Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting .243 Win. and whitetail deer ???

Hello, I'm an idiot because I don't like the 243Winchester. And my Dad, my brother and I can only come up with approximately 140years experience of deer hunting! I know, I know, we just can't shoot good or trail a wounded deer at all.We was stupid enough to try 100gr Speer btsp bullets fer a while but we quit them. We were having trouble getting the deer to stand still broadside fer us to shoot them. They was always turned just this way or that and since we was so dumb did not wait on them to move and we just aimed to put the bullets at such a place as it would travel thru the chest cavity. Some deer ran oft some fell down and then got up and run oft. Sometime find blood some time find hair. Sometime find blood and hair and sometime find deer...

All foolishness aside. I DO NOT like the 243 or 6mm on deer. I know, so and so killed thousands of animals with them from mouse to moose. Where we hunt you don't often have the luxury of waiting for the animal to turn to give you that perfect broadside presentation Very often it's thick enough that in just a few steps the deer are gone. Shots made in haste are often misplaced. But even when the conditions were right deer were still lost. I can't explain why but that IS the way it was for us.

My family and I lost confidence in the cartridge and I believe that if you do its time to find something else to hunt with. Towards the end I loaded 100gr Nosler Partitions and our issues went away. There were no deer lost after I began loading the Nosler bullet. But as I said, we had lost confidence in it and it was time to move on.

My Dad and brother then moved on to the 270 and the issue of lost deer went away! Confidence was restored! I know that the cartridge is fully capable because so many use it, but for my family it just didn't work. Funny how I loathe the 243 but love the 250 Savage and the 257 Roberts. Don't make sense but that's the way it is.