Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting .243 Win. and whitetail deer ???

Hello, I'm an idiot because I don't like the 243Winchester. And my Dad, my brother and I can only come up with approximately 140years experience of deer hunting! I know, I know, we just can't shoot good or trail a wounded deer at all.We was stupid enough to try 100gr Speer btsp bullets fer a while but we quit them. We were having trouble getting the deer to stand still broadside fer us to shoot them. They was always turned just this way or that and since we was so dumb did not wait on them to move and we just aimed to put the bullets at such a place as it would travel thru the chest cavity. Some deer ran oft some fell down and then got up and run oft. Sometime find blood some time find hair. Sometime find blood and hair and sometime find deer...

All foolishness aside. I DO NOT like the 243 or 6mm on deer. I know, so and so killed thousands of animals with them from mouse to moose. Where we hunt you don't often have the luxury of waiting for the animal to turn to give you that perfect broadside presentation Very often it's thick enough that in just a few steps the deer are gone. Shots made in haste are often misplaced. But even when the conditions were right deer were still lost. I can't explain why but that IS the way it was for us.

My family and I lost confidence in the cartridge and I believe that if you do its time to find something else to hunt with. Towards the end I loaded 100gr Nosler Partitions and our issues went away. There were no deer lost after I began loading the Nosler bullet. But as I said, we had lost confidence in it and it was time to move on.

My Dad and brother then moved on to the 270 and the issue of lost deer went away! Confidence was restored! I know that the cartridge is fully capable because so many use it, but for my family it just didn't work. Funny how I loathe the 243 but love the 250 Savage and the 257 Roberts. Don't make sense but that's the way it is.

I don’t understand this line of thinking. You had an issue, you identified the problem then you implemented a solution that worked,

But the cartridge is now no good because you moved on to a different cartridge? Are you shooting Partitions in the .270?

Also, I can almost guarantee if you were to start shooting .270 varmint bullets the problem with lost deer will come back..,,

243 Winchester cartridge is a very fine accurate cartridge, great for kids who are young and recoil can be a problem ,same with ladies or some men that have recoil shy problems. my 18 year old daughter used a smaller cartridge 257 Roberts about the same as a 243 Win. in recoil ,but one time she was without her rifle and with her husband who had his trust rusty Savage 7 Mag.,2 does came out son in law shot one,my daughter shot the other doe with the 7 Mag. both deer dropped and were killed with 1 shot each. so i asked my daughter when i went to help them how bad did that rifle kick ? and my 5 ft. 6 inch 115 lb. daughter said this dad i didn`t feel any recoil gun was fine. so really ?

Wow! Two "243 v. deer" threads running at the same time. I expect this it August, not January. Were there too many 243 problems this past season?

If you're gay, you're gay.

Thanks jeffbird.
Adam Bentley of Dresden Gun Company installed the Lilja 8T and squared up the action. The stock was done at Accurate Innovations where I work.

I'm glad we got that cleared up then.

At least you admit it.

I have had great luck with the 95gr partition and the 100 gr interlock

My wife and 2 daughters all use 243's, i switched to hornady 100 grain and nosler partition 100 grain 3 years ago, with much better blood trails and much easier time finding their deer.

One of my hunting buddies has only one centerfire rifle ... its a Remington model 7 in 243win , he uses factory 100gr ammo ( he cares not of what brand ) , He has taken , Whitetails , Black Bear & Hawgs .. It works perfectly for him .. because he doesn’t get on the internet ...

OOPS! wrong thread. Thot I was on the 243 - 75 HP thread.


Jerry

6

I do both. I prefer the .250-257 whatevr to the 6mm family. I don't loath the 6's, I own them too. I just prefer the .250 Savage and .257s mainly due to the heavier bullets. Actually, the .270 Winchester rules above all at my house.

I now load up the 95g nosler hunting BT in my Savage 243, flat out drops deer and antelope out here

95 gr nosler partition, 100 gr corelokt or 100 gr hornady all have worked

The 100gr partition and 40grs of h4350 in a Winchester case will shoot through a Tennessee deer longways. An ole timer lifelong 243 fan once told me you can only kill something so dead. He was correct.

I vote for Federal blue box, too! I've only had good luck with it. It's very consistent.

100 gr SGK is pure poison on deer.

I shoot quite a few deer and pigs with a .243 Winchester. My boy uses it quite often as well.

Deer are typically under 250 yards.
Pigs are usually at night and under 250 yards as well.
Go-To load is H4350 and a 105gr Hornady A-Max out of a custom 20” Rem700 and Krieger barrel w/1-8T.
Also use same load out of a 31” barreled rifle.

From my CVA Scout Pistol w/ 1-10” twist 14” barrel, I’ve used the 85gr Sierra HPBT-Game King to good effect.

The .243 has proven to be an excellent low recoil game getter with excellent terminal ballistics. I’ve been very pleased with the the results. One of my favorite cartridges.

Just a PSA I haven't seen mentioned on either thread about this yet... .243 is a perfect caliber (high speed, high fragmentation) to disperse lots of lead fragments through your meat. These can travel a pretty long way from the actual wound channel, too.

You can also completely avoid this by using any copper monolithic bullet, such as the Barnes TTSX that has been mentioned several times in this thread as being extremely effective and accurate.