Bought a used Savage 11 FXP3 chambered for .243 Win a couple years ago at a CO Springs gun show for $295 out the door. Put a used Burris Fullfield II 3-9x Ballistic Plex scope on it. Took it to the range yesterday, mostly for something easy on the shoulder to shoot while my .257 Roberts cooled. Took a .280 Rem and .300WM, too, for scope checks.

After verifying the scopes at 100 I verified drops out to 600 on all the rifles. While casing the rifles for the trip home I realized I had a faux virgin target at 300 yards. The .243 was still out so I decided to shoot it a few more rounds. Wind was 20mph at my back with a slight quarter to the right. First shot landed about 2-1/2" left and 3/4" high. Aimed a little left of center and got the middle hole. Moved my aim a little more left and hit the center.

Load development a couple years ago involved 10 cartridges, 2 each at 0.5g powder increments. 44.5g and 45.0g H4831SC printed one ragged 4-shot hole. Picked 44.8g as my load and have been shooting it since.

Was planning on just taking the .257 Roberts on the WY antelope hunt next week but I have two doe tags. Am thinking the .243 should go as wel, even though I rarely take a backup for antelope. It was ringing the steel at 500 and 600 easily.

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Coyote Hunter - NRA Patriot Life, NRA Whittington Center Life, GOA, DAD - and I VOTE!

No, I'm not a Ruger bigot - just an unabashed fan of their revolvers, M77's and #1's.

A good .30-06 is a 99% solution.