Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 243

Are any of the 243’s mentioned here cut down to 18”? Is there any loss of accuracy from say a 22” barrel down to a18” barrel?

I have 2 Ruger mark 2 . One has 22 inch barrel the other is the compact with 16 1/2 inch barrel. About 200 fps less with the compact same loads. Faster powder didn't increase velocity with the compact either.

There's nothing mechanically less accurate about a shorter barrel.

Does the 16.5” have a suppresser or brake?

A 243 20 inches or less is going to be very very loud

I load mine with IMR4350 and 95 grain Nosler BallisticTips. I consider it a deer slayer with a good 350 yards of confidence.

No it doesn't. It is equal accuracy wise as the 22 inch barrel. It is louder but by how much is hard to say. I don't find the muzzle blast to be too bad. I use the "middle" powder charge in both rifles.

My how times have changed here.

Safe Season everybody - GOOD HUNTING! Make some memories.

In what way? Referring to shorter barrels or ??

My wife has Ruger compact in 243 and I agree it’s loud but it gets the job done!

I bought mine several years ago for calling and hunting coyotes. I really like it. I have taken several whitetail and mule deer with it as well.

fe1 - no, not that. My post was a nudge to the old 'Fire guys who will remember not so very long ago you would find pages of posts blasting anyone for using a 243 on deer because it would only wound them - and that you were admonished to up to something bigger. funny but below those you would find that somehow ....shooting a similarly weighted pill out of a 257 was hammer of Thor. :-)

Me -been loving my 6mm for decades now.

Ok I see
Many a deer has fallen to a 22 rimfire even with body shots. lol
But by NO means do I recommend or support it being done!

I got to try a .243 Remington 700 at our club this Sunday. We had the running deer up for practice and shot a near perfect score with it the first time I tried it. The owner let me shoot it a second time time with Hornady Lite 87 grain SSTs and the recoil was nonexistent. Might be something to this .243 thing....

The 243 is getting old now so are some of us that were there in the beginning. The 243 did have teething problems with bullet quality. It was the first 6mm, there were none before it so building a bullet that would work at 300 yards as well as 50 yards was a was problematic. The 257 bullets had been around for 50 years by the time the 243 came out, the 257 had the bugs worked out . They had a slower twist and not quite the speed of the 243 so they didn't stress the bullet as much also. At that time the 250-3000 and the 257 Roberts ran pretty much neck and neck for speed it wasn't until the Plus-P loadings that the 257R 100gr neared 3000fps.

I don't like too short of a barrel on the 6mms. Not only noise and muzzle blast but the 6s need some velocity to perform well. I also like a rifle that is slightly muzzle heavy which is easier to shoot for me especially off hand. I had a 243 mannlicher and it had a 20" barrel and balanced well, but I would want much shorter of a barrel.

A lot of the 243 bashers had not even used them and were going on hearsay.

Back in the day it was .270 or nothing!

Years ago I wanted something different and had a custom Mannlicher stocked 25-06 It had XXX fancy California Claro walnut hand checkered.
It is loud @19 inches.
My best friend had to outdo me and ordered the same thing in 300 WinMag.

Fast forward to the last few years when the same has gone on with CF .22s due to the increase in better bullet construction.

Ive always been a .243 fan...but for the last 10 years it has been one of my "big" guns...seeing very little use.

Granddaughter killed a deer Saturday using a 243 shooting the 95 grain SST. Deer was broadside at a 100 yards, and went down as if the ground had been pulled from underneath him. Don't know if I ever saw one drop that fast. We went up to it, and I was looking to see where she'd hit, but could not find an entrance wound. Finally turned it over and the bullet was just under the skin on the other shoulder. No blood anywhere. When we skinned it out that night, the entrance wound was low in the front shoulder and the heart was mush. Bullet was perfect mushroom.

Okay, this is the first deer any of us have shot using the 95 SST. We usually shoot either the 85 Sierra HPBT or a Nosler 90 or 95 BT. The shot was good, and that deer wasn't going anywhere........but suppose we'd had to trail it, there would have been no blood trail to follow. It was a very large deer, didn't weigh it, but I believe it would have field dressed over 175 pounds, maybe closer to 200. It was heavy enough that we couldn't pick it up and put in the back of an UTV, had to go get the tractor and loader.

I know that people use the SST's all the time, and I'm not really trying to question it's performance, because it killed the deer in it's tracks. But, I am somewhat concerned about the fact that all the blood stayed inside the deer. Anyone care to comment, please do, as that's why I posting this.