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

Very nice. Congrats to Eileen.

My daughter killed her first Black Bear with her 6mm Rem and an 80gr TTSX. She has taken several whitetails with the 95gr NBT.

Thats interesting to me, because I started with a 6mm Rem, moved to 243. For years ran that. 105 Speer mostly. Then I moved up to other rounds like many of us have.

The only thing since then thats killed as quickly and often for no reason falling in the tracks, IE no CNS hit, is a 257 wtby. Every other round that has bigger bullets and moves faster and has more energy they just run. Often a bit more running.

Even when I was dumb enough to think maybe in the bigger rounds I had to shoot lighter bullets than I was comfortable with... nope still ran like crazy.

In fact after years of running 300 wtby the only ones that dropped were all the ones we head shot and one I shot frontal in the chest. Every other deer ran.

Of course I'd be happy hunting whitetails with a 22LR for the most part if legal. But since its not I often hunt with a 300/221 suppressed. 194 at a humming 900 or so FPS...

I don't know how many deer I have shot with a 243 but it is close to 200. I lost two one my fault and one questionable bullet performance ( and my fault ) and lost because of head high grass and darkness. It only went about 200 yards but couldn't find it till the next day. With the current premium bullets available the 243 is viable but not great for elk. If a 243 was the only rifle I had I would not hesitate to use it on moose or big bear, I would just be damned sure I was making a good shot and not too far either.

The 243 is a good choice as are all the medium small bores between 6 & 7 mm for deer. With the 243 I would be a little more particular on the bullet choice especially on 200 lb. plus deer. The medium 6.5s are still in the same recoil threshold as the 243 and I do think they are more versatile on game larger than deer than the 243. But I will never be without at least one and usually several 243s. My latest is a 6mm AI and I do like it but still wonder about if it was just gun loony thinking on building one. Sure it is better at 1,000 yards but I can count the number of deer I have shot over a quarter mile on one hand, I don't even have to take my shoes off.

Tejano, That reminds me when I talked to a guy a long time ago that worked at a gun shop. He went to his inlaws house for a hunt in British Columbia. He shot a moose and 2 black bear about 250 lbs each at around 200 yds away.. I asked , what caliber? Expecting to hear 300 Super shazam Magnum. He said a 243 Win. I was amused at his answer . He said the 3 animals didn't go far. I dont know how big the moose was or the bullet . He reloaded so a Partition???

Nothing generates as much response as another 243 on deer thread.

My big "failure" with a .243 on deer happened on my second deer hunt. A 2pt buck was moving from our right to left and angling slightly away. My shot went through both lungs and the buck fell. It got up and, before my brother or I got off a second shot, another hunter shot it in the ass and it went down for good. Both hind quarters were pretty much ruined and the other hunter started yelling something about his shot dropping the deer. My brother kept a cool head and we talked with the guy. A complete pass through the chest wasn't as fatal as an ass shot so we let the lucky fellow have the carcass. It was my fault for using such a puny rifle and those darned 80 grain varmint bullets in the yellow boxes. My brother and I had more than a couple complete pass thrus with those bullets on both blacktails and mule deer.

243 Winchester = whitetail CYANIDE. Use a 95 grain Nosler Ballistic tip, or if you please, a 95 grain Nosler Partition. you will need a sharp knife.

Seen some doozies on using a .223 through the years.

I think we all can agree it's a pretty good deer cartridge. But some of us think there are better choices for our methods of hunting.

But I never understood what it could do that a 25/06 couldn't do better...(just kiddin' ya, MM :-))

Good one!

Fixed it for you 😉

Only kidding, personal preference is what matters. I have zero problems with people shooting what they want, when they decide to piss on my choice I'm gonna say something. I have guided in 5 states on multiple properties in the last 20 years. Just yesterday took a client out hunting buffalo as a favor to help a friend. The biggest rodeos I've experienced is from hunters who are over gunned. When a guy shows up with a 308 to hunt elk I feel more relaxed going into it than a guy who comes with a 375 h&h. Cartridge choice can tell a lot about the person 99% of the time.

I used a 243 Remington varminter HB, for many years to hunt all manner of creatures.
I've shot lots of different bullets through it. It never liked heavies.
A very accurate and deadly bullet, was a Speer 90gr Hot Cor.
Looking at a nice antelope buck on my wall right now, and several whitetail racks, that fell to it.
Set it up for coyotes now with 70gr ballistic tips.

Colorado1135,

Amen!

Several years ago a Texas outfitter I know had a guy show up for a buffalo (bison) hunt with a .458 Lott, which he claimed would "knock down" any bull, pronto. Of course, the guy had never shot ANYTHING with a .458 Lott before--and he had no clue about bison anatomy. He tried for a shoulder shot, which didn't work since he aimed too high (of course). Several hours and rounds later the bull finally died, after being chased around the brush quite a bit.

Preach it brother.

Time to stir the pot

"Kassandra kills her first elk at 688 yds after following a large herd for hours. Rifle was a 243 Winchester shooting the 105 VLD."





Our family harvests many deer with .243 and 80g Barnes TTSX. No problems at all

Great shot she made!

Congrats!

Terrific shot all right. Pretty neat that you can watch the bullet trail through the air out from the muzzle. Not a shot that most of us would have attempted, but all's well that ends well.
Old opinions on the .243 as a deer cartridge die slowly. Admittedly there have been a lot of new designer bullet introductions in the last couple of decades that have grown up the smaller cartridges into pretty serviceable medium game chambering choices.

I do remember reading that Cedar Knoll Sportsman's Lodge deer shooting study that they conducted on their South Carolina hunting preserve back in the 1990's. They documented between 400 and 500 whitetail deer killed from their blinds with similar behind the shoulder shots using .243, .257, .277 and .308 diameter deer bullets and measured and averaged the distance each deer ran after the shot. The .257" diameter bullets put the deer down the fastest followed by the .277 and .308 in that order. The deer shot with the .243 diameter bullets went farther than any of the others after being shot. I don't remember the exact distances, but it helped me narrow my cartridge choices to something larger than a .243 or a 6mm for my deer hunting.

Ive been stretching range (for me) with my 243 and 95gr BT. 20" barrel is slow mv is 2,850fps but very accurate.

One spot on my lease allows an approach to 275yds. Had the same reaction a couple of times now. Double lung performance on 80lb does is disconcerting. No or very little reaction to strike, run with herd for 50yds, get ragged, fail to negotiate fence, run back out 30yds fall dead. Reasonable expansion.

Its dead, distance run isnt dissimilar to my 7-08 and 140s at that range but the lack of reaction is a bit un-nerving