Any reason to use anything bigger than a 243 for deer?

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The 243 is darn near the perfect deer round but some consideration must be given to the many youth/compact offerings common to it. 100's on a near zero December morning out of a 16" Ruger or 18" Rem 788 are far from the 300+ yard red hot mama many think. Carry a 22" barrel and/or learn how good 85's really are and it is second to none.
 
early bad rep

I think the .243 got an early bad reputation during its infancy, when the various varmint weight slugs got used on deer with the expected bad results on raking and shoulder bone shots.

I'd like to think that now, well down the road, that we as a group have more experience with the round, a better info system, and hunters are a least a bit more knowledgeable. The OP and the many positive responses reflect this. As I've posted before, I was once a basher of the cartridge, but no more. My stance was not based on experience, more on ignorance. After seeing the cartridge in action, shot well with proper slugs, I am a true fan.

Also, more gun a better shot does not make. A poorly hit deer is poorly hit, period. Gut shot is gut shot. Some of my experience indicates that marginal shots do quite well with the .243 because it is milder to shoot, thus they shoot well and they begin to break bad shooting habits developed with larger calibers.

To borrow a phrase, the .243 is likely the mildest cartridge with which a deer hunter will be totally satisfied. The .270-.30 crowd offers more power surely and a ballistic edge in the wind, but .....for deer, I don't believe we really need it.
 
''2. 22-250 has a larger case than 243''
Sorry, but that is arse about face. The 22-250 is based on the 250 Savage case, which is quite a bit smaller than the .308 case that the .243 is based on.
As far as the .243 is concerned, it is an excellent choice for deer & in the hands of good shot, will outperform most bigger calibres out to 250yds.
I will qualify that by saying that in all my years of shooting, I have seen more deer wounded by larger calibres with bullets that are too hard for thin skinned game , combined with poor shot placement, than so called ''small calibres''.
Energy is, at any range, irrelivent if that energy is not fully emparted to the animal. I use 87gr HPBT bullets for deer in the .243, the rapidly expanding bullet produces maximum hydrostatic shock through the soft organs, ensuring an instant kill. A shot that passes straight through an animal is waisted energy, or as my friend Bob, who was a professional culler for three decades, is fond of saying '' for a bullet to perform , it needs to know it's hit something.
Under the conditions I usually hunt in, the.243 is a 250yd rifle, but for mountain valleys, where longer shots are likely, I carry a 6.5x55SE , or in the past, a .270.
 
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I own three firearms chambered in .243 and its one of my favorite deer cartridges.

About the only time I would wish for a more powerful cartridge is if I had to shoot the south end of a north facing deer. That would be the only time I would want more gun.

Here in my county of NYS we can not use rifles for deer hunting, and my .243 encore pistol has dropped every deer I have shot at with one shot.
 
+1 bamaranger.

I think you hit the nail on the head. 308 or 260 rem might be better, but I could be totally satisfied with 243 Win from 0-350 yards in a compact rifle and decent 3-9x40.

Out west, the long action cartridgest like 270, 280, 30'06 are a bit more popular, but I think that is due to perceived distance issues. In OH, I can misjudge range by 25 yards pretty easily. In Montana, it is easy to think 300 and have it be 450 when the ground is so flat.
 
.243 is a very capable and adequate whitetail round provided the proper bullets are used. Accuracy is outstanding, recoil is minimal and results speak for themselves.

I have to say though, I prefer the 7mm08 to either the .243 or the .308 as it is about a perfect blend of the two with the ability to shoot light 120grn bullets up to 175's if one were so inclined. I have never failed to get an exit or really had one run off with my 7mm08 load but I've had a tracking job or three with the .243.
 
