What are bullets of choice for the .243 ?

Two uses interest me, deer hunting and the second would be coyotes and other small game.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks

95 grain Partition for deer and 95 grain BT for coyotes will work and shoot to the same, approximate, POA in my 243 and 6mm rifles.

Jeff

quote:

Originally posted by 260remguy:
95 grain Partition for deer and 95 grain BT for coyotes will work and shoot to the same, approximate, POA in my 243 and 6mm rifles.

Jeff

That works.....I think one can also use the old Hornady interloack flat base 100 grain for both tasks.

Sierra 85gr HPBT works for most anything from fox on up to pretty good size (250 lbs) deer and caribou thru the ribs. 95gr Nosler partition works too.

Regardless of the bullet selected, success with the .243 on deer or larger critters is heavily dependent on proper shot placement. I know, that's ture with everything.

I once saw a 55+" Kenai moose that was shot with a .243 117gr Barnes RNSP. It went in thru the left rear rib cage went thru the heart and a lung and exited thru the right front shoulder with maybe a 1/2" exit wound. That's probably 4-5 feet of animal and a heart that is as big as your head!! It acted just like a pretty slow 6.5mm 160 gr RN or a 7mm 175 gr RN.... some expandsion and just keeps going and going!!

I've had trouble with the 85 grain Sierra 243 HPBT and 90 grain Sierra 257 HPBT failing to penetrate through the rib cage and into the pleural cavity on deer, so I have stopped using them for game. They are accurate and when they work, they work really well, but when they fail, they fail badly. The 95 grain Partition offers a nice balance of potential velocity, accuracy, and penetration in the 243 and 6mm.

Jeff

For deer, I like the Nosler Partition in 95 or 100 grain versions.

(Although, I did once shoot a nice buck with a 100 grain CoreLokt and got an absolutely picture perfect mushroom from it...)

For groundhogs, I use either the Nosler Ballistic Tip or Sierra MatchKing, both in 70 grain versions. They are both extremely accurate, and quite effective on groundhogs.

260remguy,

Interesting!! I've only shot 10 -12 deer with the the Sierra 85gr HPBT and all were catastrophic events for the deer. I did hit one that was too high and broke the spine aft of the front shoulders and I had to finish him with a 22LR to the head. My fault, not the bullet's, it still did not blow up...went thru the spine and kept going.

Wonder if you could have gotten a less than good batch of bullets. Anyone else have problems with the .243 Sierra 85 gr HPBT on deer?

No problems with the 85 grain Sierra HP at all...

It and the two sleepers ( due to lack of glitzy marketing) in 6mm are the Speer 90 grain and 105 grain SPs.... they are cheap, accurate and have excellent on game performance!

ONE of my favorite standby's that of course was discontinued ( that happens to all bullets Seafire starts using regularly!) is the Sierra 100 grain Semi Pointed.... I bought 4 boxes to hoard up for the rest of my hunting career...

cheers
seafire

Gidday Guys,

I gotta say I'm with Seafire all the way. I havn't used the heavy Speers but have had nothing but good performance fron the 90 gr hotcors.

As for the 85 gr sierras I have tried to get one of my mates to give them away in favour of the 90gr Speers. I'm not having too much joy with this as he keeps dropping deer with the varmint bullets. Even knocks over some pretty heavy pigs with them too.

Damn I hate it when someone replies to my arguments with just good solid results and facts. You just can't argue with meat on the table.

You won't go wrong with either of these, you just gotta be confident and place your shots where they count.

Happy Hunting

Hamish

I've shot a few deer with both the 85 grain 243 and 90 grain 257 Sierra BTHPs, starting in 1982 with a Ruger 77R in 257 Roberts. When they work, which is most of the time, they blow a hole in the ribcage of a deer that you can put your fist through and you get "bang - flop". However, when they don't work, they can create a shallow wound that just tears a piece of hide off. After I blew a couple of dinner plate size pieces of hide off a couple of small to average sized deer, I quit using them for deer.

