243 Bullet Preferences

Rem corelokt 100 grain
Fed 100 grain something or another

Our resident 243 expert span870 what do you suggest.

Hornady Precision Hunter is good ammo.

anyways, just remember that your shot placement for humane kills is same as bowhunting  except now you will be able reach out and touch them a little fartherLOL  Welcome to the rifle side of deer hunting and enjoy. Also sent you a pm about he buck pictured in the hpr thread.

Steve

The absolute best round for a .243, any rifle configuration, is a 180 grain core-lokt in a 30-06.

I'll second the comment about blood trail. High shoulder shot, deer did not drop, zero hair at point of shot, and if I didn't see the point of impact and hear deer fall I would have guessed a miss. Deer did not bleed at all. Did not get pass through. My conclusion. Use a controlled expansion bullet and hit behind shoulder, very little blood. Rapid expansion and hit bone, bullet explodes on impact. The amount of damage done to meat was ridiculous. Recovered round under opposite side performed as expected and was the size of a .22. Why anyone would limit ones self to a round you absolutely best be 100% on is beyond me. There is no best bullet imo for this round. You have best case scenario. I absolutely would not suggest a .243 for young, inexperienced shooters. Less than perfect shot in less then perfect conditions your odds are going way down on finding that deer. Many more rounds out there that would be better option especially with reduced recoil rounds available in 06 and 270. For years we introduced kids to deer hunting with 20ga and the recoil was fine. Average recoil of a 20 shooting slugs is 25ft/pounds. 300 weatherby mag is 24. 06 and 270 and 308 are still way less then that with the right loads.

I handload the Hornady GMX 80GR over Hybrid 100 powder for myself and a couple of friends. We have been able to get sub-MOA out of all of our rifles with this combination at near top end velocity and the terminal results have been outstanding. It appears that Hornady has this bullet offered in 4 factory ammo offerings but I do not know how many of the factory offerings are readily available.

edit:I looked at the factory offerings in more detail and they are all essentially the same performance wise. Outfitter has nickel cases I believe and if I did my math correctly, the international may offer a tad bit more velocity but when you get over the 3K threshold that extra speed probably really doesn't matter.

Before this turns into discussion about cartridge choice let me make a few comments. I consider a 243 adequate for deer hunting but at the lower limits. here's why. You do gain the advantage of little felt recoil but in doing so are sacrificing energy. Remember speed plus bullet weight equals energy and energy is what kills. The retained energy on a 90 or 95 grain bullet drops below 1600 ft lbs at 200 yds which I consider a minimum energy to get enough penetration on a hard bone shoulder shot( say a big mature buck). It doesn't matter if you get fragmentation-poor bullet performance. You will still "grenade"the lungs as the fragments penetrate the chest cavity and the deer will bleed out, actually probably die quicker than a behind the shoulder double lung pass thru.
Bullet choice is arbitrary but my recommendation is to stay away from the old style cup and core lead tipped if you can. Esshup likes the solid copper barnes which is fine, They are extremely accurate bullets. I personally wouldn't recommend them to the novice rifleman because one, they are so tough you get virtually no expansion, and two, a novice rifleman won't shouldn't be taking head or neck shots(my opinion) Remember, however, he is a precision rifleman and probably the best long range shot who frequents this board and can make the shots he's talking about.
Span likes a 180grain 30-06. He's old school like me but 180 grains is enough to stop a dodge ram if shot in the engine block LOL. I shoot 125grain for whitetail in 30-06. I choose a 30-06 simply because that round can kill any animal in North America with the right bullet choice and I like old school stuff. My rifle is built on a 1908 dwm brazillian mauser action.
Now back to the 243. dbd870 is happy with his rifle with the nosler ballistip. Swik is switching from the nosler ballistip to a Barnes. I personally would find the middleground which is the 90 grain accubond or another bonded core bullet if there is one and go from there.
I personally load and shoot the ballistic tip or accubond 125 in my 30-06. The buck pictured in the hpr thread was purpously shot point on the shoulder to evaluate bullet performance(nosler 125 ballistictip) It broke the humerus just below the head, penetrated the chest cavity and exited just behind the shoulder on the off side breaking a rib. I saw the guy shudder/flinch on impact thru the scope but he didn't go down and ran approx 60yds before dying.no blood trail-little meat damage---excellent bullet performance(my opinion).

Ymmv---Steve

Appreciate the comments. Just couple noteworthy tidbits.

I fully do not plan on shooting over 200 yards. At my personally owned spot farthest shot by habitat design is 77 at one spot and maybe just barely 100 at another. Most will be sub 60 yards as habitat again by design won't allow it.

The note about not expecting same blood trails is for sure understood and appreciated, I keep having to tell my mind that bow hunting is different. The trauma created internally is incredible and an exit hole won't kill it any quicker. I also know unless 100 yards or in, I don't I try the high shoulder "off switch" as many call it. I'll prefer quartering away heart/lung tucked shots more likely.

It will be nice knowing should I do my part the likelihood of it getting out of sight is extremely minimal.

I bought a .243 for my daughter to hunt with when they were made legal. She doesn't hunt much so I have been using it. I'm 3 for 3 on deer and my dad used it on his buck last week. I have found it to be a great hunting weapon. I'm just not buying into the theory that they aren't good deer rifles. I shoot the standard winchester ammo that walmart sells. I'm not shooting long range with it so the cheap ammo works fine for my needs. The farthest that any of the deer I've shot with it ran was about 40 yards. I aim for just behind the shoulder the same as I would with any weapon. I have had no problems with a blood trail.

These pictures are from the doe I shot this year with my .243. The shot went through the heart. This first picture is from where she was standing at the shot. You can see a tuft of hair at the bottom. If this isn't a good enough trail to follow then I don't know what is.













This picture is the background image on my computer at work.

I shoot the Hornady American Whitetail in the 100 gr in my .243. It's a Remington 700 BDL VLS? I think. I've taken multiple pronghorn with it and 1 whitetail. Almost all shots were in vitals and the animals never went more than 50 yards before they fell over. Complete pass through every shot I believe. One of those was a quartering to shot that ended up in the spine and I was able to recover the jacket but no lead.