243 VS 308

my vote goes to the .243

this was the chambering of my first deer rifle and I managed to take several large muleys and whitetail in south dakota and nebraska.

I still shoot .243 for everything from deer on down and it is deadly with very little recoil.

.308 is good for deer on up to elk, but that his where it stops... anything larger and you need to look at 30/06....

for florida get the .243 . if you lived in the upper midwest or northwest I would say get a 308 or 30/06 ....

the barnes bullets in 6mm are deadly accurate and expansion and weight retention after hitting a deer is amazing!
 
I really like Bud's. I got my Savage through them for $470 when all my local dealers were asking between $600 and $700 for the same model. Bud's has good selection and generally ships for free.

Depending on your local dealers, you might be able to go in with a printout of the page from Bud's and see if they can match or beat the price. That way you get a deal and keep your business local at the same time. Don't expect to be able to do that with any of the national chain stores, though.
 
I am guessing you dont reload, I am going to vote for the 308 you can get pretty much any bullet and weight loaded in factory ammo, including subsonic ammo. If you are only going to have 1 rifle, 308 is the way to go.
 
buds is a good online store but every once in a while you may find a local dealer that can match their prices. remember that you have to have a weapon shipped to a person that holds a federal firearms license when you buy online so you will have to find a local dealer to agree to a transfer anyway.
 
Buds is good and usually less than local dealers but sometimes not marginally enough on certain guns when you factor in the FFL transfer fee that you'll pay to get it shipped local. Be sure to factor that in, especially on a lower end gun Buds usually also has a much broader selection than the locals and availability that cannot be matched.

With the exception of my Savage 93R17, I've had great results with Buds. They just got jammed up on orders and shipping when I ordered it, more Obama's goobermint fault than anything.
 
Bud's has no "hidden" fees, but the price listed is the CASH price, which means check, money order or ACH. If you pay with a credit or debit card, it is usually a bit more. The difference is only 3%, I believe, so it won't make a huge difference on an order that small. They will also charge a small fee if you want the shipment insured (which I highly recommend), which will be somewhere around $5. So if you pay with one of the cash methods, the total will be $264 with insurance, and about $272 with insurance included if you pay with plastic.

Also, if you have some of the money together, but not all, they have a layaway plan that counts as a cash purchase to get the better price. They give you 90 days to pay the balance. That way you can have your gun reserved at the current price, which protects you from that model selling out or going up in price.
 
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If your wanting low recoil go for 243, with the exception of maybe elk the 243 will do just as good of job at killing as the 308 in those ranges.

The only real advantage 308 will have is cheaper ammo.
 
I picked up an Axis in .243 a few months ago and it has a terrible trigger but it is very accurate. And after all, that is what counts. For light recoil the 243 would serve you well. The 308 is a great round but you should do well with the 243 for whatever you go after in FL.
 
I'm going to disagree with the .243 crowd. Yes, I know it is perfectly capable of killing our Fl deer and hogs. However, a .308 is a better choice. The reason for this is that our thick woods can make tracking a wounded animal VERY difficult. The faster that animal drops, the better chance you have of recovering it. In that respect, 150 or 165 grn bullets do a much better job than those light pills the .243 is throwing.
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How many deer have you shot with a .243?
 
How many deer have you shot with a .243?
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None. I refuse to go that light. How much hunting have you done in the jungle? I've hunted out west. I wouldn't hesitate to use a .243 out there even though the deer are bigger. If your deer out there runs even half a mile, you'll still have a good chance of recovering it. Down here, a deer could run 100 yds and it could take several men hours to find it. Many hunters down here even keep tracking dogs just for that reason.
 
How much hunting have you done in the jungle?
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Lots. 35 years in south GA. Only been in MT for 12 years. While I'll admit most of my hunting over those years were with an '06 or .280, I did use a .243 quite a bit and had no trouble tracking my deer. And yes did lots of swamp hunting. That's where the big ones were. :D

In all fairness to the debate I handload and always used a Barnes X bullet in my .243 loads.

FWIW, the toughest tracking job i was ever involved in was a fork horn a guy shot TWICE with his new 7 Mag he traded his .243 for because he felt he didn't have enough gun. 3 1/2 hours to find that little buck and had to be finished with a 12 ga. when we got to him.

Your part of the country does indeed demand good shot placement and tracking skills.
 
I hunt deer in coastal SC, which isn't much different than Fla or any southern state as far as habitat. Swamps, bogs, bays, thickets, young thick stands of planted pines, and fields. You can lose a deer with any rifle you shoot in those conditions if your shot placement isn't where its supposed to be. I lost one the other year with an '06 and 165grn bullet, it happens. I like the .243 for the conditions around these parts as much or more than the .308 but prefer the 7mm08 to both as it combines attributes of both.
 
Let's not get distracted from the paramount importance of shot placement. On deer size animals, the kill zone is a foot-ball shaped region roughly centered between the shoulder blades. It is a little bigger than a football, but it helps me to envision it that way. A bullet into this region will result in a dead deer in a short period of time, even if that bullet is something marginal like a 22 magnum rimfire. The speed with which the deer drops is much more dependent on whether or not the heart was hit. Heart shots drop them faster than lung shots. Deer which "drop like a rock" most likely were hit in the heart when the aorta valve was open and a hydrostatic shock wave travelled throught the blood and into the brain and stuns them... by the time they recover from the stun, they have bled out.

When using an over-kill cartridge, such as 30-06, hot 45-70, 338 etc, the kill zone might be slightly larger, but just slightly.
 
Uncyboo, my go-to round now for general purpose hunting is the .260. It gives only a tad bit more recoil than the .243 but uses a much heavier bullet. I've been using a 140grn Federal Fusion but I'm switching now to some handloaded 128grn Hornady Interlocks. I would have offered that as a suggestion to the OP, but it is kind of a niche caliber and ammo is almost never locally available unless you live near a really big shooting store. In reality, the ideal solution for the OP would be the 7mm-08 but that also wasn't one of the choices he mentioned.
 
Go with the .243. With modern bullets available, You can shoot anything.
A young hunter needs to be thinking shot placement, not recoil. As young deer hunters, my crew really liked the .243. .308 was for dad or the old guys. Just to be different, I had to have a 6mm Remington, the main competition for the .243. I doubt anybody ever developed a flinch shooting a .243.
 
Uncyboo, my go-to round now for general purpose hunting is the .260. It gives only a tad bit more recoil than the .243 but uses a much heavier bullet. I've been using a 140grn Federal Fusion but I'm switching now to some handloaded 128grn Hornady Interlocks. I would have offered that as a suggestion to the OP, but it is kind of a niche caliber and ammo is almost never locally available unless you live near a really big shooting store. In reality, the ideal solution for the OP would be the 7mm-08 but that also wasn't one of the choices he mentioned.
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The .260 is an awesome round, as is the 7mm-08. In fact when I read this thread I thought to myself "this guy needs a 7mm-08", but as you said his thread was asking about 243 or 308. I have a 9 yr old daughter who can big game hunt when she turns 11. I have already bought a Stevens in 7mm-08 for her. Worked the trigger and shortened the barrel to 19". The way she is shooting 22's and the .204's, she will be fine in a couple years with that set-up.
 
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