Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Opinions on .243 as a grizzly cartridge

“If you want to demonstrate your skill as a rifleman, long range precision shooting is not the way to do it. Though it has become the dominant trend in shooting, the exercise is more a validation of gear than evidence of shooting skill. To quote the great African professional hunter Philip Percival, ‘I don’t care a damn about these people who can split a pea at three hundred yards. What I want to know about is how good he is on a charging buffalo at six feet.’ Admittedly, charging buffalos and similar treacherousness are limited to safaris and rare occurrences, but mostly what Percival was saying was that he wanted to know what a man could do with a rifle while standing on his hind legs and while under stress. This, not shooting from a solid rest while using a ballistics calculator, is the mark or a real rifleman. Jeff Cooper suggested this with his Scout Rifle Concept, which was an attempt to codify the requisite skill of a true rifleman as much as it was to create a weapon that would allow the best expression of general purpose rifle application…. Cooper was a staunch advocate for the mastery of field shooting positions and placed no emphasis on extreme long range rifle application...”

I enjoyed this Richard Mann quote (quoting Philip Percival) in the most recent Rifle Loony News. He may be short-changing the whole PRS thing but, he has a point. Being the armchair grizz hunter that I am, I'd want a big nasty, fast shooting rifle but, even more I'd want Heidi backing me up with whatever she wanted - .243 or .45-70. The closest I've come to a grizz was a set of fresh tracks in the snow while backpacking above tree line in AK many years ago. Looking at that track which dwarfed my booted foot, my can of bear spray all of a sudden was alot less reassuring! I'm also, a believer in Cooper's scout rifle. I'm of the vintage that read his back page column when his go-to was a 45-70 WWG peep-sighted Co-pilot. I wouldn't feel too skeery with my .30-06 pump carbine with the right bullets for following up wounded grizz in thick stuff which is the real problem here.

I dunno why you fellas are all riled up over this. Can you put bullets where they need to go? Well, there's your answer.

Lost a bet once with a platoon Sargent who said he could kill and elephant with a M16. One shot in the temple at about 50 yards cost me a case of beer.

More to the point, I use .22 CB shorts to kill pigs.





Bella Twin used a .22 to kill a grizz some years ago.

https://www.ammoland.com/2017/06/be...-the-1953-world-record-grizzly-and-more/

Here's a photo of a brown bear sow I took in 2008, when Eileen and I went fishing and hunting ptarmigan with Phil, Rocky and their kids Tia and Taj at their lodge on Becharoff Lake.

Phil and Eileen and I were fishing on of the streams flowing into the lake, and if I recall correctly it was the one where he had to kill the charging boar with his 9mm. We'd been fishing a while, and seeing some bears, and Eileen was maybe 75 yards farther downstream from me and Phil.

Suddenly we heard a woman shouting from upstream--but she wasn't getting charged by a bear. Instead she was "charging" one. The first thing we saw was a good-sized sow bear emerge from the streamside brush maybe 100 yards upstream, and then a tourist woman with a point-and-shoot camera came running our, hollering at the bear: "Stop! Please stop! All I want is a picture."

The bear would pause now and then to look behind at the woman, then started loping again. It entered another streamside patch of brush 30-40 yards upstream from us, whereupon the woman quit running, apparently tuckered out, and turned back. Phil and I heard the bear moving slowly through the brush, and then it emerged about 20 feet from us, took a few steps and stopped, head pointed left but eye on us.

Phil slowly drew his revolver (as I recall a DA .357 Magnum) with his right hand, and a can of bear spray with his left. I took a couple photos with the point-and-shoot digital I carry in a shirt pocket in the field, but then quit, staying very still. We waited, and in what seemed like an hour and was maybe a minute, the bear turned and went back into the brush, where we heard continuing downstream.

Here's one of the photos, taken at about 15 feet with my little camera. Phil said later that if she'd turned her nose toward us, she was going to charge. But she didn't....

Now, that's funny: "Please stop. All I want is a picture!"

Really - the only thing to carry for bears is a .338WM.

About the 4th or 5th time, while moose hunting in thick stuff, that I stepped through a screen of brush to find about 2 gallons of steaming bear poop at my feet, I upgraded from the '06 I'd been carrying for several years.

That was over 30 years ago, and I've never had to shoot a bear.

I guess the word got around in the bruin bunch.....

I'm carrying the .260 out there until season ends in a few days, actually. Not hunting griz tho.

I imagine this thread was primarily inflammatory in nature, as the subject ‘how small can you go?’ always gathers attention.

Still, it brings to mind a friend of mine who has made a living as a hunting and fishing guide his entire life on Afognak island. His father was a seal hunter and the boys learned to ‘aim small’ from a heaving skiff. This individual uses a 325WSM as a backup rifle but prefers a 243 for all personal hunting including brown bear. And he has killed more than one with it. X, TSX, or TTSX bullets exclusively since they were introduced.

My theory ,Bigger the pile, bigger the hole it came out of, bigger the hole, bigger the bear.

Brown Bears are different in different parts of Alaska and I believe that they are different in areas of BC and probably in the L48. I have killed Grizzlies with a 44 Rem Mag in a Ruger Super Blackhawk when I was a teenager. I have also killed them with my old pushfeed XTR 300 Win Mag. I greatly prefer the later to the former. The Brown bears and they are classed as Brown Bears in the in the Copper River Basin seemed to be very spooky and not aggressive at all unless they were injured or had something wrong with them.(starvation). They still took more for killing than the smaller Arctic grizzlies in the Kobuk River drainages.

