I have never found anything not to like about the 243.Accurate,easy to load for,light recoil.
I have taken a half dozen or so whitetails at 300 to 350 yds with this round with no problems or complaints. 2 with 85gr sierras 4 with 95gr BTS. The longest tracking job was 50yds.I am not saying it is the best caliber for the job,but it is ALL THAT IS NEEDED for THIS job if YOU are capable of doing YOUR job! I would hate to think the buck I have been looking for all season or all my life was standing at 350yds and I passed him because I thought I was UNDERGUNNED with a 243. My suggestion? If you don't like them don't buy one.It is none of my business or yours what people shoot with theirs. PS. Don't believe what your buds tell you when they lose an animal.No one likes to admit to a PISS POOR SHOT. EGO

Trying to convince a bona fide gun nut ( and most of us are here), of the fine merits of the 243 would be like trying to tell a kid looking through a candy store window that he only needs one piece. And face it, the 243 is just boring in this day of fluzz-bluster, range-em at a mile, kill-em deader than dead, range rockets.
The truth is simple; isn't it always! The 243 does many things well. Like a 1/2 ton pickup. It ain't a big puller and it doesn't get the milage of a rice burner but it does most things well enough. To many here it would carry the damnable name of a (cover your ears), dual-purpose rifle.
It's not a 223/ 22-250, but it will scream 55/58 gr. bullets downrange at varmints. If it's a little windy, it'll hold 70-80 gr. bullets on target pretty well. It's not a 270 either, but out to 250-300 yrds; (further for you better shots), it'll kill a hog, deer, antelope, etc. dead enough to butcher. It's not the best first rifle to buy or you might not wind up being a gun nut!

I used a .243 to shoot an antelope this year. I hadn't shot a .243 for over ten years prior to that hunt. The rifle was light and easy to stalk with. I ended up crawling up a slope and around a rocky knoll. Recoil was barely perceptible. I must admit that I was a bit surprised by the result. At 125yds with a frontal shot the antelope reared up, twisted in air, fell, and it was over. I was anticipating a bit of tracking and perhaps a follow-on shot. I was very wrong. The entire pleural cavity was completely jellied but the meat was in good shape. I will use the rifle again.

Gren. What bullet were u using? Thx.

As funny as it sounds, I don't have any idea. I purchased a couple of boxes of ammo on my way to the airport. When I got on site I took the ammo out to check and adjust zero. It was only then that I discovered I had accidentally purchased two boxes of .243 WSSM. Ugh! One of the guys there had some .243 handloads that another person not on the trip had given him. I had no choice. I had to zero with the handloads and I shot the antelope with that unknown load. All I remember is that the bullet had a purple plastic tip which would have made it a Nosler, perhaps a 95gr ballistic tip.

quote:

Originally posted by 416Tanzan:
Why do you like the 243 Win?

Nice little calibre and distinctly better than the 223 on deer.

They make a good setup for a 6mm-284...

quote:

Originally posted by 416Tanzan:
Why do you like the 243 Win?

Because the factory brass is widley available, cheap, and easy to make my 260 Rem brass out of..

Great all round rifle for medium australian game.
Smaller pigs ( not the big cape or NT boars) fallow deer and what I mainly use it on feral goats.

Easy to load and cheap to feed
And little recoil

Because it won't do anything that can't be done better with another cartridge?

flame suit on... go ahead, guys.

quote:

Originally posted by Doubless:
Because it won't do anything that can't be done better with another cartridge?

flame suit on... go ahead, guys.

So you're saying that the 257 Roberts would be a smidjin better? And the 260 Rem another small step better? With the 7-08 again a small step better? And then maybe the 308Win and 338Fed for moose-sized game?
Well, I agree.

But the 243Winnie is a great little entry-level hunting round, even though I've raised my family on the 270 as an entry-round. When my son was 11 he graduated from a 222 (great for oribi or spurwing geese) to the 270 with a hard-plastic pre-'64 buttpiece. The 243 wasn't available for us earlier and the 270 was a better choice for warthog and hartebeest. The 243 would have shined as an impala/cob/reedbuck gun.

quote:

Originally posted by 416Tanzan:
Why do you like the 243 Win?

Nice little calibre and distinctly better than the 223 on deer.

Like?
I hate the 243....... too small for deer and too large for varmints, that's why I have 22's and 25's that do the job right!

Cheers.

