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

I think I mentioned "operator" error?

Hey, we're just brainstorming here. Mighta seemed like a good idea at the time.

I am a bit disappointed that no one picked up on my Winnie The Pooh reference, "Deer, like Tigger, like to bounce..

Musta watched that movie a hundred times while my kids were growing up. Tigger's voice by Paul Winchell, the puppet guy.

That would be the problem 99.9% of the time.

This many times over

I absolutely love my 2x 243 but a pure lung shot without an exit on a very large aware deer can cause longer runs and very occasionally (like once in a lifetime) you can get a freak failure to die.

Dear 100yds reaching up to a tree branch. Good rest, sierra 85gr bthp @ 3,200fps. Perfect shot, great reaction. Leave alone climb into stand for 75 minutes. End of legal light go find deer. Bedded and still alive. It gets up and runs. Leave overnight, come first thing - dead. Perfect double lung, not a huge amount of lung damage and holes in ribcage sealed by skin when buck resumed normal position from having been reaching up.

I know of one other similar occurrence with same bullet and stretching buck (deer not found this time). It's my opinion that the ballistic tip works better.

The BTHP Sierra is too tough for my liking. Never seen a DRT in about 10 Missouri whitetails.

If you want an 85 grain bullet go to the SP Sierra Varminter. Will give golf ball sized exits and deer usually drop where they were standing when you pulled the trigger.

I can't say that, in my case, it was a rush to the bottom. The first deer I killed with a rifle was with a .222 because that's the rifle I had at the time and it worked very well. The next one was with a .22 WRM. It worked too, but I don't use a RF any more. I do, however, use .223 a lot, probably more than any other cartridge these days. That said, I use a lot of other cartridges. They're all the same. We make way too much of all this.

I have no dog in this race not have I ever even hunted with a 243 much less shot deer with it. About 30 years ago my brother began hunting with one. After losing a few deer he wanted something that hit harder. He moved up to the 270 and his days of losing deer were over . My Father wanted the 243 and began hunting with it the next Fall.
. His experience was very similar to my brother's. I had been loading for my brother and continued to do so for Dad. Because my shooting and handloading mentor liked Speer bullets it's what I loaded. I used their BTSP 100gr bullet that was supposed to be leaving the muzzle at just under 3000fps. After Dad lost one particular buck he was getting discouraged with the 243 so I told him let's change bullets. I loaded 100gr Nosler Partitions for the next few seasons and Dad never lost another deer! In fact his largest buck, 260lb on the hoof, fell to that load. But there was already rooted doubt because of their experiences. He sold the 243, moved up to the 270 and hasn't lost any with it. Dad will turn 85 later this month and his hunting days are now behind him. Just over a year ago they found he has liver cancer and it's been a long downhill slope for him since then. We're it not for the cancer I'm confident that he would be looking forward to this Fall /Winter and the long Louisiana deer season that he loves. As is so often said, "YMMV."

My wife and I have hunted deer here in Mid-MO for the past 20 years using mainly 7-08 or 284 win. The past 3 years I've taken 3 mature bucks using a 243 win shooting either 100 gr Partitions or 95 gr BTs, all from 100-150 yds. Can't tell the difference in how the deer reacts or in how far it runs. None of them ran over 40 yds. All died very quickly. Not a definitive sample size, but I have full confidence in the cartridge for the 180-220 lb bucks around here-. Sorry to hear about your dad's ailment, and I really like the quote in your sig line. God bless.

Beautiful buck!!! Man I want to hunt Roe Deer they are number 1 on my wish list!

What a great-looking dog!

I'm with you on this Blackheart. i killed a slew of 'em with my ol' 6mm Remington, the ballistic twin of the .243. But lost a few too. But after losing three or four I learned through my experiences with the 6mm AND my .270 that all bullets are not created equal.

I hear a lot of talk about people using Partitions on deer. This must be on deer much bigger than our Texas Whitetail. The only failures I've seen on these Texas deer with either the 6mm or the .270 were with bullets I believe to be too tough to expand fast on a relatively small bodied deer. These were both Speer bullets and I know from results on deer I did kill with them that they are tough bullets that don't expand well on smaller game. That's why I quit using them on deer. I can only imagine what a Partition would do on one. It would no doubt make a complete pass through with little expansion and not do a lot of immediately lethal damage as my youngest son has told me. He's the guy that has to pee on the electric fence to learn. He was always trying some expensive bullet on deer.

