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

Never had an issue with lead fragments using a 243 with a 85 grain cup and core bullet. But if you are concerned, it is great to have a copper bullet to use.

Well most of the 243 ranters are all about having to go "find" their deer. In my experience with the 243 it seems that having to go find the deer you shot happens more often with the 243 than with somewhat more powerful/bigger bullets.

Oh, I love these posts !

So enlightening.

Sometimes decisions need to be made for various reasons. I have been told by the landowner of a deer lease not to use anything smaller than a .270 on his land. He was referring to my 25-06.

My nephew has shot a few deer, pigs and a coyote with a 243 and 95 grain SST's. We haven't had to do any real looking. Of course we've recovered everything so we really do know how they were hit.

Here's what I'm gonna do. We put 100 deer in a pen. I am gonna shoot them in the lungs with my .243 and any bullet you pick. I will give you 1000 dollars for every one that lives. You give me 10 dollars for every one that dies.

Let's see who comes out ahead. Anyone willing?


Thought not.

Well he's a fuqking dumbass

Prezactly . . . . . .it ain't the 243's fault people can't shoot.

Funny post! Personally I don't hunt deer in pens but would take bets that I could do that using a 22 magnum. I have used the 243 over the years on many deer and never lost one. On the other hand comparing the 243 to larger cartridges and considering the number of times a deer made it 100 yards after being hit well with a 243 compared to a 7-08, 308 or 7x57 I figure the ratio is 3 to 1. About the same for not leaving a good blood trail. At my deer lease north of Guthrie Texas which is also crawling with feral hogs and a heaping helping of coyotes leaving a deer overnight usually means you end up with a pile of well cleaned bones. The lease has a lot of what is called "shinnery" which is a sort of Oak tree bush that gets pretty tall but mostly less than 4 feet tall, getting through it is a chore for a person. Not so hard for a deer or a feral hog. If a deer gets a hundred yards back into this stuff and it gets dark while you are looking for it that pile of bones will be all you have in the morning. The reason I didn't have any issues when using a 243 is because I only took neck and high shoulder shots. I killed some big hogs with that rifle also. Over the years on that lease we had a bunch of guys lose deer simply because they treated the 243 like it was a good all around deer rifle which it is not. In open country it works well enough but the sometimes thin to non existent blood trails cost these guys a lot of deer. One of the guys that only used his 243 for 2 years before he went to a 308 shot 11 deer and recovered 8. And a couple of the deer we recovered needed some serious tracking skills to find. In the next 6 years he never lost a deer because they didn't generally go very far and if they did the 150 grain Core Lokt's left a nice bloody trail for him to follow. I used to hunt a lot in Wyoming and there the 243 did pretty good on both Antelope and Mule deer as you could usually see which way they went or never got out of sight before going down. May sound odd but I got the distinct impression that Mule deer were not as hard to kill as Whitetails. Another point, mostly a rifle in 243 costs the same as one in 7-08 or 308, neither is known as a hard kicker either so why not hedge your bet and get the bigger round?

Perzactly where I was going !

Some of us have learned to kill deer quickly and easily with a 223 and would be "hedging bets" using a 243. Grins.

Seriously, I killed a 7 point this year and watched a nephew kill another 7 point with a 62 grain Federal Fusion this past fall. My buck collapsed on the spot (spine shot) and his (behind the shoulder) took two steps and fell dead.

I dressed both bucks. The wounds were horrendous - they looked like they were shot with a .270 or 7-08 with a softish bullet.

Besides, it's more fun to watch events unfold in the scope. Save the 7-08 for elk.

TP, I am sure you look at the .223 as an awesome deer rifle in Tx.. But deer are different else where, and not shot over a pile of corn.. I shot a couple in south Tx. meat does, my pal said shot that one it is a big one.. When i got to it I thought I shot a fawn, he said no that is a bit doe.. My golden retrievers and lots bigger than that big doe.. A ,223 would have worked, I have shot coyotes almost as big...

Fascinating story. I often hunt in New Mexico and the north Texas panhandle where the deer are heavy and the ranges can be very long, but I don't find deer hard to kill there either.

Which proves what exactly? The same test can be done with a .22 LR.

I bet you do run into huge deer that far "north".

Right. And the point is if you shot a deer with a 243 and it didn't die its on you, not the 243. Because if you can shoot even a 22 would work.

I have killed a lot of big deer in montana, and idaho with a 222 and 55 grain bullets. That includes a big 180" mule deer buck that we guessed at 3 00 lbs. He was a monster in body size. I shot him in the chest, and he never even took one step. Now a days I have moved up in gun and kill about everything with a 243. They don't make it far with that either.

I consider a 300 lb mulie to be a heavy buck.

Feel free to post a pic of any deer you ever killed....

I didn't say they were hard to kill, I said under some circumstances they can be hard to find after they run a hundred yards or so, especially with a weak blood trail. In the Texas panhandle a lot of that country is wide open, same as for parts of New Mexico. Many of the Bucks I took in the area north of Guthrie in King county were some over 200 pounds, not giants but good sized deer for Texas. That said I would like to see a picture of a 300 pound Texas panhandle buck myself.

The other point is that the vast majority of deer are not shot in pens or under the perfect conditions doing so offers.