Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Your Experience With The 243?

Shoot 'em through the lungs with a proper bullet and they die promptly.

Hit them with an 80 grain TTSX and you will think you are using a 7mm or 30 cal. It is the only bullet I'd use for deer in that caliber (actually it's the only one I use for deer in any caliber). No excessive meat damage, large bloodtrail, and a short track job.

Too many DRT to count, damn fine round

Meat damage and lots of tracking for me...
Went to 257 Roberts and had better results...

Proper bullet selection and more range time would've more than likely solved your issues...😉 A 243 WIN with the proper bullet in the right place will QUICKLY kill any WT or MD walking this earth.

My son killed a buck this year with one, about a 50 yd shot 15 yd recovery. He used a 95 NBT with a MV of 3000 fps. Interestingly no exit wound?

No deer but worked like a charm on antelope. I would have zero hesitation using a 243 with good bullets on any deer-sized game walking.

First time to use one hunting ever was this Fall on a smallish Whitetail doe. Base of neck shot with 700 CDL, 80 grain TTSX.

That particular placement was chosen to ensure a DRT and to evaluate the damage it would cause.

Now I'd take any shot with it as with 7 Mag., 7-08, .308, 25-284, etc. and feel perfectly confident doing so.

Can't wait to try it out on some porkers this coming weekend.

.243 + 95 GR. NBT works on Axis too!

Overkill for Georgia but it'll do!

Mike

Poison, Pure poison. Do not be surprised in the least that when you do shoot a deer with this combo, it dies VERY quickly.

Story struck me sort of funny as I had a similar experience with a 30-06. Go figure

Works as well as anything with proper bullet placement and in my own experiences faster than some of the .284 and larger cartridges. Deer are not a large animal at least not here in the Midwest, maybe 250#. Any lead bullet from 85-100 grains and usually DRT or if they make tracks at all maybe 25 yard death run max.

It works very well if you shoot them in the front end.

If you don't know what else to do, simply use Federal Fusion 95 grainers for accuracy and terminal effect. You'll find out how good it can be.

Yeppers...even the elk sized ones. Not that anyone should use a whimpy .243 on such things.

Works great if you use a bullet designed for the job at hand.

We hunt as a club and do large scale deer drives. Opening day sounds like the opening scene on Saving Private Ryan. The 243 zergs deer amazingly well. Loaded with 95s and H4350 you got a real beast.


Fox like them as well.

But the 243 is only for women and small children....

No luck with my 243 yet, but took a big doe at 355yds last year with my 240Wby. Same bullets, it just pushes them a bit faster. That doe didn't take a step. I figure my 243 would have accomplished the same thing.

Wonderful cartridge, kills deer like the hammer of Thor.

I've shot a couple with the 243 and several with the 6mm. Out of the 243, I've used factory 100 grain Corelokts, which worked very well. Complete penetration through shoulders and a good blood trail for about 40 yards. Easy recovery. The second was with the 90 grain Speer HotCor. It was a shoulder shot as well. That bullet was stopped under the hide of the offside shoulder. That deer was in a field, so recovery was easy too, but I didn't look for a back trail, so I can't advise on the blood trail from that shot.

Mrs. Tide hunted with a 243 for a couple seasons when she was getting started. She used the 95 grain Partition and later the 85 grain TSX. Both bullets worked ricky tic.

Jr. shot one deer with a 243 using an 85 grain Speer BTSP. He was a neck shooter in those days and that was a bang flop. My brother helped him clean that deer because I had to work, and I don't know much about how that particular bullet performed other than bringing about the rapid demise of a whitetail.

The 243 has been poo pooed for years as being a marginal cartridge, barely powerful enough to kill deer and more likely to cause wounded and lost animals than venison in the freezer.

It simply isn't so.