Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles How 'bout a re-hash on the .243 Win. cartridge? ( since I just won a rifle )

The 243 keeps the speed up and the recoil down, making it a very easy round to shoot well.

With 80-85 grainers, it runs faster than most 7 magnums, and kills very well on deer or smaller.

And for more fun, the 55 Ballistic Tip at over 4000 has to be seen to be believed. It takes a lot of coyote to outrun it!

Nope - T3. One of the earlier ones , so it is (unfortunately) a 1 in 12 twist.
However, it shoots the 70 grain Speer just fine, and up to 200 yards that projectile (IMHO)is a really good deer bullet.

With today's projectiles, the .243 will definitely 'way over-penetrate' (grin)

I love my .243 and I use it on deer, coyotes, prarie dogs and pretty much everything else I hunt.

Perforator!

Mike,

Nice gift for you daughter!

There is a great deal on 85gr TSX's in the classified.

Heavy Hunter has a few thousand of them.

It is far and away the best compromise between a varmint cartridge and a deer cartridge in the commercial mainstream. Not only that, but it also performs very well in certain target-shooting disciplines. It is cheap, readily available and has high intrinsic accuracy.

OK, now i need to go and get one, too....

been shooting one for about 30 years.
killed all kinds of critters with a 243.

currently have 3.

longest kill was at about 500 yards with a 90 gr. speer hot cor on my antelope buck hanging on my wall when i lived in montana.

first day ever hunting with a 243...



it worked... neat little round. i can see me shooting many more deer with it...

Given the twist, (1-9) you can probably shoot either the 105 amax, 105 berger, or 105 scenar. One of those is going to shoot amazing in that rifle, if you do your part. Fun..

this is with 85 gr Sierra HPBT's at 100 yards with the 6x42 on-board... the vertical is because i couldn't see the dot under the cross-hairs.

I've never shot an animl with one so could not tell ya. But the cartridge has me interested enough that I bought one a couple of years ago to fool around with. So far its accurate and alot of fun to shoot. Hopefully in a couple of weeks when our gun season opens, I could give you a real world report. I'll be hunting with 85 gr tsx and hope to have the same success most others talk about on here.

i'm going to try bergers and amax's in it after the season is over.

Accurate cartridge with low recoil and adequate killing power to 300 yards on whitetail. What's not to like? Use quality bullets, be disciplined about shots (as always!), and you'll be makin' chili. I've shot five deer and two hogs with good results. You won't always get an exit hole if that matters to you...

My wife killed her first and only moose with a Rem 700 .243, one shot. I've taken sheep, caribou and black bear with the same gun.

I just finished butchering a gift caribou taken at a reported 700 yards with one. Neck shot. Can only verify the neck shot and the carcass....

Yea, they do work rather well. Wifes first rifle was a 243. It is a round a newer person to centerfires can handle, goes BOOM kicks just a bit and works well with good shot placement and the right bullet to take care of any game up to deer. With careful placement and some experiance perhaps larger game. Not much not to like.

My go to praire dog rifle when the wind picks up. 70gr. BT's pushed hard out of a Ruger Target rifle work for me.

Mine hates 85gr PTs.. However it loves 95 gr BT's and 80 gr TTSX's. You should be happy with its performance if you do your part.

The 3 biggest bucks I've ever seen were taken with .243s. Ranged from a net 166 7/8 to well into book scoring. Distances were from maybe 3 feet(straight up as the buck jumped the fence he was sitting against) to 285 yards on the biggest one.

I don't shoot a 243, but use a 6mm Remington which is almost identical, only just a smidge faster. It kills deer, antelope, and other similar sized game very well. I've even taken one spike bull with the 6mm. She should be very happy with this cartridge as it's a great low recoiling joy to shoot. Good luck!