Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Most destructive 243 bullet?

80 Barnes TTSX

My .243 Win. prefers the flat based bullets, either the 70 gr Speer TNT or the Nosler 70 gr Tipped Varmageddon. Either of these would be my first choice for coyote disruption backed by Ramshot Big Game powder.

I have killed a few with that 70 grain Varmageddon, hell of a bullet!!

A friend just sent me a picture of a coyote shot in half with a 700 in 243 Win, max load of H414 with 70g Sierra Blitz kings. I have killed a lot of coyotes, never seen anything like what was in that picture.

70g Noslers are pretty tough bullets in my experience, 69g Bergers do not always go though a coyote, and 80g Bergers shoot half dollar size holes though coyotes. 60g Sierra's are not destructive, but kill effectively when shot through shoulders, ribs, and hip joints. 75g Sierra hp mangle coyotes up pretty good.

80g sierra blitz btsp give the loudest plop sound of any bullet I have used.

We killed a lot of coyotes with 60g Sierra and then the 80g Sierra in Old Mexico with 243 Win and 6 Remington years ago....both of these bullets are hands down winners killing effectively when shots are behind the diaphragm.

My cousin shoots a 58vmax out of his 6mm and it blows big big holes in yoties. My buddy shoots 55BT out of a 243.... also pretty messy. Although I’ve never used or seen it used on coyotes I would be very willing to bet that the 75vmax would really make a mess out of a yotie.

For DRT (dead right there) I like the Sierra BlitzKings and Hornady V-Max...
Gonna give Barnes' Varmint Grenade a try this fall & winter.

As others have said the 60 Sierra HP is like setting off a bomb no matter where you hit a coyote

How do 55gr bts do? 4,000 FPS!

As far as varmint bullets go, the accurate ones I've tried started in weight at 70 grains, and the Speer turned out to be not only pretty accurate, but by far the most destructive. I could never get anything lighter to shoot worth a schit in a couple 243's.

60 grain Sierra has been a buzz saw

62 gr Varmint Grenade will also impress ya then....especially when pushed hard...

LOL.....I like your style. Keep us posted on your results. I'm looking for similar results with a 6mm CM.

Back before coyote hair became valuable I shot countless dogs with 60 grain hollow points in .243. No matter where you hit them that round would open them right up.

Osky

Can’t speak as to what it will do to a coyote, but that load on prairie dogs or ground squirrels is devastating! Lots of airborne pieces and red mist!

Instant death.

I know of a guy that shoots them oven a tank full of RL-15. He and another bud say it is instant lights out.

The Ballistic Tip is not your ordinary plastic tipped bullet.

Another vote for the 58gr. V-Max.

Full throttle.

The old Hornady 70gr. SPSX bullet was my favorite, even out of a mild 6mmBR it will shred prairie dogs into goo. I was so mad at Hornady for discontinuing that bullet, that I sold the BR because of it. It shot fine with lighter bullets, too, but that bullet was like nitroglycerin on little bitty prairie dogs. It was just like putting them in a blender.

Most destructive I've used, has been the 70gr Btip, but have only shot maybe a dozen with them, so far.

Least destructive has been the 75gr Vmax. I went about 33-34 coyotes straight without an exit, from 20yds to 400+.

I've had more runners and floppers with the 55gr Btip, at full throttle 4,000fps, than any other bullet I've tried in the 243.

I saw this thread and was going to post about the 60 grain Sierra HP. I shoot a lot of hogs (as in groundhogs) and when I was using the 243 the 60 grain Sierra was devastating. It was also very accurate in the 243s I was shooting at the time.