I came to what I believe is the rightful conclusion that Nosler Ballistics Tips (the newer and improved ones) and Sierra Game Kings will kill deer pretty much immediately if properly hit out of just about any cartridge. Note that I said DEER(Texas deer) not elk. And yeah, if you hit a shoulder or a ham with one you're going to lose some meat. If they're relatively close, like within 50 yards I like to shoot them in the neck or head, but if they're farther than that I like rib shots right behind the front shoulder. This I find to be more immediately fatal and is a very soft area to penetrate. Shooting them in the neck or head isn't as easy as it sounds. You have to aim for a specific place or you could just horrifically wound an animal but not put it down. That's why I don't take a neck or head shot if much over 50 yards.

Somebody on here has a sig line that says that if you want to put a deer down quick shoot it in the ear hole. This is precisely true in my experience because you need to take out his brain. When shooting in the neck shoot mid neck to high neck where the spine lays. That's what you have to hit to put a deer down immediately. Otherwise you might just take out his wind pipe which won't kill him maybe for days. He'll be 2 zip codes over before he dies. If you shoot at the head and hit the jowl or lower jaw, it's the same with hitting the wind piple. He'll just run off and die a nasty lingering death. A person needs to develope a little precision in his/her shooting.

I found the .243( Also 6mm Rem.) and the .270 about equally capable of downing deer. If you think through each shot and shoot for a lethal area you will have a lot better results over all.

BTW, I don't mean to talk like some numb nuts school teacher, I'm just typing as I think.

I don't believe you understand the Partition. The front half is deliberately made soft for quick expansion.

Yup.

Even the 160gr .270, my personal idea of a good elk and moose bullet, produces significant carnage in ordinary whitetails, before making a nice exit hole for easy trailing, which so far has been totally unnecessary.

A very nice VA buck shot by my son with the 100gr .243 did manage to go about 50 yards, the farthest of about eight killed with NPs so far by my crew, all with good shot placement though.

No I wasn't aware of that. I've never used them. I just took it from experience not to use a real tough bullet. Now you've got me curious. I may give them a whirl. I've heard they were the best elk and large game bullets. In fact I always said that if I got to go on an elk hunt I'd try them. That was before I acquired a couple of magnums. In fact whatever I take if I ever go elk hunting it will be stoked with Partitions. I have grown to trust them listening to people i trusted talk about them. Now you have me wanting to try them on deer. I always just figured they were an elk bullet.

Somehow living in Texas all my life with a chronic shortage of elk, I missed that in my edumacational process.

My thoughts exactly. Over the years the wisdom I've gathered here is that the 243 is a magic death ray, but the .30-'06 need a partition to kill a deer.

At this point it should be clear to everybody that it can be done, and that it can be done efficiently.

I thing choosing a smallish caliber induces careful stalking and careful shooting.

Such an approach seems to lay any haste aside while hunting, and I think there is something neat about the concept.

I'm in my 6o's with severe neck and shoulder arthritis and made the switch to a .243 about twenty years ago. It was one of the best decisions
I ever made. I've used quite a number of different cartridges in the 95 and 100 grain category, and I learned a lot from a hunting friend
who also used a .243. Here's what I learned. #1 Stay away from anything under 95 grains. #2 Stay away from hollow points (yes they
do massive damage in the soft area of the lungs but will blow up on bone and a trackin' you will go) #3 Stick to bonded or monolithic bullets
designed to hold together, e.g., Partitions, Fusions, Interlocks, etc. (good crop to choose from). If you don't trust me, then trust Warren
Page, longtime hunter and outdoor writer(Field & Stream) who regularly took elk with a .243 using a Nosler Partition. This bullet will easily break bone
and you don't have to worry about shoulder shots. It's the winning ticket for me, and, yes, you can use it on quartering shots. It drops
deer like they're falling through a trap door. I'm always amazed by guys who say the .243 isn't a good deer rifle. Byron Dalrymble,
another famous hunter/writer/editor (Outdoor Life) used a .243 took take hundreds of deer and wrote books about it that most of the
guys on this forum, apparently, have never read.

#1 - stay away from anything under 95grs


The 80 GMX, 80 TTSX and 85 TSX are serious bullets under 95grs.

Yeah, there's some relatively new stuff out there under 95 that I hear is good, like what you mention. I guess I'm
just an old stick in the mud with my principal on biggest amount of lead I can throw at 'em with a .243. Another
100 grain to look at (haven't used it) is the Norma Oryx. Guys have used it to take deer sized animals and larger
in Africa with the .243. Appears to have similar properties to Nosler Partition. Both are currently hard to find now.