Hey guys, I'm trying to put together a 243. It was the first deer gun I ever shot and it brings back some fond memories. I thought I'd see if you had any good .243 memories to share.
My favorite is the time my uncle Tom took me out shooting. I guess I was 15 at the time. I was shooting his Savage 99 in .243 and he was shooting a 300 Win. Mag. He sat up a bunch of Old Milwaulkee cans about 100 yds. away. He would shoot and a can would go flying. Then I would shoot and miss. This went on until he got bored and went back inside. I walked down range to inspect my can, and low and behold it looked like swiss cheese. I was tickeled to death to find out that my aim was true. That was 20 years ago. Now that I got through the "Magnumitis" stage, I'm looking forward to getting back to the fun little big gun. Let's hear your stories.
Jay

Hunting 243 stories? Have to be the one where we were on a cattle station in QLD (in OZ) chasing down a mob of pigs. we had already shot 11 pigs out of the mob (it was a cull, not trophy hunting, you have to go along with the station owner if you want to be invited back!). Running along the treeline, I stopped to catch my breath, when I noticed a piglet no bigger than my boot, with it's head stuck under a piece of bark, in ostrich mode. Placed the BBl of the 243 gently against its flank, and squeezed. As you can imagine, said piglet ceased to exist in spectacular fashion. Farner comes running up, and says " did you get him? It smells like he was a really big one!"
Rolling around on the ground laughing, my associate gently informed the farmer that it wasn't a big pig, just a little one, well dispersed!

Cheers, Dave.
Non Illegitium Carborundum

Back in high school my deer rifle was an open sight 30-30. The job I had was some general labor on a Ranch. One day the 2 older guys I worked with, they were in their 20's wanted to try their .243's at 400yds. They were going to New Mexico to hunt antelope, they set up a red mechanics rag on a peice of plywood 400yds downrange. I said I would get my 30-30, they lauged, said there was no way I could shoot that far! 1st guy took 3 shots at the rag, all missed, 2nd guy fired 3 shots none hit the rag, 1 did hit the 4x8 sheet of plywood. I took my turn, I just guesstimated some elevation, and let rip 3 shot's, ALL 3 were on they red rag! They never wanted to shoot with me again

I was hunting with my dad long ago and my new .243. A big doe offered a perfect broadside shot at about 120 yards. Off a nice rest I shot.......she gave a tiny jump....looked my way then continued to nibble and feed. I was perplexed! I KNEW I couldn't have missed her. My dad was amused. Our dogs came running from the house scattering the deer after about 20 seconds. I was determined that I had hit that doe! After a solo search of about a hour I found her 85 yards away dead. The shot was just two inches further back than I would have liked. I was using the 95 gr Nosler BT and they were just icepicking through the deer, on more than one occasion. At least I had this deer to prove to my dad I hadn't missed and later I switched to Partitions and they have all be bang/flops since then. After shooting several deer with the 95 Noslter BTs I had about decided that the .243 wasn't a deer round but my record with the 95 Nosler partitions has been perfect. Enjoy your rifle, they sure don't kick much! FNMauser

My best .243 story is when I dug mine out of the deepest, darkest recess in the closet and had it re-barrelled to a 7-08 (back when the 7-08 was still a wildcat). It gave me a vastly superior deer rifle that was accurate to a fault. Bullet selection ain't too bad neither.

Way back in 1978, I had acquired a Kodiak Mauser barreled to the .243. For those that never heard of them, Kodiak took milsurp mauser actions, altered the bolt handles for scope use, barreled them to various sporting rounds and put them in the most butt ugly cheapie maple stocks available. I have seen exactly three of these rifles. My ,243, one a friend had in .308 Norma magnum and the one I have now in .358 Winchester.