I will never forget during I believe it was my second day in Ambler when three 13 and 14 yo boys came up river to show me a grizzly that they had killed. The big thing was the first Jurassic Park movie and the boys described that they had gone out to get a caribou and had found the bear near the river bank. They explained to me that they all jumped out of the boat and approached it like velociraptors. They each had a 10/22 rifle with extended magazines. They shot the bear a total of 109 times. They said the bear did not react to the first three or four shots except slap at them but soon realized it was a goner and tried to retreat. There was not much that could be salvaged from that bear. It probably was 350lbs and was maybe a three or four year old bear. I thought that the local hunters would get on the boys but one of the elders there told me. Bears have to be scared. So we keep them scared. The bear may have had a desire to hunt near the river but by being out there during daylight it was in a place that it shouldn't of. I later during my second year, shot a small grizzly that had been wounded with my Remington 788 in 22-250 with 50 grain corelock right behind the should. It had several severe injuries and was covered with puss and mange. One of the old ladies in the village wanted the gallblader and the sinews from the bear and I kept the claws. I had them in a jar in my cabin and they were stolen during one of the cabin breakins that would happen out there when I would go into Kotz. They took my old baikal 12 gauge shotgun but left the 22-250 because there was no place for them to get ammo. About two months later I found the shotgun propped up against the side of the cabin by the front door. The buttstock was not designed right on that shotgun and it literally kicked like someone hit you between the eyes with a two by four. A big rifle up there was a 243 winchester. Most people used 223 AR15s for everything. The old former owner of the lodge explained to me that the animals up there died more easily because of hydrostatic shock impacted the animals there more. That might be bullshit but it might also be that with so many targets of opportunity that you could get pretty close to animals.

I moved from Ambler to Nulato and it was different. People hunted along sloughs and had fish camps that were still heavily used. Grizzlies generally were not problems. They kept to themselves. Rare was it to have a bear become rogue. There were people in the villages that had the role of hunting bears who were problem bears. Nulato had areas where you might have a longer shot. Most had bigger rifles. There were many 7 Rem mags, 300s and 338 Winchester Magnums. People might also have an old Winchester 1886 in 45-70 for camp.

My guess is that if I was hunting on Afognak Island or in the ABC islands that I would probably take a larger rifle. A 458 Win checks a lot of boxes. It may not be necessary but it is comforting.

The Brown bears in each of these locations has a different relationship with humans that they interact with. The tools that people use vary with their geographic setting and the full size of the bear in that area.

The OP might of been bored , here's some spice.
The .243 wcf is not ideal for dispatching an Grizzly...but with a good bullet it is a better choice than any 30/30, .32 Special ever made.
The model 94 has surely killed lots of Game, but I bet it has wounded an equal amount.
If stats were kept on this the .243 vs 30/30 , the former would have a superior kill/ wound rate.
I would probably use a mono bullet.
There you go, folks....my little old opinion

Doubt it

I am not so sure I would not prefer the extra 70 grains of bullet weight and the larger frontal area the 30-30 and 32 Spl provide in this case, especially if the bear was eyeing me up for dinner.

Take a look at the Mason Leather video over on youtube where he tests the new 190 gr. Barnes .30-30 factory load. It out penetrates the 220 gr. core lokt .30-06 in ballistics gel by a bunch.

Is that a mono or loaded with Barnes Originals?

Originals.

I know I would. I used the 30-30 all my life. On game up to Moose. I tried several times to switch to the 243 but it just kept failing to impress me so I'd go back to the 30-30 which I felt had a real edge

I think the 243 makes a great coyote cartridge but, given a choice between the 243 and a sling shot to use on a charging bear, I think I'll take the 2431

Thanks. I just watched it. 37 inches of penetration in gelatin at 100 yards!

How heavy is the bullet in the 2431?

Probably too heavy like most people want to use in the 243.

If I want a 100 in a 243 or 6mm it better be fairly soft. I think the stout 100 grain bullets are why people aren't impressed with the way it kills deer.

No reason for railroad spike tough bullets on a 250# or smaller animal.

my own experience with the 243 is that is a great groundhog rifle, but with deer or bigger, i'd say its dismal with a mono or cup-n-core. i haven't shot a 243 for 25+ years and i see no need to do so. my friend may argue with me, because the 243 Win has killed many deer for him. he has a Rem m788 in 243 Win with 100gr whatever is cheaper factory ammo. he has been killing deer up close for about 38+ years. i had a Rem 700 BDl and m7 in 243. i used a 100gr Hornady RN, 105gr Speer RN, 100gr Hornady SP, 100gr Seirra SP and 85gr Barnes X bullet. i have killed about 10 -12 deer with them and the deer were only 30-40 yards away from me. in every shot, the deer ran away me for about 50 - 100 yards. the 85gr Barnes X bullet deer would go further, 225+ yards away from me. i found out that the 85gr didn't expand, instead it was a pencil sized wound thru the lungs (behind the shoulder shot). that was the last time i ever shot a 243.

i had (well, it is now a 35/30-30) a Winchester m94 (1972) in 30-30. i haven't wounded a deer with the m94. 1 shot = 1 kill, my drill segreant would say. as a matter of fact, the deer never ran after the shot. several times the deer would drop in their tracks. a time or three the deer would go only 10-20 yards from the shot. i think you have a problem with the 30-30. i have a problem with the 243.

+
I would have to disagree. I have killed deer with 3 different 100 grain softpoints and never did I feel the bullet was too hard. 2 handloads, one using 100 gr Hornady Interlock and the other was a 100 gr Speer GS. One factory load using 100 gr Federal blue box. IMO they all worked ok. Maybe 3/4 inch exit wound on pretty much broadside shots.

They certainly do not create damage like a 270, 308 etc but you cannot expect that from a much smaller round. Yea shoot them in the lungs with an 85 gr Sierra BTHP and they drop pretty fast but I would not want to trust that bullet on a steep angling shot.