 3100 FPS. My buddy and I chronographed it out of his 22" Kimber Montana and for the first and only time I've seen it the velocity matched the factory number exactly, we got a five shot average of 3100 FPS.

I have never had to track a deer over about 20 feet when using a 243 Hornady but have had to do some plain and fancy trailing when finding deer shot with a 243 Nosler Partition. The wound seems to be bigger and more destructive with the Hornady.

I have never lost a deer with either. Each of the several dozen deer at which I have shot with either bullet wound up in the freezer. I now load all my 243 Win and 243 WSSM deer hunting rounds with Hornady bullets.

My elk experience is limited to one with a 7mm RM and one with a 338 WM. Neither went very far. I think I would choose the Nosler or get some Barnes if I had to use a 243 on elk.

I've had fantastic luck using Nosler 95 grain Partitions in the 243. I'm talking large northern whitetails. Never had to track one ,most fell right where they were standing,or fell within eye sight.

My wife and kids have used the boattail a bit out of two short barreled .243 rifles [An 18.5" 660 and a 19" Mossberg].I dobt my handloads were getting 2700 fps out of either [I only have notes on the Remington].Very good performance.

I believe the low velocities contributed to the excellent bullet performance.

I have also killed just a couple with a 22" 98K actioned Mauser, but usually use a different rifle for deer.

I started using the Hornady flat base after a couple of years, then Core Lokts. at the moment I am using some of those from Cabelas bulk bags.

We have some 100 gr Partitions too but haven't shot anything with them. My middle daughter wanted to try her .243 on an elik but it didn't work out.

How, with all the other factors in play, are you going to determine the immediate outcome on 5 grains of weight difference and a different construction?

If you've shot five hundred deer with each 6mm bullet, I'll listen.

I have shot 3 deer with a 243. Two have been in the heart lung areas and penetrated leaving a good sized exit wound. The third went thru both shoulders and ended up a perfect mushroom that I could feel under the hide of the off shoulder. If I recall it was a corelokt and weighed about 68 grs as a reference for the coreloct thread. All three deer were recovered within 10 ft of where they were shot. Ranges were from 25-200 yds. Don't make this harder than it needs to be. A good 100gr bullet will do fine though as someone mentioned the boattails do seem to shed their cores more than flat based bullets in my observation. In my experiences above two were coreloct and one was a hornady flat base.

If you are talking about Hornady custom BTSP, its a magic bullet if there ever was one. I've been disappointed the stuff has all but vanished and all you can find are the American Whitetail flat base.

Any premium 243 bullet does a very shocking job. .