243 Bullet recommendation for deer

[Websurfer]

100 grain Hornady or 85 grain Barnes TSX. Both knock deer down

 

[JMAN80]

42.0gr of H4350 under a 85gr Sierra HPBT Gameking is my choice.

 

[BearBio]

For Coues deer, any GOOD 100 gr that shoots well. For larger mulies, 120 gr Noslers have worked for me!

 

[Larry Koch]

Hornady 100 grain sp. 3000 plus fps.

 

[Kermit in Va.]

90 gr Accubond...
But ,I've killed more with 100gr softpoint over the years.

 

[Flycaster1977]

I have some factory stuff for my hunt but now that we are going into great weather (Phoenix) I want to develope some loads for my R700 in 243 and a second one in youth for my son.
I have h4350 for powder and varget and a pound of imr 4064 as well

85 grn barnes

 

[B23]

Berger 105 gr. HVLD if you have a 1:8 twist.

I have a friend that just shot a monster 30in muley with his 243 Win at 550yds and all he shoots in that rifle is the Berger 105 Hybrid. I believe he uses H4350 and is launching them just a little over 3000fps from a 22in pipe.

A couple weeks ago my daughter shot a nice little 3x4 white tail 175yds with my 6mm Creedmoor loaded with 70gr Nosler Ballistic Tip and it dumped him pretty hard and destroyed both lungs. I was a little apprehensive sending her out with those but after seeing the damage that 70gr Nos BT did I felt much better about it.

This was the entrance hole, there was no exit.

 

[SD guy]

B23, Looking at that carcass & the ugly wound & am reminded how much Like copper bullets in the 6mm ARC.

In the 243 I expect a 80 grain CX will do very well. In the faster twist barrels I'll prefer the 90 gr CX.

This is from a guy that butchers his own veneson.

 

[5spd]

90g sierra TGK, 90g nosler HBT, nosler 95g HBT, 85g sierra JHP are my go to 6mm bullets that do the job more than petfectly.

 

[rfwind]

100 grain Hornady or Nosler Partition

 

[Guybo]

When my daughter first started hunting she used a .243 for several years and we used the Nosler 95gr BT and she harvested a few deer with it with good results. I sold that rifle to my neighbor for his son and we worked up a load with the Sierra 100gr Pro Hunter and he's killed a truck load of deer with that bullet. Thats' the only two that i have any personal experience with in the 243.

 

[Kingfisher]

Couple of days late but I've been running the 95 gr. SST's out of my 243 for the last 20 years or so and the results have been nothing short of remarkable. Countless deer by my hand and others, and none of them have as much as taken a step. MV out of the the 788 carbine is 2750'ish.

 

[Tylsmith33]

We used to shoot a lot of 100gr interlocks but changed over to 90gr eldx a couple years ago. The interlocks always worked well but I ran across a good deal on the eldx and switched over. My wife and daughter are shooting them and they have been shooting great with hornady brass and cci200lr 43.4 gr of h4350 at 2.691col out of 16.5” barrel about 2820fps. They have shot 2 does and 4 mule bucks only 1 took a follow up shot, probably wasn’t necessary but was available so she took it.

 

[Nimbus73]

Watch barrel twist rate & bullet length when using the long boatail bullets.
A 18" bbl 10 twist with heavy long bullets may open groups.

And works well in my Rem 600Mohawk carbine. IMR 4350. H4350 uses a hair more powder.

What charge of H4350 are you using. I have a Rem 600 Mohawk with a brand new Remington 700 take off barrel cut to 20". I'm getting .6moa with the 100gr SBT seated at 2.40 to the ogive on top of 40.3gr H4350 with average velocity of 2825fps. I don't expect 3000fps from this barrel with that weight bullet. I ask, because I'm seeing a lot of people pushing 41-42.5gr for 100 gr seeds. Seems like too much to me.

 

[243winxb]

100gr SBT

My 10 twist does not like the 100 gr. Best with 85 gr Sierra #1530. 42.0 grs IMR 4350, BR2 Win or Rem brass.

 

[AckleymanII]

So many bullets have worked well for my family:

95g Partition
85g Speer btsp (this is a deer bullet, not a varmint bullet) & we like better than Sierra 85g bthp
95g Nosler ballistic tip
95g Hornady SST
100g Hornady btsp and the flat base which acts like a partition

If you can find any, R#26 with a cci 250 will get the 100s at 3150 with accuracy.

 

[sbranden]

My nephew has been using my Tikka T3 Lite in .243win for years with a handload of 4831sc under a 95 grain Nosler Combined Technology bullet and has never lost a deer yet. I'm probably a full grain or a little more above book max, but it's fine in my gun, extremely accurate, and the bullet mushrooms beautifully. I seem to recall it was doing around 2,900fps out of this short little sporter barrel. Gun wears a Leupold VX-5HD 3-15x44mm in Firedot duplex, which has been an excellent and light scope to go with a light gun. Shot a nice hog with it down in GA under a full moon using no light - DRT. No second shots necessary. Look these up, check out some of the reviews. Seems to be a good bullet.

 

[David Milisock]

I forgot to mention both of these are ADL rifles from Walmart. Bought when they purged their rifles at stupid prices.
Hope to convert to bdl some day

Why bother converting to the BDL. The ADL kills just as well and when you fall on your butt and damage your rifle it's not a costly misadventure.

 

[David Milisock]

I have a friend that just shot a monster 30in muley with his 243 Win at 550yds and all he shoots in that rifle is the Berger 105 Hybrid. I believe he uses H4350 and is launching them just a little over 3000fps from a 22in pipe.

A couple weeks ago my daughter shot a nice little 3x4 white tail 175yds with my 6mm Creedmoor loaded with 70gr Nosler Ballistic Tip and it dumped him pretty hard and destroyed both lungs. I was a little apprehensive sending her out with those but after seeing the damage that 70gr Nos BT did I felt much better about it.

This was the entrance hole, there was no exit.
View attachment 1602148
View attachment 1602149

Wow looks like a great deal of meat damage.

 

[Bronsin]

90 or 95gr Nosler BT