Thread: The gentlemen’s caliber

They do work on big deer also. Picture is of a friends son in Canada with his first moose shot with a 243 and an 85 gr TSX, the moose required two shots to put him down.

I had a Sako Forester in .243 for a while.

I never expected it to kill with chest shots like a 308 and sort of used it as a step up from a .223.I belive it is more of an experts caliber on Deer sized Animals.I found the lack of recoil and flat trajectory pleasant,but for what it is worth a .308 does everything better in the same sized gun for most of the hunting we have in New Zealand.

Dropped some big bodied red stags with my 243 growing up. Dropped them all no worries. Projectile choice and shot placement. Great caliber when used within its range limits. My 308, 270, 7mm08 and now 284 never seemed to kill better as of such. Just give more range.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

@jakewire, do you have a copy of Man-Eaters of Kumaon available for a read by any chance?

I think my Dad has a copy I could loan you when home. Pm me and we can organise a drop off pick up.

@Flyblown @Mooseman
Thoughts on these? After a packet to resight my 243 with. a lot more around that when I used it years ago. Stabilise you think? Might be able to get a packet or 2 at a reasonable price if they are still available.
https://geco-munition.de/en/ammuniti...t/243-win.html
Also Flyblown considering your thoughts on the soft point blowing up being the most effective what about the Browning BXR line. That's what they are designed to do yeah?
I wont be reloading anytime soon for this so keep that in mind. any suggestions factory ammo only

I personally would be inclined to go with a lighter bullet as the 105 gr may not stabilise in the normal twist rate in the 243. I would be thinking it would work well at closer range and penetrate deep. Only one way to fine out is try them out.

Originally Posted by csmiffy

@Flyblown @Mooseman
Thoughts on these? After a packet to resight my 243 with. a lot more around that when I used it years ago. Stabilise you think? Might be able to get a packet or 2 at a reasonable price if they are still available.
https://geco-munition.de/en/ammuniti...t/243-win.html
Also Flyblown considering your thoughts on the soft point blowing up being the most effective what about the Browning BXR line. That's what they are designed to do yeah?
I wont be reloading anytime soon for this so keep that in mind. any suggestions factory ammo only

If you are going to use factory ammo, use Hornady Superformance 95gn SST load. I've been using 85gn Sierra Gameking and Hornady 95 SST for the last while, and they both kill big deer and Tahr with authority if you put it in the right place. (Within sensible ranges, the bc is lacking a bit)

You know I seriously don't think the 243 is best with the 100gr or plus bullets [modern twist rates excepted of course] , even though the twist is 1-10.
The 6mm which a mate of mine uses has a 1-12 twist

This late in the thread it's best I admit I have owned two 243's over the years. One a Ruger Sporter , the one with the laminated stock and the other a Browning Abolt 11
The Sporter was before my loading days and Alan Newham worked up a load for me using the 87gr Hornady soft point, he also bedded the stock [ laminate] and ajusted the trigger, it shot very well
Tussock may remember this rifle
The Abolt 11, I was loading by then and also used the 87Gr, again the rifle shot very well.

They were only ever used by me on wallaby except for one unlucky Red hind,with the wallaby they were emphatic killers , they were great out to 300-350 yards, no fancy scope in those days.

And then, and then...., I met the 6.5x55.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

Ah yes @Sako 851... the .243 and me are best buddies. Go make yourself a cuppa and sit back...

Reading the above, @Sarvo nailed it with his comment "I think my shoulder shots (most time where aimed) was back a bit far". Any small calibre rifle can be very unforgiving if you don't hit 'em just right. But the bullet is really important too, it has to be the right balance of frangible with a stout base to push through. So to that end, the .243 Win needs to be used quite carefully.

Some family history. My old grandpa was a .243 Win man from his days here in the ‘50s building hydro dams. He got a Sako L57 imported when they were first released, which would have been ’57 or ’58, and used it here until he went to Canada in ’63. He learnt his NZ deer hunting from the local Forestry guys, he was a precision man through and through, head, neck, high shoulder, hilar. He took all that experience to Canada and got given quite a hard time from the big bore guys, primarily because he wandered around in bear country with a ‘pea shooter’ and an old revolver. Fair enough.

