Dear All,

I have been a long time lurker soaking up a tremendous amount of knowledge from you all, and I say thank you for all the useful information I have gleaned. But I have now loaded my first ammo and shot it, so I thought I would share the experience and information with everyone.

I have several centerfire rifles but opted to start reloading for my Browning A Bolt in .243 Win. because it tends to shoot most every factory load with good accuracy-usually 1.5" or less and Hornady 100 gr BTSP consistently 1". My dilema has been what to use this gun for. Is it a deer rifle or is it a varmint gun? Ultimately I decided to load it for braining hogs since it seemed to be an inherently accurate rifle.

But this meant the bullets had to be very stout. I had had good performance from Barnes X bullets in my .375H&H, so I decided to try their solids. In .243, Barnes makes a 75 grain spitzer solid, and if that didn't work, I figured I'd try the Hornady FMJ. The Barnes manual suggested IMR4064 as a powder of choice for this bullet and the .243, so that's what I bought with Federal 210 primers. I was using new Hornady brass that I had full length sized.

Starting with the minimum 36 grains, I loaded three each of 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40 grains. The 36 grain loads went into 2". The 37 grain loads went into 3". This was disappointing given the rifle's history of shooting most things well. Then, the 38 grain loads went into 1/2" with two in the same hole. The 39 grain loads went into 1" strung horizontally while the 40 grain loads clustered into 7/8". I will be loading some more with 38 grains of powder to see if this is repeatable, but I have to say that this was a gratifying result for my first handloads. Also, the bullets were seated .03" short of the cartridge overall length for the .243 Win. I did this only because Barnes has recommended that TSXs be seated a bit short of the lands.

Hopefully, this will be useful and interesting. Thanks again for all the knowledge I have gleaned from your posts.

LWD

Welcome to the site.I've not been here long either.I've reloaded on and off for prolly 10 years,but learn something new involving reloading almost daily thanks to this site and a few others.

Did the 36gr. 3 shot group include the fouling shots? How hot was the barrel when you fired each group? I ask this because there can be a noticable differece right after a line brake.

I think ,if it were me, I'd try 38gr. two shots ,cold barrel. Just my opinion but I think it would tell the story if you have a PIG HUNTING rifle and load combination.

In fact once you have a selected load I'd try the two shot, cold barrel thing a number of times.

It will be of some use if you record the distance from point of aim on all of your first shots.

Loading up the truck for tomorrow. roger

Seeing as you want to shoot hog's with it, I'd go with a good 100gr bullet. I've never used much in the way of premium bullet's prefering instead to go up in caliber or bullet weight. A lot of people have had a lot of luck with the 243 on deer but I'm not comfortable with it. I load mine with 75gr Hornady V-Max's and use it on coyotes and smaller. I have killed two deer with a 243 but used 100gr bullet's.

All of my rifles have always been pretty much built around one bullet in that cal. I view the 243 as a large varmit cartridge. Many will disagree with me and I'd have a tuff time making a good argument against it!

If you are going to brain 'em, you don't need premium bullets. Accurate bullets, yes. Draw an imaginary line from their earhold to their eye, and shoot 'em halfway between. Bang-flop, dead right there!

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Originally posted by Don Fischer:
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All of my rifles have always been pretty much built around one bullet in that cal. I view the 243 as a large varmit cartridge. Many will disagree with me and I'd have a tuff time making a good argument against it!

I won't! In fact it can be a a varmint cartridge, no doubt.......but the .243 Win. is much more.... It is a really good "all-arounder" IMO.
I shoot a Steyr Pro Hunter in .243 with the 100 grs. Nosler Partition with great success for almost everything up to really big red stag.

Sure....... for brainshoohting pigs one would not need premium bullets, but, as a matter of fact, the pigs (we do only have wild boars :-) ) do not stand around and always present you the brain or their broadside or give you a perfect shooting angle..... in this case, a 100 grs. Nosler Partition has proven to be excellent and I and also my hunting companions have shot dozens of wild boars successfully...
You might take that also into consideration

LWD,

Glad you joined us! Welcome aboard.

I have a Remington 788 in .243 Win. that really likes to be fed 100 grain Sierras and 39.0 grs. of IMR 4064. Itty-bitty groups every time.

Glad you had a good initial expereince, keep at it and let us know how it goes.

Thank you all for your comments and insights. I will try to answer a couple of the points raised.

The initial 36 grain loads were fired after one fouling shot.

I did let the barrel cool between groups. Not sure of the time, but in each case the barrel felt cool to the touch before the next group. I had brought a 17HMR with me, so I was banging away with it during the cool down.

Is the 2 shot group more representative of what would be fired in a hunting situation?

I did notice one interesting phenomenon re the point of aim. As the load increased, the point of impact moved right. The final group hit 3" to the right of the point of aim while the 100 grain Hornady factory loads I had been shooting in this rifle would have been directly above the point of aim.

The Barnes solids are a little spendy. I probably could have done just fine with the Hornady or other FMJs at 1/3 or less the price. The dollars and cents may dictate something else.

Thanks again.