Tikka 243 deer bullets

I'm sure all of the bullets recommended to me in the last three posts will kill deer. I'm trying to figure out if they'll group well in a Tikka. Tikkas like many 243s have a 1:10 twist and I've read that's boarderline for 100 grain. I'm particularly interested if the gentleman with the 100 grain nosler partitions is shooting them though a Tikka. My buddy a long time hunter and 243 fan (for whitetail) swears by the federal boxing of them. I'm just leary of trial and error with $30 a box ammo. I guess there's no way around it other than maybe starting with cheaper cartridges and working up in price. Thanks all for the responses
 
I'm just leary of trial and error with $30 a box ammo. I guess there's no way around it other than maybe starting with cheaper cartridges and working up in price. Thanks all for the responses
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Comes with the turf. Every gun has it's own unique appetite--more often than not it will show a marked preference for a particular powder/bullet seating combo. I sometimes have guns that will indifferently spray bullets wide and the magically come together with just the right load. Sometimes it takes me hundreds of reloads to "find the one." Although I don't have one--the folks I know that have tikas in general hold them in very high regard. It's a false economy to buy cheap stuff and hope for great results--in the end you'll spend the same as buying premium ammo by buying more of the cheap stuff. Just my personal opinion--but Hornady is in my book the top manufacturer of commercial ammo--their ammo performs consistently very close to what they advertise when I've measured it--and they do it with powder wizardry that I often cannot match as a handloader in terms of performance and pressure limits.
 
Oddly, most of the several Hornady centerfire ammo boxings I've tried across 223 and 7mm-08 didn't print as well as some of the cheaper cartridges. Surprisingly I've had the most consistent results from Fiocchi cartridges that use Hornady bullets in them. For instance across 2 rifles Hornadys 75gr HPBT brass cased match ammo prints exceptionally well so I use that for target shooting. But for Varmint hunting I use Fiocchi 50gr V-max because they print more consistently then the Hornadys 55 vmax offering and a lot better than the 53gr Superperformance. My 7mm-08 Tikka shoots Fiocchi 139gr interlock boat tails MOA but Hornadys whitetail with 139gr interlocks spire points are 1.5-2 MOA and the 139gr SST Superperformance is even worse. Meanwhile run of the mill 140 CoreLocts shoot MOA, sometimes half MOA in this rifle. Honestly I don't mind spending cash for quality but I'm just trying shorten my learning curve with someone else's experience. If I come across a bargain that's only a perk. For deer hunting where I'm going to spend a lot of time and effort to make A shot, it doesn't make sense trying to save fifty cents on the bullet. I'm just hoping not to make three or four hundred mile round trips to the range and run $300 of ammo through the rifle to find that one bullet. Ultimately it's my choice and fault for being so damn picky because a 2 MOA round at under 200yds is still a dead deer.
 
Oddly, most of the several Hornady centerfire ammo boxings I've tried across 223 and 7mm-08 didn't print as well as some of the cheaper cartridges. Surprisingly I've had the most consistent results from Fiocchi cartridges that use Hornady bullets in them. For instance across 2 rifles Hornadys 75gr HPBT brass cased match ammo prints exceptionally well so I use that for target shooting. But for Varmint hunting I use Fiocchi 50gr V-max because they print more consistently then the Hornadys 55 vmax offering and a lot better than the 53gr Superperformance. My 7mm-08 Tikka shoots Fiocchi 139gr interlock boat tails MOA but Hornadys whitetail with 139gr interlocks spire points are 1.5-2 MOA and the 139gr SST Superperformance is even worse. Meanwhile run of the mill 140 CoreLocts shoot MOA, sometimes half MOA in this rifle. Honestly I don't mind spending cash for quality but I'm just trying shorten my learning curve with someone else's experience. If I come across a bargain that's only a perk. For deer hunting where I'm going to spend a lot of time and effort to make A shot, it doesn't make sense trying to save fifty cents on the bullet. I'm just hoping not to make three or four hundred mile round trips to the range and run $300 of ammo through the rifle to find that one bullet. Ultimately it's my choice and fault for being so damn picky because a 2 MOA round at under 200yds is still a dead deer.
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Absolutely use whatever works best in your rifle. Chances are someone out there will swear what works great for you is crap in their gun.:D My comments have to do mostly with having measured velocities, standard deviations and component consistency--as well as the pressures they achieve them at--and I haven't seen in general the same level of consistency in other manufacturer's stuff--but then again I haven't measured them all (of course).