My 1st deer rifle was a stainless Ruger 77 in .243... it was... well... "adequate" for local deer... I live in MN, & we do have big deer here... I moved up in caliber after a couple years ( in my case, all the way to 45-70 ) however... as a newbie to my FIL's hunting camp, I was "allowed" to field dress all the party deer the 1st couple years ( just to make sure I could )... I used the experience to look at wound tracks of the various cartridges used... the .243 gets very good hydrostatic shock ( & thus you can lose quite a bit of meat to blood shot ( bruising ) around the wound track, depending on where you hit... not much difference seen in amount of bloodshot, between the .243 & a 30-06 in reality, but more penetration is seen with the '06

if you are talking about a young shooter... & not really long distances... my 1st choice would be 30-30, then either .243 or 7-08... I do recommend a good medium heavy "big game hunting" bullet with either the .243 or 7-08
 
So the question goes out....knowing what we know now and with the better bullets, is there any reason to hunt whitetail with anything more than a 243 for the average deer hunter in the North East?????
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The 243 Winchester is a wonderful multipurpose cartridge and when the shooter does his part (as with any other cartridge), it is great deer medicine.
 
I'm not a fan of the 243. Won't do anything the 25-06 can't do. Personally, I find it a bit light for my taste and have seen too many deer lost to it because of the hunters limitations. For me, its like the .410 shotgun. Great for training and for the experienced.
 
I continue to hunt mulies and antelope with my older .243 rifle. None got away yet. But this is prairie country where shots are often well past 175 yards.

For typical shots in the forests and foothills I still reach for my 30-30 Marlin carbine with 4X scope. Moderate recoil and hard hitting flat nose bullets get the job done nicely.

One of my buddies hunts everything with his 8mm rifle. Slower USA factory ammo for deer in forests but high power European ammo for bears and moose up north in Maine. One rifle and two very useful loadings.

Jack
 
sc928porsche said:
have seen too many deer lost to it because of the hunters limitations.
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Deer are lost because hunters make bad shots. Powerful guns don't make bad shots into good ones. Bad shots are bad shots. A .338Lapua through the guts is going to mean hours for the deer to die and an extremely difficult tracking job. A .243 through the guts will be the same. A .243 through both lungs will kill that animal just as dead, just as fast, as a .338Lapua through both lungs.

I've talked to several guys who track wounded game animals with their dogs. There's at least one such fellow on the forum here. I have NEVER had a single one tell me that they tracked a SINGLE animal that was properly hit with a "weak" cartridge but the hunter couldn't find it. Every instance that they track an animal, the reason their tracking it is because the hunter made a bad shot. A bad shot with a .243, .30-06, .270, .300Win Mag, bow and arrow, muzzleloader, .30-30, .44mag... it don't matter. Bad is bad, the cartridge don't make it good and a good shot kills animals. Period.
 
While I completely agree that shot placement is VASTLY more important than having a magnum cartridge I will say my brother recovered a deer that he accidentally gut/liver shot with my 30-06, bullet fragments from the Sierra Game King bullet damaged the lungs thanks to the very wide wound path. While I would never depend on marginal shots if you did not manage to place your bullet exactly where you want a 30 caliber does make for a wider wound path and more consistent penetration with cheap cup and core bullets.
Don't take this as me saying the 243 is inadequate for deer because I am most centrality not, but to say that 243=30-06 is obviously flawed.
For the record that gut shot deer ran further then any I ever shot with a 243 or 6.5mm, proof that shot placement is king.
 
I'm not a fan of the 243. Won't do anything the 25-06 can't do. Personally, I find it a bit light for my taste and have seen too many deer lost to it because of the hunters limitations. For me, its like the .410 shotgun. Great for training and for the experienced.
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While Mr. Brian Pfleuger has already addressed part of your post. I will choose to address the rest. The .410 is for an expert. It is not for training. It is actually on of the worst guns to start someone with. It has a long shot column, it generally is chambered in very light guns and the recoil is out of portion to the load, and it patterns poorly compared to any other gauge.

While I do agree with the fact that it wont do anything the 25-06 can do.. The limitations in normal hunting are on the hunter, not the cartridge.
 
kachok said:
Don't take this as me saying the 243 is inadequate for deer because I am most centrality not, but to say that 243=30-06 is obviously flawed.
For the record that gut shot deer ran further then any I ever shot with a 243 or 6.5mm, proof that shot placement is king
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1)Exceptions do not prove that the rule is not true. In fact, the ability to point out an exception implies that there must be a rule for which the exception applies.

