.243 project
We have a good bit of .243 slug conversation, so why not have some more? I do not have a Tikka, but do have a Savage 110 with the barrel shortened to 21" (long story) , and an old Mossberg 810m with 20" factory barrel.
As I've posted before, I was a .243 basher, until I grew a bit wiser, shot some deer with them, and watched bamaboy hammer some more, and am now a fan. I believe that I have seen more whitetail bang flops with the .243 than with any other deer cartridge I've hunted. Maybe because I watched as the boy did all his shooting, and I hunt a variety of calibers too, but I am impressed with the .243. All our .243 kills, combined maybe a dozen, have been with 100 gr slugs, mostly 100 gr Nosler Partitions. We have never recovered a 100 gr Partition, getting exit wounds in every instance. I should be completely satisfied with the 100 gr Partition. I have about 60 of them loaded for the old Mossberg, and 40 for the Savage, and should be set with hunting ammo for several seasons.
But despite our success with 100 gr Partitions, I cannot drive them as fast as I'd like from our stubby barreled rifles, and accuracy has always been so-so, hovering around 1.5" MOA +/-. The straw that broke the camels back was the recent rise in component prices..........the Nosler Partition 50 count box runs about what a 100 count box of competitors slugs . ...essentially twice the price.
And so, in typical rifle kook fashion, I have set out on looking for a new slug for the .243's. The MOssberg especially, shows an affinity for lighter bullets, and the 85 grain Partition immediately came to mind, but there was still the price issue. After a good bit of reading, I have bought a 100 count box of Sierra 85 gr HPBT Game Kings. It runs counter culture to my roots, I was raised by a klan of "heavy bullet believers". And the HP design screams at me that it will not hold together and penetrate as it needs to. But there is a good bit of chatter that it will indeed be just fine, and so I will give them a run. I expect higher velocity, better accuracy, and sufficient killing power as long as I shoot well. Our deer do not come all that big, 175lbs being a whopper, and the norm for a 3 yr old buck maybe in the 150 lb range. My .243 shooting is in pretty controlled conditions, food plots and ROW's, typically from some type of support at 100 yds or so. Applied correctly to the ribs or off side shoulder, I cannot see a whitetail escaping.