Have to say I like my .243 very, very much. I'm actually on my second one now, a Remington SPS with synthetic stock. First one was a Sako Forrester my granddad gave me. Shot my first game animal, a big warthog boar, as well as my first impala with that rifle. In addition to three black wildebeest (one was at a measured 158m, the others at 254 and 288, respectively) I've also shot a youngish kudu bull (neck shot from close range), a couple of warthogs and more impala, springbuck and blesbuck with the .243 than I care to remember. Yes, it's a bit wind-sensitive, and yes, with the bigger animals you have to pick your shots, but I've never had a mishap.

Of course, the fact that I shoot full-bore silhouette at least once a month with mine, in addition to all sorts of other shooting competitions at our club, probably helps a lot as well. I guess I'm what could be described as intimately familiar with my .243.

I use 85-grain Sierra Gamekings at 3 250 fps for the silhouettes and targets and 90-grain Swift Scirocco's at 3 100 fps (previously 100-grain Partitions) for hunting.

I just read a story of a mauling that took place in SA in 1972 where a lioness what shot and killed by a man in desperate attempt to save his and a companions life.He had his face torn apart and managed to reach and find his musgarve 243 win-fired three shots and killed the lioness.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
I just read a story of a mauling that took place in SA in 1972 where a lioness what shot and killed by a man in desperate attempt to save his and a companions life.He had his face torn apart and managed to reach and find his musgarve 243 win-fired three shots and killed the lioness.

It actually happened at Shapi pan in Wankie NP in what was then still Rhodesia. The guy who shot the lioness, Willie de Beer, was severely mauled as well, along with another guy. The lioness killed Ranger Len Harvey earlier and injured his wife who was sleeping next to him severely as well.

Willie started off with a Model 70 .375 that was knocked out of his grip by the lioness as she tore off his scalp. He grasped the barrel of the .243 as he was crawling around, blinded by the blood flowing from his own scalp.

Although he did eventually manage to kill the lioness with the .243, I respectfully submit that this is perhaps not the best example of the lethality of the .243 as a hunting calibre.

Well, I'll letcha know what a 55gr NBT does to a yote pelt.....hopefully tonight.

Anyone who hates the caliber is just stubborn and/or ill-informed.

No I don't hate it.
But it is easy to find something that I like better.

quote:

Originally posted by Norton:
Anyone who hates the caliber is just stubborn and/or ill-informed.

quote:

Originally posted by jvw375:

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
I just read a story of a mauling that took place in SA in 1972 where a lioness what shot and killed by a man in desperate attempt to save his and a companions life.He had his face torn apart and managed to reach and find his musgarve 243 win-fired three shots and killed the lioness.

It actually happened at Shapi pan in Wankie NP in what was then still Rhodesia. The guy who shot the lioness, Willie de Beer, was severely mauled as well, along with another guy. The lioness killed Ranger Len Harvey earlier and injured his wife who was sleeping next to him severely as well.

Willie started off with a Model 70 .375 that was knocked out of his grip by the lioness as she tore off his scalp. He grasped the barrel of the .243 as he was crawling around, blinded by the blood flowing from his own scalp.

Although he did eventually manage to kill the lioness with the .243, I respectfully submit that this is perhaps not the best example of the lethality of the .243 as a hunting calibre.

What can I say exept the 243win saved the day and stole the show!

I don't.

For real world applications at least.

In competition, the yardages are generally marked +/- 5" and your ballistic drop charts take care of the rest. Competition is all about finding the absolute minimum recoiling cartridge.

Great choice for women and children, though, as well as the recoil shy.

Out in the real world we in Idaho call live varmint hunting; they are a short range application. If you don't have a range finder, how do you know how far across the canyon to that Rock Chuck colony is it?
If you do, what is the wind velocity and direction?

I am not particularly recoil sensitive, so I have no use for one.

to each their own...

quote:

Originally posted by Norton:
Well, I'll letcha know what a 55gr NBT does to a yote pelt.....hopefully tonight.

Anyone who hates the caliber is just stubborn and/or ill-informed.

I actually believe the opposite, those who adore the 243 are caught up in hype and not real world performance.
The other reason I seriously don't like the 243 is that more rifles in that particular cartridge have gone kablooey over any other, there must be a reason for this, such as people trying to load it up to velocities beyond it's capabilities.
Seen too many deer run off and not recovered with this cartridge to take it seriously.
I use one of the most underrated cartridges on the planet, the venerable 25-06, it outperforms many larger calibres with less recoil and flatter trajectories than many people realise.