Anyway, I had just bought my first coyote call, a Circe as I recall, and me and my hunting buddy were parked in his truck way out in the middle of a field on a ranch in Nevada. I gave a couple of amateurish toots on the call and five coyotes came a runnin'. I bailed out of the truck and started shooting. When the noise stopped, I had four dead coyotes on the ground. When we went to get them to skin them out, my buddy spotted a blood trail going in the direction that the last coyote had run off to. After loading the four yotes in the truck we took off looking for number five. We finally found her about three miles, deader than canned salmon, but she'd gone all that distance with a gut shot. She also stunk like hell. The other yotes were all dogs, and I think she was not only in heat, but was taking on all comers (pun intended) When we got home we put them all on strtchers to dry the hides which BTW brought $100 each. It was a fairly cold winter that year and the hides were prime. That .243 got me enough of those yodel pups to pay cash for a new 4x4.
Paul B.

I guess my best story about my .243 Ruger77R is I sold it and kept my 6mm.Ruger77R.

I have been a big fan of the 243 for several years now. My first deer rifle was a 7mm Rem mag and I shot several deer with it. I first bought a 243 as a coyote rifle. I picked up a savage 110 w/nickols 3-9 at a gun show for $200 bucks. The rifle was accurage with most factory ammo and I settle with some 80gr winchester ammo and preceded to shooting some left over cans of gravy and cranberry sauce left over form thanksgiving. It was a blast so much more fun to shoot than my 7mm mag. I shot my first coyote with it, called in to about 80 yards, bang flop.

I started liking the 243 so much I bought another one, this one a browning Eurobolt. It was such a handy little devil that I decided to try it out on deer. Federal premium 100gr Sierra gameking SBT loading was the most accurate and is the same load I still use to this day. 15 deer have fallen to the browning and 100gr sierra SBT. All but one have been 1 shot stops, several have penetrated thru both shoulders. Shots have been from 60-280 yards. The furthest a deer has traveled was less than 75 yards, most died within 20. The one time I had to shoot more than once it was poor bullet placement that caused the need for a second shot. Due to the mild recoil of the 243 repeat shots were much easier and faster than if I was using the 7mm mag.

So my old savage wouldn't feel to neglected I gave it to my sister who has used it to shoot several white tails of her own, same load with 100gr sierra SBT.

Here is my latest deer shot with the 243. Shot a little too high in the back at 80 yards and a quick pair of follow up shots into the lungs as it got up and ran. Went a whopping 50 yards after the first shot.

Great stories, keep'um comin'.

I bought my Blaser K95 (not a 243)at a local gunshop after I had given up trying to find a 243 sako classic. A while later I was investigating trading an inherited shotgun for some binoculars plus cash. I went to the shop and saw a sako classic in 243 which had been traded in by someone buying a K95 (probably his and mine the only 2 bought in the UK that year!) I duly traded for that instead.

It is a stunning rifle that I love more than it should be possible to love a factory rifle. They don't make em like that any more!

my mod 70 winchester .243 was my first centre fire, and it"s still my favourite. it"s a joy to carry and shoot. being a short action, and a soft shooting calibre, you can avoid the modern craze for unneccessary heavy barrels.
i have many fond memories and stories thanks to my .243, so don"t let anyone tell you it"s "not enough gun", just because they missplaced a shot and blamed it on the calibre!
(ha ha, that should stir things up a bit!)
i shoot 100 gr sierra pro hunters(sp) for everything, and it has knocked down dozens of deer from little Roe, up to Red stags.
i can"t imagine not having a .243!
good shooting.

I bought a new M70 243 Varmint rifle in 1957 with the money I made from a summer job at the Underwood Typewriter Co. The rifle was to be a long range chuck gun and 200 yd target rifle for four position competition.

I really wanted a 220 Swift but a gun writer by the name of Bob Wallack and others were tearing the Swift to pieces that it was no good and I went with the 243.

I still have that rifle and now it has an original Winchester 220 Swift barrel on it as I wore out the 243 barrel long ago.

The rifle was quite a sucess at target shooting as the competition was the 30-06 and you don't need that kind of power at 200 yds. In fact I downloaded the 243. For the most part I shot the 75 gr Sierra HP.