Jeff

Does anyone have experience with the Barnes
85 Tripple Shock X bullet ??
Looks like it might be a decent comprimise.

quote:

Originally posted by 260remguy:
I've shot a few deer with both the 85 grain 243 and 90 grain 257 Sierra BTHPs, starting in 1982 with a Ruger 77R in 257 Roberts. When they work, which is most of the time, they blow a hole in the ribcage of a deer that you can put your fist through and you get "bang - flop". However, when they don't work, they can create a shallow wound that just tears a piece of hide off. After I blew a couple of dinner plate size pieces of hide off a couple of small to average sized deer, I quit using them for deer.
Jeff

Really a definitive expose'.

Using the 90gr sierra BTHP in a .257 Roberts at 3100 fps. I shot a coyote about 50 yds out. Clean broad side shoot, steady rest,big thump, coyote does a quick roll over, gets up and runs away.At 200 yds. he was still making tracks and finally got lost somewhere. Never found him.

Was using the 6mm x.270 IMP with a 105 gr. Speer
non premo at OVER 3300 fps. Had a near perfect shot placement on a large 6 point (Western) mule deer.My 14 year old partner finally put him down with a neck shot from his 30-30. The initial wound was fist size, took out hide and some rib bone but that was it.

There are more fast, small caliber bullet stories of hunts that have gone bad but dealing with something like the .243 on large deer a premium bullet such as a Nosler is truely indicated.Small deer and reduced loads are another story.

Maybe that 105 Speer would make good coyote medicine. roger

Seems we're having the "went to different schools together" experience. My experience with bullet performance has been FULL of surprises over the years. Last year my oldest son got a bug up his butt and wanted to use a .450 Marlin for 100 lb deer. We loaded some fairly hot 350 gr Rem HPs and sighted them in. I predicted he would blow a hole in the deer. His first deer, 130 lb doe, was hit thru the shoulder and did NOT exit. She ran 50 yards or so. Next one was hit thru the ribs at 45 yds and dropped on the spot, but the 350 gr HP did not Exit....hard for me to believe, but it was found against the off side rib in 2 pieces. To this day, I can't figure out how little deer stopped a big bullet like that without complete penetration. That is certainly not a big game 45 cal bullet, but it worked perfectly on the little deer. End of my experience with the 450 Marlin.

I will continue to use the .243 Sierra 85 gr HPBT because it has ALWAYS worked of me, but so has the 63 gr Semi-pointed in a .223....kills way better than it should.

Hunt safe!!

Lowrider,

Isn't that Rem .458 JHP a 300gr? Didn't know they made a 350gr... And if you loaded it too fast it's probably beyond it's capabilities. It blew up on you on that smaller deer. Choose the right bullet and the .450 Marlin performs very well. For that size game it's probably fine, but beyond that penetration will fail on larger game if you use that bullet at those velocities.

As much as I like some Sierra bullets, my experience with them failing more than once has turned me against them. Since I have a herd of rifles, I tend to find 1 load that works the best in each rifle for an intended use. For deer, IF I was limited to 1 bullet per cartridge, my preferred cartridge/bullet combinations would be:

22-250/60 grain Partition
243 & 6mm/95 grain Partition
250 Savage/87 grain Speer (Not the TNT Style)
25 Souper, 25 WSSM, 257 Roberts, 257AI, & 25-284/115 or 120 grain Partition
260, 6.5x55, 6.5-284, & 256 Newton/129 grain Hornady SpirePoint
270 WSM/140 grain Partition
284 & 7x57/140 grain Partition
300 Savage & 307/170 grain Partition
308 & 30-06/165 grain Partition
8x57/200 grain Partition
338-284 & 338-06/210 grain Partition
356/220 grain Speer HotCore
358/225 grain Partition
44Mag/240 grain Speer Gold Dote Hollow Point

Jeff

458 Ruger,

You are right...I stand corrected...thanks for painting that out, they were 300 grain Rem HP on top of 44 gr of 4198. That is not really a hot load as I said earlier. I am still amazed that a 300gr slug stayed inside a little deer, not once, but twice. There is a lot of exposed lead and a pretty big cavity in front of that fat fellow. The bullets and the gun did just a it should...2 shots, 2 deer.

I'm shooting a 180 gr HP .40 cal in my 45 cal front stuffer and it has exited in all 4 deer I have shot with it and made quick kills at around 1800 FPS. Again, functioned as designed!!!

