Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 243 Deer Rifle Recipes for Failure?

As I get older and have less interest in recoil, I'm looking harder and harder at the 243. I just read the thread about using the 243 on white tail deer, and it seems like some folks are pretty sold on it with heavy bullets.

I can figure out the rifle part of things, but from an ammo standpoint, what does it take to ruin your chances with a 243 on deer? I know that shot placement matters and that I shouldn't use a bullet that's too light, but what else could go wrong?


Okie John

80 TTSX and I"ve yet to see a deer that would walk away from a well placed shot.

For longer use, slow twist and heavier bullets. But the 80 ttsx will retain more weight than a cup and core 100.

I load it for a friend, and we are still waiting for a deer to make more than about 50 steps max.

an 80 soft or hollow point, a varmint bullet etc... thats the only thing that can go wrong as long as the driver steers it straight. Just like any other round out there.

I burned the bottom of a deer on a snap shot at about 300 the other day, only chance I had at a buck I wanted to get rid of. the magic 6.5 creed. But like ANY round, it was my fault for hitting to low... Would have been the same result even with my 458 win mag.

And to be honest, I think a bad shot with a TTSX even a gut shot, they work better than they should as long as you give the deer time. Though on a pure gut shot, I'd rather have an explosive type bullet if I knew I was going to screw up... but I digress.

243 has been killing deer since my first one in the 70s. Only screw ups have been my fault.

Being a lifelong deer hunting addict, I have heard more of the one that got away stories using a .243 than any other cartridge. I suppose some of it relates to using a too light for caliber bullet more intended for varmints which is much harder to do with the larger diameter bullets. I look at it sort of the same as I do a .410 shotgun for the kids and the experts. In a crowded public deer woods, deer are often on the move and shot opportunities and ideal angles are not always possible. Use enough gun for an exit wound, a large exit wound. A managed recoil factory load in a .308 or 7mm-08 would be a better light recoiling choice and have better resale potential.

Any of your very light varmint bullets that are pushed at a very high velocity, such as v max or the Sierra 60 gr hollow pt will not get proper penetration without coming apart too quickly. As an example, my dad hunted fur for a living in the late70 s and early 80s using a 243. He shot piles of coyote s with the Sierra 60 gr hollow pt. Rarely did it leave an exit hole in coyotes, so there was no sewiing the hide.The bullet went in and violently expanded. No exit hole, and it left all the energy inside the coyote. Very lethal. The 70 grain nosler bt was tougher. I shot a lot of deer and black bears with it. But for a deer bullet the 95 gr nosler is tough to beat. It's tough enough to take out a shoulder and specifically designed for deer. There are other good bullets out there too. Just get one designed for deer and not varmits, and you will be very impressed with the 243. I have since went to a fast twist barrel and l ong, heavy bullets, but that is another story.

243s are for women and children, adult male's can't kill anything with .243, not enough gun. Rio7

Truth! It takes women and children to use a .243....

Good thing I am still a child and refuse to grow up.

Must be why my 243s, 6mm and even a 22-250 work so well on our deer!!

No reason a 243 or 6mm won't work on deer, main issue is operator error.

I have used 80, 85 and 100 grain Sierras, 95 grain Nosler Partitions, 87 grain Hornady BTHPand 100 grain Hornadys with complete satisfaction.

If hit right I cannot tell a dimes bit of difference with any of the above mentioned bullets. Have never had any issue killing deer with these bullets.

Not like an animal that is 250# on the heavy end takes much to kill.

243 is fine. Or go the muzzle brake route on what you have.

Just about any time I've heard complaints from hunters about a failure with a .243, they admit that it was not a deer bullet used, or a bad shot. Most won't want to admit a bad shot.

I think a lot of it, and have killed quite a few deer with one, and a good hunting buddy will only use a .243. Just about any standard 100 grain bullet does good work.

How to avoid failures? Honestly, shoot em in the vitals just like you would with anything else.

Bullet weight and bullet constructions are 2 different things.

I also have heard a lot of storied about deer "getting away" after being hit with 243s. I have also hear a number of identical stories when the shot was made with a 30-06, several with 7MM mags and quite a few with 300 mags and one that got away after being hit with a 45-70.

Any bullet is bad to get hit with for the one getting hit. How bad depends on a lot of different things.
But in my 1/2 century of killing things, the 2 factors that seem to be constant for the best kills are #1 straight penetration with an exit and #2 some degree of expansion or tumbling of the bullet.

The bullet must strike the game in the right place,and that "right place" is about what is inside the game, not a place on the hide. Bullet holes do the killing. The bullet is just a tool to make that hole.