I've gotten to the OCD point where any gun except a lever or handgun I'm not happy if I can't shoot sub-MOA with it--and even less happy if it's one I built and can't shoot .5 or less with it. ;) That's at 100yds--I look forward to expanding my disorder to longer ranges when I can.

Your choice of 7-08 ammo is pretty interesting--my BLR has a decided preference for heavier bullets and shoots 162 eld's much better than the lighter bullets I've tried so far.
 
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I didn't know boxed 7mm-08 came heavier than the 150 Federal hot-core. I've even tried 120 grain fusion and Barnes.
 
I didn't know boxed 7mm-08 came heavier than the 150 Federal hot-core.
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I don't know either since I handload all of my cartridges. I do handload the 150 eldx as well but so far I haven't found a combo that works quite as well as the heavier bullet in terms of accuracy. The 162 eldx is an extremely high BC bullet and at nearly 2700 fps I can't imagine why it wouldn't be a devastating hunting bullet except maybe when used at very long hunting ranges. My BLR comes with a 1:9.5 twist and it seems to a good job stabilizing it--though slower twists may have a problem. I also use the same 150 and 162 bullets in loading for 284 win (where it's a bit more problematic due to the far-forward case neck--but still doable).
 
Update- solution found

Thanks all for the responses. I'm happy to say that yesterday I got the Barnes 80 grain TTSX to print MOA or better @ 100. It shot a slightly over MOA group @ 200 when verifying the reticle BDC. I'm totally satisfied with this given the wind conditions. It seems the rifle needed a few more Barnes brand fouling rounds. Expensive rounds to foul a barrel. It took about a dozen rounds before it started to print well with these bullets. I think it has something to do with needing similar metals to foul. Now my girl's gun is dialed in and put away as is for deer season.
Thanks for your time
 
I bought my daughter a Tikka 243 T3 lite 2 years ago. I went through a lot of ammo to find ones that work. Here is my experience. With the 1 in 10 twist rate it would not stabalize anything over 90gr reliably. I finally found the following 2 that worked for me. For varmit the Hornady 58 gr v-max shot .5" groups. For deer the Nosler 90 gr Accubond shot .8" groups. I probably tried 8 different loads before I found these. I'm guessing the all copper Barnes may be too long to stabilize.

I also free floated the barrel and put an aluminum base plate on. It was hard to keep even torque on the plastic base plate. I did these but don't think you need to do these to get acceptable accuracy from the Tikka.
 
Troy800 said:
I bought my daughter a Tikka 243 T3 lite 2 years ago. I went through a lot of ammo to find ones that work. Here is my experience. With the 1 in 10 twist rate it would not stabalize anything over 90gr reliably. I finally found the following 2 that worked for me. For varmit the Hornady 58 gr v-max shot .5" groups. For deer the Nosler 90 gr Accubond shot .8" groups. I probably tried 8 different loads before I found these. I'm guessing the all copper Barnes may be too long to stabilize.

I also free floated the barrel and put an aluminum base plate on. It was hard to keep even torque on the plastic base plate. I did these but don't think you need to do these to get acceptable accuracy from the Tikka.
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Thanks! Finally someone with a Tikka 243 answered! Thank God. I appreciate you taking the time to share your findings. I may try those Accubond, but it turns out that I got the Barnes to finally print good. It just took a dozen or so of their bullets down the pipe to foul the barrel with like material. It now prints MOA or better which I'm fine with. The rifle has printed well with <80 grain lead bullets and 95 grain Federal Fusion, but I wanted other recommendations for deer ammo from someone with the same rifle. Now I do, thank you.
 
I found that if I limited my shots to either neck or cross-body heart/lung, the Sierra 85-grain HPBT worked quite well for one-shot bang-flops. No tracking on some two dozen bucks.

5/8" to 3/4" groups at 100 yards, consistently through the decades.
 
ART Eatman, I have had 4 1 shot kills with sierra 85gr spbt..and they shoot sub moa at 100yds..I also use 140 gr spbt in my 7-08 Rem model 7..
 
I just wanted to jump in here and say that the .243 Winchester round is perfect deer medicine for about 7/8's of all the shots fired at whitetail's in North America. I grew up shooting them and only had to look about 30 yards for one, one time. I'm not ashamed to say that this man loves that sweet little round...
 
Going factory, another vote for Rem Core Locs in 100gr. Rifle ammo & bullets have been hyped to sell all kinds of "wonder" bullets, for twice the price. States
like mine, Ohio, had deer shot to extinction with Muzzel loading rifles of less than
40 cal and flint locks. A decent hit on a deer and it's not going far. I have shot
several deer, with several different 243 rifles and use Hornady 100gr and have
never lost a deer.
 
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