Is there something fun you can rechamber a 243 to? I'd rather not have a wildcat.

If you have room to set it back, you can rechamber to 6mm Remington. But you gain nothing. The 243 Winchester is actually one of those almost perfect little cartridges so I personally wouldn't mess with it.

But, as a general rule, people are nuts!

he he he

As a simply rechamber non wildcat not much if anything.

quote:

Originally posted by speerchucker30x378:
If you have room to set it back, you can rechamber to 6mm Remington. But you gain nothing. The 243 Winchester is actually one of those almost perfect little cartridges so I personally wouldn't mess with it.

But, as a general rule, people are nuts!

he he he

Well it may be perfect to some! HA I find it to be boring and unnecessary. It has a Mannlicher stock so setting it back is not an option really. I guess I should see how it shoots first. May have to rebarrel to a 7-08 or 7x57.

quote:

I guess I should see how it shoots first.

Rule of thumb never shoot a donor rifle.

wes, don't do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it will shoot to good to tear it apart.
max

I am on the other side; 243 is way to common a caliber to actually shoot so I would re-barrel to something more exotic. Some people like to shoot off the rack guns/calibers; not I.

I have my own 243 sitting at home I can't figure what to do with.

243 is the bestestest tin can plinkinist, muskrat sinkinist, moose tippinist cartrige north, south, east and west of wherever Yosamite Sam happens to-be-a-stoodin!

Y O U - H A V E - B E E N - T O L D !

I haven't figured out what to re-chamber a 243 to so I just left all three of mine alone.

There is really nothing at all wrong with them. I happen to prefer the 6mm. Mine just sits collecting dust waiting for the next grandkid.

quote:

Originally posted by ramrod340:
There is really nothing at all wrong with them. I happen to prefer the 6mm. Mine just sits collecting dust waiting for the next grandkid.

Interestingly enough this rifle is for my youngest son. Well it will be someday. HA

quote:

Originally posted by max(hm2):
wes, don't do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it will shoot to good to tear it apart.
max

I've torn up some pretty nice rifles to make better ones! HA

quote:

Originally posted by speerchucker30x378:
243 is the bestestest tin can plinkinist, muskrat sinkinist, moose tippinist cartrige north, south, east and west of wherever Yosamite Sam happens to-be-a-stoodin!

Y O U - H A V E - B E E N - T O L D !

-1

I have had three .243 rifles and I find the cartridge nothing short of disappointing.

If you're going to rechamber then you might as well go all the way and rebore to a real caliber like 7mm-08, .308, .338 Fed, or .358 Win.

Na ha. It sounds like you didn't like the rifles themselves. After all. You did keep going back to 243 three times.

W.M.D. 'Karamojo' Bell Only used a 7X57 because the 243 hadn't been invented yet!


I'm gonna need an 870 excavator to dig my ass out of this hole ! he he he

Have never owned, nor will I ever own, a .243. Now, I have owned several 257 Roberts; now there is a cartridge that the 243 always wanted to be. And there is a candidate for your action; oops, no, 257s need to be on a long action for best results.

quote:

257 Roberts

that and the 6mm always fit ME better. Might be because I started with 7x57s and worked out. Did he say what action he had? My 243 is a MKX with a simple block in the back just like they do the 22-250

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
Have never owned, nor will I ever own, a .243. Now, I have owned several 257 Roberts; now there is a cartridge that the 243 always wanted to be. And there is a candidate for your action; oops, no, 257s need to be on a long action for best results.

Well you can't blame poor Ned Roberts. After all, there were no 6mm caliber bullets to speak of in the 1920s. I'm sure if he had them, he wouldn't have bothered with the 257.

he he he

quote:

Originally posted by speerchucker30x378:
Na ha. It sounds like you didn't like the rifles themselves. After all. You did keep going back to 243 three times.

No, it was the cartridge and not the rifles. First one I bought because it was a gentle shooter. It was a S&W 1500 (Howa). I was actually impressed with the rifle. But the little bullet was such that it might as well have been chambered in .22-250 (another worthless round) or .22LR (an extremely useful round). The rifle went and it has never been missed.

Second one was a M600 Remington in beautiful shape. I took it to the range and, after shooting a box of super light, hyper-velocity, moly-coated Winchester factory rounds out of it the barrel was toast. Groups opened up to about a foot. I am convinced the moly allowed the hyper velocity bullets to ride over the rifling, wearing it down in the process. I think that if it had a bore bigger than .243 it wouldn't have happened. The rifle ended up getting a take-off Rem 600 .308 barrel and performed very well until the trigger was "adjusted" as part of the recall.

Third one was a BLR. I have owned several old style, steel, BLRs and I really like the rifles. But particularly poor performance of the little .243 on a deer shot broadside and hit in the proper spot from 70 yards really opened my eyes. Thank goodness for the 1911!

No, I kept hearing the hype from champions of the .243 and decided I needed to give it another chance. But I have come the conclusion the .243 is finicky, minuscule, too small for deer, too big for small game, and has mediocre accuracy. The .243 is either used when you really should be shooting a larger caliber or when you really should be shooting a .22.

