Posted: 8/9/2008 11:39:53 AM EDT
I've seen pics of yotes getting blown up with .243. What will it do to a deer? ?
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There is no certainty with what a bullet will do. Normally a that type of hit will will completely rupture the heart. Hearts dont hold up very well to High Velocity rounds. |
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Although I personally don't recommend this... One of the guys hunting with us last year got a cow elk with a .243. It took 2 shots to down it....the 1st shot was to the shoulder and the 2nd shot to the heart. The 1st bullet was recovered....it was stopped by the shoulder blade. .243 will kill deer dead. |
LIke the others have said, bullet selection is important. .243 bridges the gap between the lighter varmint calibers and the more middlin' big game cartridges, and has a variety of factory loadings because of it. I can't recommend any particular load, but more and more, most commercially loaded ammo is marked with they type of game it's intended for. |
Yes. I did that exact thing on a doe. Was helping a friend field dress his deer, and this doe came up in the other field....looking right at us. I picked up my rifle and held it center chest. She jumped straight up in the air about 10ft and fell over dead. You could have dropped a coke can through the hole in her chest when we cut her open. |
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.243 and sister 6mm get bad reputations from shooters using lighter varmit bullets (80 grain) rather than the Big Game bullets of 100+ grain. A lot of those explosive shots were from using wrong bullet for the job of deer hunting. Just like all other calibers, use the right bullet for the job and you will get good results. use the wrong bullet, you won't get good results. .243 is fine for deer if used at reasonable range 200-250 yards max with proper bullet. BIGGER_HAMMER 
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My father who has hunted for 30+ years switched to .243 for deer hunting a few years back and has no intention of going back to his bigger caliber rifles. I have seen a .243 kill good size deer instantly with good shot placement. I also have seen a few that ran a short distance before killing over, but the furthest one made it was 125yds +or-. |
Killing a deer is easy. Doing so without wrecking meat can be the problem. I personally like something that will break shoulders. I like the satisfaction of seeing them kick their hind legs in a futile attempt to run, because it means the animal will die quickly and cannot be lost in the woods. |
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Every buck I've shot (maybe 8 or so) has been with a .243 Win. Every single one was taken with a Sierra 85gr HPBT. I've always had great results with this bullet, both in accuracy and terminal ballistics. There's a very, very knowledgeable and well respected gunsmith named Jack Belk who used to frequent a hunting forum I used to lurk on. He used to say he thought this was one of if not the best bullet available for the .243 Win. ETA: Never had a 3" hole, not that I ever wanted one. Most bucks I shot ran for maybe 10-20 yards and just went down. A shot where it counts will take out the lungs and heart entirely. I had I think two that dropped immediately and in the heat of the moment cycled the bolt and put another round out to be sure, but the second round probably wasn't necessary. I did have one that turned to run another direction a second before I made my shot. Ended up hitting him diagonally into the guts. He went probably 100-125 yards through the woods before going down. I was lucky another hunter in a treestand saw him and guided me to it, or I might not have found him. That was a mess. 
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As others have said the .243 will do its job as long as you do yours. If you don't want to waste a lot of meat THE best shot for you to take is a broadside shot when the deer is standing still. If you aim just behind the shoulder you are assured to hit lungs and/or heart. Doing this with the bullets listed above will humanely dispatch a deer with little damage to the meat. This will however damage the meat between the ribs 
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| For deer, Federal Premium ammo with the Barnes 85 grain TSX does a beautiful job, with minimal meat loss. A guy's daughter on our lease used this last year on 2 nice does and a pretty large bodied texas Panhandle buck. Outstanding results. Using a premium bullet that holds together is key in higher velocity rounds, IMO. More frangible rounds don't seem to penetrate as well and ruin a LOT of meat. |
That's one bad thing about mine, but it hasn't really mattered for me so far. The internal damage the Sierra 85gr HPBT does is extremely devastating, but the blood trail is very insignificant. Fortunately while many of mine did initially run after being hit, none went far at all. |
I shot a nice 10 pt whitetail with my .416 Rigby. He was quartered towards me. The 400gn Hornady softpoint @ 2500 fps entered the chest just in front of the left shoulder and was recovered in the right hip at the ball joint, mushroomed and still weighing about 370gn. The buck stayed on it's hooves and ran 30 yards before going down. The bullet destroyed both lungs and the aorta. There wasn't a single drop of blood on the ground even after dragging him back out to the sendero and loading him into the truck. He didn't start bleeding until he was hanging on the gambrels. You can never count on a blood trail. |
+1, this is the round I shoot through my .243. After hunting with a 30-06, .270 and a .308, I switched to the .243 and have not looked back. I have a friend who handloads for his, but I just use the off the shelf Remigton 100gr core lock round, my rifle loves that round, for some odd reason, and it works well, I have no complaints. Longest shot I have taken was at just over 200 yards, got a nice young 6 point buck that time, he dropped where he stood, never knew what hit him, |
Of course not--the exit wound produces the blood trail. No exit wound = no blood leaking out, regardless of caliber. Too-small calibers most often don't allow blood to leak even with an exit wound (at least in my very limited experience with this caliber)--that's why we quit having my wife use it. She moved up to a .30/06 for exactly that reason. The .243 makes a fine coyote rifle, however. |
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broin law has used a 6mm rem for who knows how long. only issue we have if the deer isnt DRT is the lack of a trail. not lack but very little compared to ones i have harvested. then again i put the rounds( or least try my darndest) in the arm pit area(ie heart lungs) Ive shot some with my 300wsm( yip fla deer witha 300wsm  ) anyway... had one run 100+ yrds no blood. found some acrons and dark vien blood(purple) and hair at place of hit. deer ran,,,down a road saw my father, twicthed and fell over dead.not one drop..alos had a 6 inch exit wound and no heart so that may have been the issue but others ive got with 30-30 ,, and 270 have all had good blood trails. Bro inlaw normally takes his shota nd is in the habit now of shooting them twice to make sure. its not that he dont "trust" the round per say..just being safe i think! LOL. bullets are a funny thing,,ive seen a 06' stopped on a deer forearm and a one totally self gutted with one round...ive seen a deer take a 30 cal round and run for1/2 mile before droppin dead........ ive always said shooting is the easy part of huniting,,its what goes on after and before the shot that takes skill... 
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| 85 grain Sierra hollow point boat tail Game King + .243 = Dead deer. I've loaded up this combination for my son for the past 4 deer seasons and he's had no deer go more that 3 steps after being hit with it in the chest/lung area. Doesn't damage much meat there and leaves a fine exit wound should tracking become necessary - which it hasn't. Google ".243 85 grain hpbt" for more info. |
Entry wounds can leave sizable blood trails as well, though not as reliable as exit wounds. |