I am currently hunting deer with my 243 rifle, and I am using a hornady 100gr intelocking bullet. I have seen that barnes makes an 85 grain bullet for my 243, I want to know which one is better, for all of you that have used those bullets.

I would take the 85gr Barnes everytime. 38gr of IMR-4064 at 2.72" OAL and you're good to go.

Hi!
Also excellent results here with 85gr. and IMR-4064... although I've used Sierra Gameking HPBT bullets instead of the Barnes - most deer don't make it out of their tracks!

quote:

Originally posted by Caleb A.:
I am currently hunting deer with my 243 rifle, and I am using a hornady 100gr intelocking bullet. I have seen that barnes makes an 85 grain bullet for my 243, I want to know which one is better, for all of you that have used those bullets.

Caleb, even though I do like the Barnes TSX, MRX, and TTSX, you are currently limited to the TSX. There has been debate on the smaller diameter bullets and their hollow points in terms of expansion. Many hunters have opined that the 6mm diameter TSX hollow point may be in that marginal diameter where penciling through a deer is quite probable.

Moreover, these opinions are not limited to 6mm, but also the .277 and even .284s.

The design is a good one, but at what point does the diameter of the hollow point begin to limit the bullets capability of expansion...or raise the probability of non expansion? I don't have the answer to that.

If you are satisfied with the 100 grain Hornady bullets and they shoot well, consider keeping the status quo as those bullets are very reliable.

If in fact, Barnes introduces a tipped TSX in 6mm, then that would be my preference, even at 85 grains.

Good luck with whatever you decide. Keep an eye on Barnes' website and look for a tipped TSX in 6mm in the future.

I have used the Hornady 100 grn Interlok in a 6mm Rem MV = 3003 fps. It worked excellent at 80 yards . It worked ok at about 350 yards but didn't open up a lot. It was just running out of FPS at that range. No fault of the bullet. that is just too far to be shooting.

I shoot Barnes 85 TSX and 38 gr Varget. Super accurate and very deadly on deer. Enough penetration that you likely won't recover one.

C.J.

I used to use Hornady, Sierra 100 gr. .243" bulelts and tried the Remington fatroy 100 gr. loads. I found all three to be very explosive -dunno why but just my experience.

I now use 85 gr. .243" bullets, either Nosler Partition or Sierra HPBT's and both deliver superb accuracy & terminal perfomance.

I'l qualify this though. The vast majority of these rounds are used on Roe Deer, much smaller and even much more fragile than even the smallest American Whitetail.

quote:

Originally posted by Gerry:
I'l qualify this though. The vast majority of these rounds are used on Roe Deer, much smaller and even much more fragile than even the smallest American Whitetail.

Really? How do they compare to the Key deer in Florida or the Coues deer in the southwest?

I dunno .....but i do know that the deer up in the midwest get a whole lot bigger than they do down there. We just have a better food source for them.


So, at about 200 yards with either bullet, I could kill a deer??