Cheers.

416Rigbyhunter---Tell me one thing a 25-06 does that a .270 doesn't do better. You mentioned recoil. A 270 with 130 grain bullet and 25-06 with 120 grainer will have almost identical recoil with the 25-06 having more blast. This thread is about the .243 and really game wont know if it was 25-06 or .243 if you place the bullet right. Place it wrong---with either one and Houston we have a problem.

quote:

Originally posted by Doubless:
Because it won't do anything that can't be done better with another cartridge?

flame suit on... go ahead, guys.

You could say that about any other cartridge made.

257 Roberts? The 25.06 will do better.
25.06? the 270 will do it better.
270? the 30.06 will do it better
30.06? the 300 Mag will do it better?
300Mag? the 338 Mag will do it better?

Ad infinitum

i like it as it has helped me harvest 36 elk now never had to take a second shot. easy to reload for almost no recoil. just keep shots under 400 yds.always a heart-lung shot.

quote:

Originally posted by bigbill0690:
i like it as it has helped me harvest 36 elk now never had to take a second shot. easy to reload for almost no recoil. just keep shots under 400 yds.always a heart-lung shot.

Very nice. Congratulations.

quote:

Originally posted by carpetman1:
416Rigbyhunter---Tell me one thing a 25-06 does that a .270 doesn't do better. You mentioned recoil. A 270 with 130 grain bullet and 25-06 with 120 grainer will have almost identical recoil with the 25-06 having more blast. This thread is about the .243 and really game wont know if it was 25-06 or .243 if you place the bullet right. Place it wrong---with either one and Houston we have a problem.

This thread asked "why do YOU like the 243?" I don't, so I voiced MY opinion, if you're going to ask such a poignant question and not expect any negatives, what's the point of asking it in the first place?
Tell me one thing that a 243 does that a 25-06 doesn't do a LOT better.
Poor shot placement is just that, poor shot placement, your argument means nothing. No matter what cartridge you might be using, poor shot placement is no argument for choosing something different, a shot in the back foot with a 25-06 is no different to a shot in the back foot with 700 Nitro. Bullet diameter or weight is of no consequence when not put where an animal lives, FULL STOP.
If you think that a 25-06 in a 24" barrel is louder than a 270 in a 22" barrel, you must have better hearing than anybody that I know.

Cheers.

I like the fact it is cheap to run.
Ammo and components are readily available.
It is adequate for most of the readily available hunting and shooting near me.
It won't make you stand out in a crowd 'cause just about everyone has one.

Do I own one ? Yes, for my son to use.
I run a 250 Savage.

416Rigbyhunter--We seem to 100% agree on shot placement. You said what I said. Poor shot placement is just that. Put it in the right place and size doesn't seem to matter much. Which part of my argument means nothing?

I love my .243's! They've put a lot of meat in the freezer over the years for me and my son. I shoot the bigger bores too like 45/70,358win and 480 ruger to name a few. Shot placement is critical with any caliber and too many doofuses think a mega blaster makes up for their lack of skill. I can kill stuff just as dead with a .243 as I can with a 45/70. Shoot whatever you're comfortable with and carry on without a worry what others think.

I have absolutely no use for a .243; too big for varmints and way too small for anything else. None for me. If I had seen this question earlier, I would have pissed off more people. I know, you have killed 100 grizzleys with it. I still don't like it and will never own one. In fact, I believe this is the first (and last) time I have visited this section. I just don't do small.

The rifle was free.

"...put it in the right place and size doesn't matter..."
Is this why all of the PH's in Africa and great bear guides in NA and Russia carry .243's?

quote:

reason I seriously don't like the 243 is that more rifles in that particular cartridge have gone kablooey over any other, there must be a reason for this, such as people trying to load it up to velocities beyond it's capabilities.

Goodness, you fault the cartridge because you know people who have over loaded it? There IS a reason for that sort of thing but it has nothing to do with the case!

This kind of argument can be fun but the results are usually meaningless. We have so many widely over-lap cartridges that nothing really stands out; pik one and go with it. Truth is, nothing's any good if the user misses or makes bad shots but a decent hit with a good bullet will kill quickly from any rational case.

The only good things going for a .243 is it can be quite light for easy all day carrying, the recoil is so light that good shots can be made from difficult positions, the trajectory is quite flat, load development is usually easy and the accuracy can be excellant. Other than that, my .243 doesn't have much going for it.

