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

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.

My daughter in law the EMT worked at a US Forest Service rural station, while going to college, one of her side duties at the station was to validate filled deer tags,(required in Calif). They briefly examine the carcass, check the hunter's ID, check to see the tag is properly filled in. But she, as a gun gal and hunter from childhood, frequently questioned the hunters about their kill if they were friendly types. She reported the bucks with multiple wounds were mostly shot with .22 centerfires and .24 centerfires and amazingly with .300 magnums (?).
I'll let you fellas draw your own conclusions if any from her totally informal survey.

Just my opinion but I'd say one group of dedicated .243 shooters are fine shots, surgical maybe.....kind of like the chukar hunters that do well with a 28 ga. These hunters with veternarian's knowledge of anatomy would do well with a .22 Hornet.
Then there is a more sizeable group that are not riflemen, know nothing of anatomy, totally unaware of the term "bullet construction", shoot at a road sign to sight in, fire maybe 10 shots a year...with predictable results. All this can be said of any cartridge, but it seems a lot of them select the .243. Which ain't the .243's fault.

You're not wrong. When I've seen the .243 "fail" it's been the wrong bullet chosen, often combined with the wrong shot angle and/or bad weather and tracking conditions. A quartering to or away deer that gets no exit wound and runs off into a pine/briar thicket that is full of existing deer tracks can be hard to find in the dark. An experienced hunter who marks his deer's location before he pulls the trigger and sends a good-penetrating bullet on its way stands a much better chance. If it's not rainy and nasty and you are shooting Partitions, a .243 will generally treat a hunter well if he understands what he's working with.

Although it runs counter to freedom loving Americans, there is an answer. You should have to demonstrate safety and competency with the firearm of your choice before you purchase a license. Many states require it for CCW permit. I think most countries in Scandinavia require it. It's not real difficult, I think in Sweden you have to hit a stationary moose target and a running moose target at 80 meters, offhand. After all, we take driving tests (thank God), pilot training, talk about boat licenses now (that test should require the applicant to be on crack from what I see on local lakes) and don't forget, you need a license to drill a well.

I really honed my blood trailing skills when my friend started using a 243. One thing I cannot fathom is the number of hunters that apparently cant resist the urge to use the lightest varmint bullets they can find on deer. WTH? If it's a 243 and its deer, for Gods sake use a well constructed bullet. How hard can it be to grasp that?

Some people over estimate any cartridges ability. "If it goes bang, dead deer!" Until bambi runs off. Then they can't believe it.