When it was me and my cuzzies’ turn in the ‘80s, there was only one option, the .243 Winchester. There were a couple of Brno ZKK601s in the family by then. We were drilled hard from the beginning on anatomy and to take your time and very carefully select the shot with the maximum probability of bang-flopping the deer. And you had to know what specifically it was that was causing the deer to collapse. This was mostly on little roe deer in little fields on the edge of woodland. Occasionally we’d find some fallow, and once or twice a year we’d go chase lowland reds down in Devon. You didn’t want a runner because you couldn’t afford the deer to make it onto someone else’s land. We use sticks a fair bit, but practiced mostly sitting, using the sling to steady the aim. A forward point of aim, put it into the chest in line with the front leg, either in the shoulder or just below. Runners just weren’t an issue.

A lot of our learning flew right in the face of English tradition. I remember getting a really hard time shooting roe in the high shoulder by local stalkers, who preferred the heart shot in the crease. They were always prattling on about meat damage, but so often they’d go high and get the rear lungs, and the deer would be off on a half-marathon. It wasn’t my place as a pimply squirt to tell them they were doing it wrong, so I left that to the old man…

We always used a 100gr+ soft point bullet. The most popular my early days, simply because there was a massive stash of them in the shed, was the Speer 105gr round nose, which wasn’t loaded particularly fast but smacked deer into the next life with no fuss or bother whatsoever. Later we used Sierra ProHunters and over time, these took over. When I moved to South Africa I bought a CZ in .243 and proceeded to upset lots of Afrikaners by shooting dozens of biltong boks in the neck with my little rifle, they were all into much heavier bullets and bigger bangsticks and quite a lot of unnecessary drama. I was treated with disdain being a Soutie, probably because I pinched their girlfriends more than my choice of cartridge.

In the US, I was with my cuzzies for the most part, and they came from the same school as me, so all good. They moved onto fast twist .243s quite a few years ago for their coyote shooting, 105gr A-Max and now ELD-M. They do some fully hard case winter shooting with those rifles and bullets, 600m+ no sweat.

Contrary to a lot of internet forum nonsense that gets written by blokes who copy what someone else said, the .243 Winchester was designed to shoot 100gr bullets from the get go. It was released in 1955 with the 1:10” twist, with two bullet weights, 100gr for deer sized game, and 80gr for varmints. Winchester basically pinched the idea from Warren Page, who had touted his .240 Super Pouper wildcat to them as a deer cartridge, with the option of going lighter for varmints. Winchester faked a lack interest, but decided to build a deer / varmint 6mm cartridge anyway, without telling him, which he never forgave them for. Page also went to his mates at Remington and they picked up on it, but decided it would sell better as a varmint cartridge first and foremost with the option of being able to take a deer. So they released the .244 Remington in the same year, but with the 1:12” twist and 70gr and 90gr bullets.

The market judged the .244 Rem harshly, and it got comprehensively out sold by the .243 Win, and as you probably know Remington changed the .244 to a 1:10” twist and renamed it the 6mm Remington. From day one, the .243 Winchester was a deer cartridge – read any of the books from that era and it is made plain that the varmint aspect of the rifle was quite minimally used, as most yankee doodles went with the super-fast .224s for fluffy varmints, .220 Swift, .22-250, later the .223. They didn’t really see the need for using twice the powder for the same outcome, which was aerial splattery.

The original 100gr bullets readily stabilsed in 1:10” twist barrels. These were the flat-based Western Super-X, Western being a subsidiary of Winchester. They were slightly shorter than similar bullets today. The reason a lot of guys complain that 100gr bullets aren’t that great in their 1:10” twist rifles is because today’s 6mm 100gr bullets tend to be slightly longer and are pushing the limits of stability, especially the boat-tails. Use a flat-based 100gr bullet, traditional soft point, it should be fine. Sierra ProHunters, Speer round nose, Hornday round nose and Interlocks etc have been deadly accurate in all my .243s.

I use my .243 Win for red deer more than any of my other rifles. Just like the old man taught, its precision shots for CNS, no off hand snap shots. It’s not a good choice for off-hand snap shots, that’s what I use my .308 for. I shoot prone, taking reds and fallow with base of skull / atlas vertebrae shots if they are at rest out to say 200m, high shoulder shots if they are browsing but still, hilar shots if they are a bit further away. The maximum effective range is around about 350m for a yearling red or fallow, that’s right on the limit and not a shot I’d take unless it was dead still and there was a good reason. But once you know your drops inside out, and you’ve proven to yourself that you and the bullet will do comfy sub-MOA and the windage is good, a frangible bullet like the ProHunter will deal to a deer no worries.

