Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 243/6mm Bloodtrail Questions

Smack em with a 95 NBT. Bang flop kills more often then not with frequent pass throughs.

I've used alot of the afore mentioned bullets but I'll take the 100 gr Hornady SP flatbase at 3000+fps over any of them for a good exit hole and blood trail. IMR 7828 and go for it. Magnum man

+1

I would also recommend a shoulder shot with the ttsx barnes to drop them right there.

I love the 243 win. for deer. I have shot 5 deer with a 243.
1 with a 95 nbt
3 with a 100 cor-lokt
1 with a 100 interlock
ranges were 50yds out to 150yds.
No deer ran more than 20 yds, and the damage to the vitals area was tremendous. Never had a complete pass thru so no heavy blood trail was found, but also was not needed.
2 of the deer were very large whitetail bucks.

I have only shot one deer with my .243 (80gr TTSX) and it took 3 shots to bring it down. The first probably was enough to put it down but it kept running so I kept shooting. The second and third shots both went through the shoulder bone and I was able to recover the bullets under the hide on the opposite side. The petals were sheared off of both of them. I also shot a wolf in the chest with the same round and never recovered it. I am going to switch to 95gr nosler partitions to see if they work better.

I shoot the barnes TSX and TTSX out of my .300 and haven't had a single problem with them.

Not like each animal can react differently at times... IE 300 and ttsx to the same deer may have given the same results.

I can say this, over many years now, the 243 has given me more bang flops than my 300s ever have. Fact I can probably count on one or two hands the bang flops with 300s vs how many with 243s. Unless shooting CNS shots.

RE can't trail a deer 50 yards in a swamp thicket without loosing it... I have SERIOUS issues with that statement. IF the deer is dead inside of 50, you shouldn't need anything blood wise to find it. May take a bit but very findable.

And if you do have issues with it, I suggest learning how to make CNS shots every last time.

RE OP question... look in deer here, and read on the blue dot 243 thread..... I just shot one with an 80 at about 2000 fps. Not much of a trail for the first yards, after that... what we call a Stevie Wonder blood trail.