Well since I now have a 257 I've decided to snob out and divest myself of all my 243 rifles. There is nothing I can't do better on the deer hunting end with my 257 and on the varmint end the 243 can't touch my 22-250. I've sold most of my 6MM bullets, rebarreled one of the 243 rifles to 22-250 and converted another into a 7MM Remington magnum. Now that the Creed is running rampant we have a much better medium game round in the same action length to pick if you want a short action deer rifle. I give the 243 credit for being accurate but I never liked the case design and when you could have much more by going to the 7-08 or 308 in the same action and style rifle why would you choose the 243? And what is this dual purpose rifle crap, you are trying to tell me you would rather have one rifle than two?
I killed a deer with the 243 this year and it was my first one with the chambering in 25 years, almost to the day. I really like it as a knock-around, truck-gun type of chambering, as you can fling bullets of a decent BC at speeds that flatten trajectory pretty well. You can also do it with relatively low recoil, so it is fun to shoot. I'm currently shooting the 105gr Hornady HPBT and to 400yds it flies much like my 6.5x47L, 260, and 7mmRM, while being easy on the shoulder. It will certainly kill big game if you point it right and pick a decent bullet, but like you, I really do prefer a little bit more bullet and the better blood trails. Having said that, I doubt there is a deer alive that I couldn't take with a Partition or Triple Shock, so long as the range was moderate.