The reason I like the .243 Win so much is because of the mild manners. You don’t need a 150gr bullet to kill a deer with any of my preferred shots, what you need is precision. A lot of the country I shoot is steep and all over the place, so a good rest can be hard to come by and I don’t want to have to worry about recoil, I want to shoot with light hands.

But you can bet your last dollar that if you hit a red deer broadside high through the rear lungs with a .243 Win, you’re gonna get a long runner. But that’s the same for pretty much any calibre / cartridge. Just consult the YouTube List of FuckUps for all the little deer that run away when shot high and too far back…

Couple of final things I’d add about the .243 Win. Firstly, I’ve never loaded it hot for deer. My 100gr ProHunters have always been in the 2800-2850fps range, whereas a lot of the factory 100gr ammo is running around 3000fps, and some reloaders will try and push it faster. It’s not necessary for it to be screaming fast, for a traditional cup and core soft point to work effectively, you want a good balance of penetration and fragmentation.

Secondly, I never use a “hard” bullet in .243 Win. I rely on the fragmentation to create a wide radius of wounding with the maximum chance of hitting CNS and pulmonary arteries. I’ve never had a ProHunter “blow up” on a shoulder blade, its spot on for our deer. But if the shooter demands a good blood trail then you’ll need a rethink, because at 150-300m you’ll be lucky if the 6mm ProHunter exits. I almost always find the base up against the opposite side hide having passed through both shoulders and jellified the front lungs, pulmonary veins and nerve plexus, the latter being what puts them done so fast. Hit that, it’s done in a heartbeat. So the way I look at it, why need a blood trail? Just aim to put them on the deck. Once the confidence is there, the incidence of long runners is very low, and if one does run, it’ll be spewing bright red frothy lung blood from its nose.

Lastly, I use 75gr V-Max for head shooting goats, and they are loaded hot for fast, flat shooting. Enough said about the terminal effects of them the better – horror movie stuff.

So yeah, I’m a big fan. That comes from experience I guess, I know its capabilities but also its limits. It’s by no means infallible, and shot placement is critical. The naysayers generally develop their opinion from trying to shoot them behind the shoulder, that’s been my experience of the pushback.

there's no way i'm reading all of this but the .243 is good

TJ, the originator of the term EBRG is here under another name but I'm buggered if I can remember what it is.

Originally Posted by csmiffy

@Flyblown @Mooseman
Thoughts on these? After a packet to resight my 243 with. a lot more around that when I used it years ago. Stabilise you think? Might be able to get a packet or 2 at a reasonable price if they are still available.
https://geco-munition.de/en/ammuniti...t/243-win.html
Also Flyblown considering your thoughts on the soft point blowing up being the most effective what about the Browning BXR line. That's what they are designed to do yeah?
I wont be reloading anytime soon for this so keep that in mind. any suggestions factory ammo only

Unfortunately I don't know anything about either of those @csmiffy.

I've heard of the Geco but no experience sorry. Looking at a picture I expect they are quite short and should stabilise ok and be accurate enough for hunting. A proper review has them grouping 1 - 1.5MOA, good enough inside 250m for chest shots. Look to be pretty good value.

The Browning BXR is completely new to me and now I'm interested in knowing more about it!

Originally Posted by Mooseman

I personally would be inclined to go with a lighter bullet as the 105 gr may not stabilise in the normal twist rate in the 243. I would be thinking it would work well at closer range and penetrate deep. Only one way to fine out is try them out.

@Mooseman that's what I was thinking. From what Flyblown has suggested some of the earlier 243 heavier pills were balanced better and was hoping someone had tried some of these to confirm. @257weatherby good call. just be nice if they weren't pretty much the most expensive factory 243 ammo out there.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

Unfortunately I don't know anything about either of those @csmiffy.

I've heard of the Geco but no experience sorry. Looking at a picture I expect they are quite short and should stabilise ok and be accurate enough for hunting. A proper review has them grouping 1 - 1.5MOA, good enough inside 250m for chest shots. Look to be pretty good value.

The Browning BXR is completely new to me and now I'm interested in knowing more about it!

@Flyblown 250 to 300 is a long way to me so they might be worth a shot if still available.
The browning BXR and Winchester deer season xp although different are built with exactly the same design brief. Dump majority amount of energy quickly but penetrate enough to damage things.
Sounds like ammo you'd be interested in playing with?

@Flyblown here is alink to a digiatal copy of the Jim COrbett Omnibus https://archive.org/details/JIMCORBETTOMNIBUSJimCorbett

That's bloody great @stug, thanks man!