I never hunted big game with the 243 as we always had 06's etc. Today I have a 243 in a lightweight rifle with a 22" barrel thats a walkng varminter.

The 243 is one of my favorite long range varmint cartridges.

At present, I have three rifles in .243.

1.) Remington 600 (bush gun)
2.) Remington 722 (all purpose deer gun)
3.) Remington 700 Varmint Special (obvious)

My dad bought me a Sako L579 in 243 for my 15th. birthday and I killed my first 5 or 6 deer with it. I started handloading with that rifle and a 222Sako. I still have it(on it's 3'rd barrel) as I used it for predator calling alot. My daughter has her own 243-a Rem. M700 with the barrel turned to a lighter contour and the stock slimmed and shortened. Fitted with a 6X Lyman she has killed 6 deer with 7 shots. The load we always shoot on biggame is the 100gr. Sierra spitzer/43grs. of IMR4350. This load always clocks in at over 3000fps. in a 22in. barrel. Pedro

Jason: I used to Hunt an area out west here where it was not unusual to kill 200+ Rock Chucks in a days Hunting!
I have used my older Remington 40-X Rangemaster in caliber 243 Winchester in this area on numerous occassions.
One shot on Rock Chucks in particular with this wonderful Rifle always puffs me up a little when I think about it!
This shot took place while I had set up on the edge of a cultivated field and was watching the giant rock slabs on the far side of the field - about 400 yards distant (this was before laser rangefinders came along!) for Chucks.
I was intent on only shooting the full grown adult Chucks and leaving the yearlings and pups of the year for "seed"!
Anyway out onto the slab of rock (that was slanted toward me) came a huge old boar Chuck. He waddled he was so fat! I was using a then new Leupold 6.5x20 variable scope and for bullets I was shooting the Sierra 85 gr. HP/BT match bullets. I asked my partner to spot for me and I used the du-plex reticle to aid in "ranging" - adjusting my point of aim.
My shot - I am guessing - may have been a half inch low as I obviously hit on the bottom (downside) of the Chuck right amidships of him! That Chuck - I am not exagerating - "lifted off" to a height of at least 12 feet and maybe 15 feet high! It had time to do a couple of cartwheels on the way up and another on the way down!
I had to calm my spotter down as he was howling with incredulity! He could not believe a Chuck as large as this one could be flung that high!
Upon retrieval of what was left of that Chuck we guessed his "live weight" to have been 12 pounds!
Long live the 243 Winchester!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Savage99: I also have a bevy of Winchester pre-64 Model 70's in 243 and 220 Swift! I have two Varminters in 220 Swift - both in as new condition. I have 3 of these in 243 Winchester as well. These are in my "permanent collection". I also have two of the old Model 70 Varminters in 243 that I Hunt Varmints with. They both have custom stocks and still shoot well indeed!
I also have a 243 Target Rifle that is in my collection. I may shoot that one some day before I die. I would like to mount a good Unertl target scope on it and see how well that old Target Rifle will shoot with todays match quality BR bullets!
Long live the "old" Winchester Model 70's!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

My first deer not killed with a 30-30 was taken with a Remington Mohawk 600 in 243. I went to the store and the guy said try these on deer which turned out to be the Remington 80 grain Psp. I sighted in am got my first moa group. Went hunting the next weekend and made a tough shot in heavy rain hitting the deer right behind the shoulder as he angled toward me and the next thin I saw was four legs in the air. Benn a 6MM fan ever since.

A buddy and I were having a great chuck shoot in Western Vermont. One of the rifles was the 243 M70 and it had a superb Unertl Ultra Varmint 15X on it. A chuck came out in a furrowed field and it was really far. This was about 1970 and long before we had good rangefinders or easy to calculate drop and drift data. I held over and hit close to the chuck and my buddy spotted the miss and I adjusted. On the third shot the 75 gr HP hit the chuck good and it stayed right there.