So a bullet that doesn't go through the game at the angle is should can cause a lot of problems. All bullets can sometimes do weird things, but some do it a lot of the time, and some do it about 1 time in 5,000. The ones that break up badly and come apart are the ones that have the greatest percentage of bad results. As I said above, NO BULLET wound can be good for the animal of man hit, but the degree of how bad is variable. I have been hit myself 2 times by bullet and 2 times by fragments, and I am still writing this. Why? None of them were serious wounds because none were in the "right place" (wrong place for me)

In killing game, if you shoot a bullet that will go through and exit at the angle you need it to, and if you place the bullet at that spot and correct angle, you will kill cleanly in probably 99.5% of the shots regardless of what gun or cartridge you fire it from. There are oddities. But the REASON we can call them oddities is how rare they are. I had one last season in November. I killed a white tail with a 300 Savage and my 1st shot was perfect in where I placed it, broadside on the right side of the chest almost perfectly centered but the bullet went in about 2" and turned to the left 90 degrees and went through the deer almost the whole way, and was found about 1" from the skin in the right rear ham. Distance was about 160 yards and the bullet was a Nosler Ballistic Tip HUNTING (not the old BTs that were so prone to blow up) The deer ran about 80 yards after the hit and the next bullet was a head shot. My experience with the new BTs from mid velocity guns has been pretty good except for this one deer. Why? Only God knows.

A good strong bullet for killing deer becomes more important in my opinion, as the bullet gets smaller. I have owned two 243s in the past and one 6MM Remington. I used 100 grain Nosler Partition in all 3 rifles on every deer I ever shot with them, and every one was a one shot kill, none of them ran far (longest was about 25 yards) and all had exits.

I like a bigger rifle for most of my hunting, but I LIKE them, I don't feel I NEED them.

if you use an 80 grain Barnes I think you'd be as well armed for deer and probably better armed then someone else shooting a 7 Mag with a poor bullet that breaks up in the first 2" of penetration.

Like another poster said, I've heard of more deer being lost shot with a 243 than any other cartridge......but they all had one thing in common......operator error. With one exception, all those hunters were either young or inexperienced and failed to put the bullet in the right place. The exception was a hunter who took an extremely long shot at a deer who though hit, made onto posted property where he couldn't go look for it.

My family and I killed 4 nice bucks here last year. Three were killed with a 243, one with a 95 grain SST, and other 2 with a 85 grain Sierra HPBT. Just put the bullet in the right spot, and the 243 is as good as anything else.

It isn't that hard to kill deer if the hunter uses a properly constructed bullet and puts that bullet into the heart, lungs, or CNS. More often than not, the weakest link in the chain of variables is probably the shooter, not the rifle, cartridge, bullet, or sights.

I've shot quite a few whitetails with the 243 and 6mm REM and never had any of them go far after being shot thought the lungs, but they usually traveled up to 30 yards after being hit. A shot through both shoulders would have anchored them, but would have wasted some meat, and I generally hunt where a 30 yard run doesn't result in a lost deer.

I think that the improvements in bullet design/construction have made the 243 and 244/6MM REM better, more deadly, today than during the first 30 years of their existence.

As of 01/17/20,I like the 95 grain Winchester/Olin Deer Season XP factory load or the 90 grain AB component bullet when I load my own. I don't shoot at long ranges, so I don't need to shoot the longer/heavier VLD bullets that are currently in vogue.

With enough H-4350 to run a 100gr Partition to 3000 fps in a 22 inch barrel nothing, except extreme ranges, that little stubber is a good killer, but no long ranger, good luck and have fun, it's a cool little cartridge to shoot and hunt with.

I really don't understand the rush to the bottom in rifle calibers. It seems like hunters are trying to see how little they can get by with. Sort of like bragging about how small of a knife blade they can skin an elk with and so forth. I get the aversion to excessive recoil, especially the older I get, but there seems to more to it than that. Has killing a deer, an elk, or an antelope become so routine than guys need to do something different to keep the hunt interesting or to prove one's prowess? Genuinely curious.

I equate this to flyfishermen who like to use the absolute smallest tippet and then guffaw those who don't. I'm sure I can kill elk with my .257 Roberts but I think I'll pass in favor of a big 7 or 30..... just sayin'

I have pretty much always been at the bottom. I have killed maybe a dozen or 15 deer with calibers above 24 with 30 being the largest.

Couldn't see where the bigger calibers did one lick better for me than the 24 caliber cartridges. Maybe heavier blood trails but I rarely need those as deer are usually down within 10-15 yards.

In fact 22 calibers are second in line to number of deer killed behind 24 caliber for me.

The three largest bucks I've ever seen killed were taken with the 243, one of them mine, 176 gross B&C was the smallest of the three. I've used that rifle on a few over the years, 100 Hornady Interlock, 95 Partition, 95 Ballistic Tip, and 85 TSX. It mostly stays sighted for the 95 Ballistic Tip these days.

Killed elk and big mule deer with .243 95gr ballistic tip ammo.

Last bull elk went about 20 yards before he folded.

If a .243 isn't enough gun for deer, nothing is.

Just don't shoot the very lightweight, highly frangible bullets.

My issues with the .243 have been rushed shots or bad angles. It has also killed with authority when you put it in the boiler room. The issue I have with the .243 is that I've yet to find a bullet that leaves a blood trail like a .30-06 does. All of the dead deer I've harvested had little to no blood trail. That's my hesitation in using them in dense woods, At the end of the day, I just don't have the same confidence with the .243 that I have even with a .260.