I hate 243 Winchester too. I've had about 20 of the fawkers. In fact, the only un-shot ammo I have in my safe is a couple thousand rounds of 243, a couple boxs of 300 Winchester, some 30-30, 22RF and a few boxs of 17HMR for my BB gun. The only big game animal I ever lost was shot with a 264 Winchester. It was also my fault. I tried for a neck shot in low light at 70 yards. Never did that again.



Gunsmith Rod Henrickson 243 by Rod Henrickson, on Flickr

If in the odd case you have a 26" barrel, chamber it in 240 weatherby.

NNnnooo. I don't think that will work. The 240 Weatherby is a proprietary case with a base diameter of .452 inch. The 243 is based on the -06 case and has a base diameter of .471 inch. You would have to chop off an inch and a half to do it.

I think?

No one has said..

AI

quote:

No one has said..AI

Just going by his "nonwildcat" request.
Yes several AI options would clean up his chamber

And yes the 240 will not clean up the chamber

No. The 240 Weatherby won't work as it is in fact a improved .240 H & H case. So whilst the BASE AND "RIM" are .30-06 size the case sides are not.

The only factory cartridge that it would g to is .244 H & H but to be honest that is an awful cartridge that won't do you anything but an expensive powder bill!

243 PMM
No special reamer
No special dies
But you would have to buy and form 7x57 brass
And buy a quiver full of barrels
But he wants non-wildcat

The first .243 Winchester I ever owned was a pre-64 Model 70 and it had been rechambered to .240 Page Super Pooper. The .240 PSP was invented by gun writer and benchrest shooter Warren Page, and was essentially the same as the .244 Remington, except for the shoulder angle, which had been increased to the point that the reamer would clean up a .243 chamber. If I recall correctly, it predated the .244 and had a 1-10" twist, like the .243 to stabilize heavy bullets.

I bought the rifle at a very good price in 1966, planning to rebarrel it. Out of curiosity, however, I took it to a friend's range with some loads selected at random. It shot a 1.5" group at 300 meters, and I still have it, with the same barrel. It has had a long and successful life of varmint shooting over the intervening years.

Here is a link to the auction. I haven't gotten my hands on her yet. Should be here Friday.

Gunbroker auction

Yes it's a mark x long action with the block in the magazine.

I'm a (243) nut and have had the bad experience on a whitetail as well, then I switched to 85 grain Barnes and haven't looked back.

That said, in a mauser you need to re-bore and chamber that to either a 257 R or a 7x57.

Wish I had a copy of that stock pattern

quote:

Originally posted by ramrod340:
Wish I had a copy of that stock pattern

The old Sako Finbear had a pattern similar to that, except they put a (herring muncher who was high on acid) cheek piece on it and a barrel band that did absofuckinglutely everything bad for accuracy on it.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
257s need to be on a long action for best results.

Don't want to hijack the thread, but surely you jest! Lots of folks claim the long action advantage, but a chronograph reveals only about a 1% velocity gain. Big deal! I hate the 243, not because it's a bad cartridge, but because gun writers disparaged it while trying to sell the 243. The 257 would be a great round for a rebarrel, and the Ackley version would get you a 4% velocity gain and allow you to shoot standard Bob rounds in a pinch.
Matt

Even if I didn't have a 7-08 & 308, if I were to re-barrel my .243 it would either become a 6.5-08 or 358. I guess it's just me but I'm not that keen on the 7-08 or 308. They both shoot very well but I'd prefer a 257, 7x57, or 06 to either of the two. That said I do like my .243. I like the .257's range of bullets better.

Nice gun you picked up, would like to hear the follow up story on it.

Ok, since it's a short barrelled stutzen, I vote 308 or 358.
Matt

Colorado, you need to work more with the 257;
it really does need a long action to make it work right; it needs to be loaded to 3 inch length and stuff full of powder; it will greatly better the 243 in velocity with 100 grainers, and has the ability to use 120s, which the 243 doesn't. I have and have owned 4 of them and I get velocities that the 243 can only dream about.. Putting a 257 in a short action is like putting a governor on a 426 Hemi. And if you are looking at reloading manual loading data for short length cartridge, well, that is the problem. The 257 works best with a long magazine. Period.

In a short action, the 257 beats the 6mm rem at equal pressures. Yes, you can squeeze a little more from the bob at 3", but like I said only about 1% more. I have nothing against the 3" Bob, but a 2.8" Bob serves just fine.
Matt

I like 257, as long as it's in a long action.




It's simple to punch out to 25-06. he he he

The other issue is that SAAMI pressure spec for the 257 is 54K psi, which is nonsense when the 243 is allowed 60 and the 6mm is allowed 65000 psi. Load the 257 with bullets seated out, to 65000 psi, and you will see a completely different animal.
One percent? No, try ten percent improvement at least.

Why bother? I get 25-06 velocities from my Ruger 257; admittedly it has a very long throat that allows me to use all the case capacity; bullets are seated in about .15 or so.
As you can see, I like the 257 and have no use at all for the 243; the 257 being so much more versatile.
Now, I usually prefer much bigger calibers, well over .30, but I do have a fondness for the 257 if I want to use something below .33 caliber. Pest guns, Elmer called them; everything .300 Mag and below. I agree.

Well, yeah dpcd, but you're trying to win the argument using logic and that won't work against someone that's still 6-1/2 years old. I'm falling back on plain, old fashioned endurance here! Besides, the 257 Roberts kicks too hard.

LOL