I have an 85 gr. cast bullet load that attains .22 RFM velocity and it's taken a lot of head shot squirrel and a few rabbits for camp food - that's fun! I've taken a couple hundred crows, a few dozen ground hogs and a couple of feral dogs. I have no idea why anyone would say the .243 isn't a good varminter.

I've eaten more than a couple dozen .243 white tail, all taken with a single common 100 gr cup and core Remington or Hornady bullet; not one has stayed on it's feet more than maybe 3-4 seconds after being hit. Unless someone is doing some poor shooting I can't imagine why anyone would question it's effectiveness on deer. I wouldn't choose it for moose, elk, cape buffalo or brown bear but I don't hunt them.

I luv my old Browning Safari H.Bbl. in .22-250 (with a classic 12x Unertl 1 1/2" target scope) for varmiting; my trusty old .35 Rem/336C is great for early season deep woods and bad weather deer; my .30-06/700 Mtn. Rifle is deadly for longish shots at deer. But IF I could only have a single game rifle, it would have to be be my 1972, walnut stocked, .243 Wea'by Vangard; it actually does anything the others do and does it all quite well. In fact, it's just 'cause I love rifles that I bought the others.

quote:

The other reason I seriously don't like the 243 is that more rifles in that particular cartridge have gone kablooey over any other, there must be a reason for this, such as people trying to load it up to velocities beyond it's capabilities.

I'd like to know more about some of these "kabloueys." If they are examples of detonation, then they may have had to do with underloading with a slow powder, the exact opposite of pushing the cartridge 'too hot.'

What are the details? Are there any writeups and pictures that are easily accessible?
What were the loads being used?
Were there any indications of things not right before the blowup?

Before buying a 243 for my young, then 7 year old, son for his first deer, etc, rifle I had little experience with it, though I had seem one of my brothers kill some deer with it. When I was looking for that rifle for my son, I really wanted a 250/3000, but because of the potential logistic issues - needing to buy ammo on the road or at a destination being the primary consideration, I decided to go with the ubiquitous 243. To keep logistics simple, because hunting with a youngster can be a patience tester, I bought an inexpensive Ruger LH 243 for myself. The 243 would have been the last cartridge I would have chosen, for myself, but the simplicity of the same ammo for the both of us outweighed my original disdain for the round.

Now, having seen my son use the 243, and having used it myself, I know that it is a plenty capable round for modest range deer hunting - at least if you choose a good bullet. I also know that it is great for fox at about any range, even with deer bullets.

For those who argue that young kids don't need to start with low recoil rounds, I'll say that if you want them to become good shots they will need to do a fair bit of centerfire shooting. A 22lr will get them a long way to being a good shot, but not all of the way. A low recoil cartridge with a good trajectory will get them the rest of the way. That could be a 223 or similar, but, imo, having them shoot the rifle they will actually hunt deer, hogs, etc, with goes a LONG way to making their hunts successful.

As far as perceived recoil, whatever the actual recoil of the rifle, there isn't much % wise when you are focused on shooting game. For example, even my 458 doesn't produce more recoil then "just enough to know the rifle fired" when I'm shooting a buff or elephant, but it has plenty on paper! The same hold true for the youngsters shooting deer, or hogs or whatever live game, and true for when they shoot paper.

The worst possible route for a young hunter to be forced down, is to shoot a rifle he or she does not look forward to shooting, recoil has much to do with that, rifle fit al well.


JPK

The 243Win is an excellent killer. From a really smart squirrel, a pesky turtle, numerous groundhogs, a coyote, a mercy killed horse, and finally last Thanksgiving Day a nice WV doe @ 130yds. Mine is a Ruger #1...been shooting it for many years. I do not feel under gunned at all. Tried to connect all week with a 7.62x54 with a 180gr Sierra but only had bad to marginal kill shots available with aging eyes and long shots. So out came the scoped rifle. Bang/flop.

the 243 win is bar far 1 of my favorite's i had a rocky mt black ram rifle built and shoot 105 grain berger vld's out of this rifle from a 26" barrel at 3100 fps i put a nf nxs 5.5x22x56 with zero stop on it and have taken white tails and mule deer out to 700 yards and coyotes in excess of 900 yards still trying to break the 1k yard on coyots with this gun but alot of timber up hereiv taken 5 large canadian/yukon moose and 3 elk with the 243 but keep shots under 400 yards for the bigger suff i will admit tho i took a real nice cow elk at 450 yards with this rifle and load last year she went all of 30 yards and piled up.