For years my good buddy mentioned that long shot and called it 700 yds. I did not think that it was that far but what harm did it do?

About three decades later the same buddy has moved to that town in VT and built a log cabin. We were in the same field and maybe a few trees were larger. This time I had a 1200 Scan with me and I was measuring the distances. That 700 yd shot could not be over 500 yds! My buddy said something gracious like "I think it was further than that"

Sold my Browning .243 and purchased a Ruger synthetic / stainless in .308.

Alreet lads, One of my tales with a .243 happened about a year ago up here in the North of England. Was out stalking Roe Bucks early one spring morning, I hadnt seen anything for about an hour and time was getting on so decided to stalk to a place that regularly produces a buck or two throughout the season. I stalked in on this particular plantation and spotted a buck thrashing at a young pine sapling, however I caught sight of other movement about 70 yards to its left, low and behold a extremely good buck a real gold medal head. As I needed to cull these bucks I decided to take the younger less mature buck first and hope the other stays still long enough to take a shot. I took aim at the first buck on my sticks... WHACK down he went at about 60 yds, quickly recycling another round I turned on to the medal head, he had moved 10 yds or so with the shot and pulling the cross hairs on to him I squeezed WHACK... sit down. As I recycled again incase of him getting up I noticed running across the neighbouring pasture a cheeky charlie fox, with this I pulled on to charlie at about 150 yds with my last Sako 100 grain twin head nosler and pulling through... WHACK charlie Crumples and cartwhiels to a stop. This all happened within 30 seconds and what a rush, I had to sit down for a minute. This was using my trusty Tikka T3 Lite synthetic, with Lisenfeld 6x42 scope. A brilliant outing if I say so and actually I got most satisfaction from booling charlie over! The .243 a must in every hunters armoury in my eyes. Regards Boppa J

Doubles on critters are always fun. I've done it calling coyotes 4 times. Had 3 or 4 dogs in a number of times but never managed a triple.
That's good shooting Boppa. Pedro

Cheers Pedro, that situation will certainly not happen again for a very long time, but I came to the conclusion that the fox had been laying up in that plantation and had bolted to the shots. All together though a one off. I hope you get a triple on the old yotes sumtime soon pedro! Im very much hoping to shoot some coyotes and the other vermin you have over in you neck of the woods sometime in the future!

I have a couple fond memories of my Vanguard 243 from way back. It was a fine shooting rifle and one morning after sitting in a stand deep in the woods I decided to head to the house for lunch. I was driving my Jeep CJ7 along side a corn field and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw an ear flick. I stopped quickly and stuck the rifle out the window for a better view. A nice buck was looking straight at me so I aimed at the white spot on his neck and shot. Since it was a corn field I did not see him drop but saw a buck take off across the field. I hopped and took a shot and nicked him. The funny thing is that he stopped and got low and started crawling like he was sneaking away. I almost laughed. I could see a little opening just ahead of him and when he got in there I shot and dropped him. It turned out that I got two bucks to my surprise and joy. I eventually upgraded to a 7mm08 and sold the 243. I would never go back to it. The 7mm08 is just too sweet.

Well years ago ( 1983 ) work took me to Texas and while living there I got on a deer lease near Hamilton Texas. The "wife at the time" or "future ex-wife to be" showed some interest in hunting deer so I got her a .243, (a little Win M70 Carbine), much to the disapproval of some other big guns on the lease. These fella's let my spouse know that .243's and 6mm's are good for nothing but wounding deer and letting them run off and die on the neighbors property. I told her to ignore them as I was killing deer with none other than a 22/250 at the time ( 2 dozen one shot kills on Blacktailed deer and whitetails up till then). Anyhow she practiced her tail off and I just kept loading bullets and she just kept shooting little bitty groups with Sierra 100 grainers and 42 grains of IMR 4350. The night before she killed her first buck one of the guys on the lease shot up a small buck real bad and it died in the pond 4 shots from a BAR 300 Win mag hitting it 3 outta 4, he came back talking about how tough Texas whitetails are and that he had wounded 3 the year before with a 6mm then stepped up to the 300 and how most guys hunt for years without getting a shot let alone to screw it up with a little gun. Well the wife was shook a little but when her buck stepped out at 125 yards she plugged him with a straight on chest shot that dumped him 50 feet from where he was hit. Couple days later another one shot kill for her base of the neck buck trotting broadside at 75 yards bang-flop, I killed one that night with the 22/250 bang-flop at 140 yards. No one uttered a word about the little guns after that. Not to mention she out shot most of the guys on the lease any time someone wanted to show off their skills, pretty much stopped all the showing off.