My kids have been using 100 grain hornady interlocks on deer. So far two muleys a whitetail, and one antelope that I shot have been one shot kills. I don't have any reason on changing that bullet yet.

Another vote for Hornady interlocks,100gr Red,Fallow deer,pigs,goats on problems

For small game like woodchuck I prefer the Sierra 70gr. HPBT and the Nosler 70gr. Bal.Tip. Both do a great job. For larger game, up to deer size I use the Sierra 85gr. HPBT. For deer I like the Hornady 95gr. SST. It's a hard hitting rascal. It seems to me that lately many shooters are getting away from the 100gr. bullets in .243Win. Anyone else notice this? Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

Just acquired a 700BDL in .243 Winchester. Not having much success working up a 70 gr Nosler btip load (1.5" best). Any suggestions? How about the 55gr Nos btip?

quote:

Originally posted by MikeMichalski:
Just acquired a 700BDL in .243 Winchester. Not having much success working up a 70 gr Nosler btip load (1.5" best). Any suggestions? How about the 55gr Nos btip?

Have had great repeatability with 58gr. V Max. roger

quote:

Originally posted by MikeMichalski:
Just acquired a 700BDL in .243 Winchester. Not having much success working up a 70 gr Nosler btip load (1.5" best). Any suggestions? How about the 55gr Nos btip?

Mike,

First welcome to the forum...

Secondly, I purchased an ADL that shot ANYTHING into a good 3 to 5 inch group at 100 yds....
One of the few rifles I was ready to ditch after a couple of hundred rounds thru it....

Worked up some loads of 55 grain ballistic tips, with H 380 before Nosler published that data in their manual....

Well at 50 grains of H 380, I end up with a one hole group at 100 yds.... This made no sense with this rifle based on experiences... Maybe just one hole and the rest just missed the target was more to this rifle's style....

So tried it again and got the same results....
And again and again.....

Recoil is up there since you are using 50 grains of powder, but the accuracy has been outstanding... Have used the same load with the Sierra 60 grain HP with the same results....

Needless to say this rifle did not find itself out on the street..... but you can guess what 98 % of it's diet is!

Good luck....

cheers
seafire

I basically use 3 loads in my .243 Ruger. #1 is for general purpose varminting, and target shooting. This load consists of 55gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips (seated so ONE CALIBER of the bullets base is in the case neck) loaded with Blue Dot Powder. Velocity averages 3202 FPS from the 22" Barrel, and the last 4 groups I shot with this load averaged .624" at 100 yards.

Next up is a 70gr. Nosler Ballistic Tip loaded to 3359 FPS. This load is my mainstay Coyote Medicine. but it is not Coyote Friendly, kills em dead. The nice thing about these first two loads is they almost print exactly where I want them. When zeroed for the 55gr. NBT load, to be zeroed perfectly for the 70gr. NBT load I need to click my scope 3 clicks to the right. When zeroed for the 70gr. NBT load I need to click my scope 3 clicks to the left to be zereod for the 55gr. NBT load.

Lastly for Whitetails I am shooting 100gr. Sierra Spitzer Boat Tails. This bullet has an amazing Ballistic Coefficient, and is quite accurate. Velocity out of my Ruger is 2866FPS, and the two Whitetails I have taken so far with this bullet were both one shot kills (one at 150 yards, one at 250 yards).

Larry

quote:

Originally posted by MikeMichalski:
Just acquired a 700BDL in .243 Winchester. Not having much success working up a 70 gr Nosler btip load (1.5" best). Any suggestions? How about the 55gr Nos btip?

Mike ,
Work up to 41 gns Varget with the 70 gn Nosler . This seems to be a univerally accurate load and gives around 3500 FPS .
My .243 AI prefers the 55 gn Nosler at 4030 FPS with 46.5 gns Varget . You should be able to get close to this in the std. .243 as it is very mild in my rifle .
55gn also shot in the 3's with Win 760 at 3970 FPS . Once again you should get close to this .
Don't worry if you can't seat the 55 gn close to the lands .

87 grain Spire Point Hornady are the best in my opinion. I also tried the 100gr hornady sp and the 90gr ballistic tip.

the 87gr sp had awesome trajectory and killing power- try it you wont be disappointed