I am old enough to have been around and handloading when the .243 appeared on the scene. However, the cartridge never appealed to me. There was something about the long sloping shoulder and short neck which whispered "poor design", which it certainly was compared with the.22-.250 or .219 Improved Zipper, which were my varmint cartridges of choice. However, I did make use of the .243 in one sense: I had my gunsmith use a .243 reamer to open the chamber on a 6.5 mm Arisaka rifle to create a very early version of the .260 Remington.

I was shooting on the base team at Quantico in the late 1960's when one of my enlisted team members asked me if I would like to buy his Model 70 Winchester. The price ($75.00) was right, and I put it back, expecting to build a match rifle with it one day. The barrel was marked .243 Winchester, but it was also marked ".240 PSP", which my Gun Digest reading had revealed to me as the .240 Page Super Pooper, one of the experimental cartridges developed by Warren Page, sports writer and bench rest shooter.

The gun languished in my gun case for a number of years until I began to think of building the match rifle with it. Howwever, I decided to give it a try before replacing the barrel. I loaded up a box of .244 Remington ammunition (the basis of the .240 PSP) and headed for the range. After sighting in, I tried it at 300 meters, the longest range available. The five shot group measured 1.75". I never gave another thought to rebarreling. It has proved to be death on groundhogs.

In addition to the .240 PSP I have also used the 6mm Improved Krag and the 6mm-.225 as varmint cartridges.

The .240 PSP is everything the .243 is not. It has a long neck, a sharp shoulder, increased case capacity, and (according to Warren Page) the ability to bring down large New Zealand deer at long range. The .243 on the other hand was the result of a decision at Winchester to create the .243-.308-.358 family of cartridges with a minimum of difference in design, which accounts for the short neck and sloping shoulder.

The .244 Remington is a better design, but it was introduced with a 12" twist barrel as a purely varmint cartridge, and was incapable of handling the longer, heavier bullets needed for deer size game. Consequently, it never caught on, and the .243 did. Changing the name to 6mm Remington with the introduction of a 10" twist barrel did nothing to increase its popularity, just as the .280 Remington has never been a competitor for the .270 Winchester.

Years later, when the rules of high power match shooting were changed to allow calibers other than .30-'06 and .308, there was a flurry of interest in the .243 as a match cartridge. However, it quickly developed a reputation as a throat burner, which devoured barrels, and soon lost its allure, where other 6mm cartridges prevailed. My match shooting experiment with the 6mm bullet was in the form of the 6mm Walker International and the 6mm-.250.


The chief advantage of the .243, as with the .270 and the .30-'06, is the universal availability of ammunition. For the non-handloader it is the ideal double purpose rifle, a role equally filled with the .250-3000 Savage and the .257 Roberts, but without the ammunition availability. It will undoubtedly kill deer size animals with correct shot placement, but so will the 7X57 Mauser, all the way up to elephants, as W.D.M. Bell established.

In short, if you want a rifle you can walk into any Wal-Mart and get ammunition for and which, within reason, you can use on both varmints and big game, then the .243 should be your choice, but not mine.

(Confession: I presently own two rifles in .243, one a Model 77 Mauser and the other a Krieghoff combination gun, both of which, however, I bought with the idea of converting to something more appealing.)

The 243 will never be popular with serious gun nuts. Too many casual hunters use it for it to develop the kind of charisma some people need. Still several members of my family managed to get deer regularly with theirs and seemed satsfied.

quote:

Originally posted by Mikelravy:
The 243 will never be popular with serious gun nuts. Too many casual hunters use it for it to develop the kind of charisma some people need. Still several members of my family managed to get deer regularly with theirs and seemed satsfied.

I am a pretty serious gun nut and I have two of them. One is a Blaser K95, the other is a rebuilt Remington 700 with a 1 in 8 twist for shooting sniper rifle competitions. Honestly there are a ton of people shooting 243s in F-Class and sniper rifle competitions anymore.

Doesn't kick, with a VLD and the right twist can shoot just as well as a 6.5x284 with way less recoil and barrel wear. We are talking a 1000 yards here, not 300.

BWW
Oh I know it works great, for a lot of purposes. It"s just that some people need to have something different or newer or something. More to do with psychology than balistics.

Mikleravy--Not popular with serious gun nuts? Warren Page was a casual gun nut with just a passing interest?