I have just ordered a Kimber 84M Classic in .243 and can't wait for it to arrive. Chose the combination of the gun and calibre because I typically hunt several hours tramp into the bush, and want a light rifle to make things easier. More than enough to nail some reds.

My favorite .243 story is when I finally got $175 for it on Gunbroker.....it was a (dare I say it) model 7400......YUK! POS!

IV

The first buck I ever kiiled was with my dad's .243. I walked him up in a cutover, he was running straight away at about 60yrds. I hit him in the right hind quater, the bullet the exited and went in throughback of the stomach and all the way trough the chest.

Mine is a good one. I got the gun 243 remington 700 adl when i was 13 i never really hunted until i turned 20, i saved up a put a new luepy scope on her loaded up some 95g balistic tips, i know not the best choice and headed up for my first hunting season. me and a buddy got in on a lease in south carolina besides a couple of trips here and there this was my first real season hunting. so we sent off aug 14th one day before the season and a week and a half until our college classes started. the first couple of days were slow and hot, nothing like sitting in a stand in 96 degree weather spraying yourself with scent spray to stay cool. well the third afternoon i finally see horns, i wasnt quick enough and he slipped by but he came back to nibble on my 200lbs of corn i put in the road the week before. i was nervous and impatient and tried to shoot him at a way to severve quartering angle, i flinced a bit and hit in dead square in the ass, he dropped and ran off, i waited and walked down 50mins later found him bedded up, i then put one in the boiler room and he ran 40yds, i had done it my first buck, 2nd deer to date boy was i excited, well i tied down the legs my pard handled the head, needless to say 15miles to the skinning shed, the head slipped out, one sholder and his jaw were completely road shred, and his left horn was knocked loose,
i certanily wont ever forget that story neither will the boys at camp who saw us drag my buck home

A local Grand Junction fellow whose wife I worked with Believed all the hype about the .243 that existed back than in the early 60s.He went up on Grand Mesa and filled three tags. The story goes that he killed the three bull Elk in less than a minute with his new .243.Of course his two buddies co-oberated his story. Why not??? roger

This is my one and only 243 story; never shot one, never owned one.
It must have been '56 or '57. Probably October. My uncle stops by the farm and says to my dad did he wanna see the new rifle he won on a raffle ticket. Model 70, caliber 243 with riflescope, and pulls a cartridge from his pocket to show the size and says how this is the newest, flatest shooting deer caliber made. My uncle was beaming. My dad, who owned a Rem 760 30-06 said prove it. My uncle, kinda searching in his mind's eye, says how am I gonna do that. It's not deer season for 2 months. Just then way out at the other end of the cow pasture, a ring necked pheasant cock bird crows...cook, cook...like they're want to do.

My dad says I'll think about believing you if you can hit that cockbird. Uncle Woody calmly rested his new prize over the hood of his '50 Pontiac sedan right there on top of the barn bank and let one fly. BANG...POOF An explosion of feathers at about 250 yards. Woody just smiled like he was want to do, and my dad said, boy go fetch that bird, we'll fix it for supper lest it go to waste. I ran to the scene of the crime (it wasn't small game season, either) and only found scattered pieces over a 5 foot radius. Only good enough for soup meat. My dad ate crow.
He never did give up that 760 '06. Knowing him, probably just for spite cause Woody showed him up.