2)Without replicating that exact shot, several times with both cartridges, what you have is a single, anecdote. You don't even know that a .30-06 would do that 1 in 10 or 1 in 100 or 5 in 6 times, say nothing of whether or not a .243 would or would not do the same thing more often or less often.

3)No where did I say that a .243=.30-06. The tree on the other side absorbs far more energy when a deer is shot with a .30-06.
 
If you're hunting whitetails at 100 yards in open country, 243 is probably the most comfortable round around. If you're after mulies in open forest with longer distances I'd want something that has more weight to it, 7-08, 6.5x55, 7x57.
 
but to say that 243=30-06 is obviously flawed.
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I do want to point out that the OP stated "with the better bullets". Your example is using cup and core bullets. I think some of the newer designed bullets have turned what we used to think of as marginal deer cartridges into more than adequate cartridges today. Barnes, GMX, Nosler E-tips, and a host of other bonded core bullets have completely changed the way I think in terms energy needed to humanly take a deer.
 
Allen the high tech TSX, GMX, E-Tip....etc do NOT increase the wounding width of the 243 at all in fact they are widely regarded as having noticeably narrower wounds, their principal advantage is increased penetration and nothing else so a fancy mono metal or bonded bullet still does not equal the wounding of a larger caliber despite what the advertisements tell you, I have used TTSXs before while they work old school cup and core bullets are faster killing on thin skinned game.
 
kachok said:
in fact they are widely regarded as having noticeably narrower wounds,
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Really? References and evidence? That's the first such claim I've ever seen.

It'a funny, over the years I've been in this forum I've seen almost every cartridge used in the sentence "Every deer I've shot with the X Cartridge has been DRT". Sometimes it ends with "has never gone more than Y yards!"

Such claims are just silly. I can't even list the number of cartridges and guns that I've seen used on deer. Deer that weight literally 35 pounds on the hoof all the way up to near on 200 pounds. Of all those cartridges, deer, varying distances, poor and perfect shot placement, poor and perfect angles, I have never been able to categorically say "X" cartridge kills better and faster than "Y" cartridge.

Never.

I have never seen any way, short of spinal/brain shots, to guarantee that a deer goes less than "X" distance.

Fact is, it's all very random. One deer shot through both lungs from 40 yards perfectly broadside with a 7-08 will drop where it stands. Another shot with the same gun will run 100 yards with a hole in it's heart. A deer shot through the aorta with a 12ga slug will run 150 yards, another hit in the chest with the same gun drops where it stands. I've seen deer shot through both lungs AND the heart with 12ga slugs go so far and leave so poor of a blood trail that it takes 1/2 hour to find them in open woods. That's a 74 (or sometimes 58) caliber bullet, by the way, generating 3,000+ ft/lbs with some loads. I've seen a deer shot through the heart with a slug go 30 yards and pile up, with a blood trail you'd slip on if you stepped in it.

I find all of this "that bullet", "this cartridge", kills better to be totally unrealistic, a fact only on the internet. Absolutely nothing I've seen in real life backs it up. Nothing.

The bullet has to reach both lungs. It doesn't matter if it's 0.3 or 0.5 or 0.7" wide when its gets there. It doesn't matter if it puts 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000 ft/lbs in the tree on the other side. If it reaches the vitals, the animal will be dead in no more than 15 seconds probably, but beyond all guarantee and prediction, 5 seconds or less. If the bullet doesn't reach both lungs, there's no guarantee of a successful outcome, regardless of bullet size. If you have an exit wound and a well placed bullet, 95 times out of 100, you'll have a very easy to follow trail. When you don't it's not because the bullet is too small, it's because randomness put you in that 5 out of 100. (5 out of 100 is to make a point, not a statement of statistical fact)

When you don't recover the animal, it's because you made a bad shot. If you didn't, the animal would be found, most times easily, unless randomness puts you in that 5 out of 100 again. When it does, it's not because you used a .243 instead of a .30-06, it's because all the variables happened to conspire against you in this particular instance. Odds are good it won't happen again soon, no matter what cartridge you do or do not use.
 
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