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Todd R · August 30, 2009, 11:45 PM

Hello,
New to the board and I was searching some of the old forums relating to my favorite deer cartridge the .243 Winchester.. A lot of the posts seem to think the 243 is not a good choice for deer size game, I must disagree with this. I have hunted for many years and taken quite a few whitetail and mule deer in my time and almost all have been harvested with the 243 winchester in a Savage 110 rifle using factory loads I do not reload any longer...

Here is a brief story of my last hunt which took place in West Texas last hunting season (2008 year). I have a hunt lease out there. Anyway I was hunting in an area that had a control burn a few years earlier to get rid of a lot of the scrub brush and such. I had scouted this area extensively and knew it held a few number of good size bucks...I was hunting with my brother-n-law who lives in Wyoming and hunts Mule Deer and Antelope mostly and he swears by his 270 winchester. He and I have been hunting together for a lot of years in Texas, Wyoming Arkansas and New Mexico.. We always seem to get in this discussion about my "Prairie Dog Shooter" as he likes to call it. Anyway we were riding out to our stands around 2:00 pm for our evening hunt... when we came to the top of the hill looking down into the Valley we were hunting, my stand about 200 yards away... We normally park the 4 wheelers and walk the rest of the distance to our stands so not to spook the deer, My brother-n-law was hunting the on the other side of the valley. This valley had a ridge that ran right through the middle of it so we decided that we would each hunt one side of the ridge because of the large amount of game sign in the area... As we were walking and he was getting ready to take the lower trail to his stand I spotted this very large buck standing in the fire break quit a ways off.. I said to my brother-n-law check this out... He looked at the deer and being that it was on my side of the ridge we agreed I would take it and he would help me stalk. We began our stalk and because of the fire burn there was little cover for us... I stopped after a little bit because I did not want to get closer because I thought it would spook... So I grabbed my shooting sticks and mounted my rifle and got ready to shoot. My brother-n-law said hey maybe you should use my 270 winchester because that deer is still a ways off... He reached down and grabbed the range finder binoculers around his neck and ranged the animal. This deer stood 367 yards away... I told him no, my .243 is just fine... He kinda laughed and said you'll never hit it and if you do we will be tracking it all night... I just looked at him and kinda of smiled, the whole time keeping the deer in my scope. I was using Reming 100 grain Core-Loc factory rounds. I took a deep breath, let it out and touched off a round that hit this deer squarely behind the shoulders. The deer bucked and ran less than 40 yards before expiring... The whole thing played out through the binoculars my brother-n-law had up to his eyes.. The first thing he said was 'You hit him, you hit him good" he is down..." We walked to the deer and both were shocked at actually how big he was... This deer had 8 good points with 1 brow tine facing down with an inside spread of 19" and a Field dressed weight of 191 pounds. The 100 grain Remington Core-loc did it's job perfectly. This was one of my best deer ever and the longest kill I have made with my .243 Winchester.. Oh my brother-n-law did quit well too, a few days later he took a nice buck at about 200 yards with My .243 Winchester rifle. You see he dropped his rifle from his stand and broke the scope, but that is a story for another time...

August 30, 2009, 11:45 PM	#1
Todd R Junior Member Join Date: August 30, 2009 Posts: 2	.243 Winchester for Deer Hello, New to the board and I was searching some of the old forums relating to my favorite deer cartridge the .243 Winchester.. A lot of the posts seem to think the 243 is not a good choice for deer size game, I must disagree with this. I have hunted for many years and taken quite a few whitetail and mule deer in my time and almost all have been harvested with the 243 winchester in a Savage 110 rifle using factory loads I do not reload any longer... Here is a brief story of my last hunt which took place in West Texas last hunting season (2008 year). I have a hunt lease out there. Anyway I was hunting in an area that had a control burn a few years earlier to get rid of a lot of the scrub brush and such. I had scouted this area extensively and knew it held a few number of good size bucks...I was hunting with my brother-n-law who lives in Wyoming and hunts Mule Deer and Antelope mostly and he swears by his 270 winchester. He and I have been hunting together for a lot of years in Texas, Wyoming Arkansas and New Mexico.. We always seem to get in this discussion about my "Prairie Dog Shooter" as he likes to call it. Anyway we were riding out to our stands around 2:00 pm for our evening hunt... when we came to the top of the hill looking down into the Valley we were hunting, my stand about 200 yards away... We normally park the 4 wheelers and walk the rest of the distance to our stands so not to spook the deer, My brother-n-law was hunting the on the other side of the valley. This valley had a ridge that ran right through the middle of it so we decided that we would each hunt one side of the ridge because of the large amount of game sign in the area... As we were walking and he was getting ready to take the lower trail to his stand I spotted this very large buck standing in the fire break quit a ways off.. I said to my brother-n-law check this out... He looked at the deer and being that it was on my side of the ridge we agreed I would take it and he would help me stalk. We began our stalk and because of the fire burn there was little cover for us... I stopped after a little bit because I did not want to get closer because I thought it would spook... So I grabbed my shooting sticks and mounted my rifle and got ready to shoot. My brother-n-law said hey maybe you should use my 270 winchester because that deer is still a ways off... He reached down and grabbed the range finder binoculers around his neck and ranged the animal. This deer stood 367 yards away... I told him no, my .243 is just fine... He kinda laughed and said you'll never hit it and if you do we will be tracking it all night... I just looked at him and kinda of smiled, the whole time keeping the deer in my scope. I was using Reming 100 grain Core-Loc factory rounds. I took a deep breath, let it out and touched off a round that hit this deer squarely behind the shoulders. The deer bucked and ran less than 40 yards before expiring... The whole thing played out through the binoculars my brother-n-law had up to his eyes.. The first thing he said was 'You hit him, you hit him good" he is down..." We walked to the deer and both were shocked at actually how big he was... This deer had 8 good points with 1 brow tine facing down with an inside spread of 19" and a Field dressed weight of 191 pounds. The 100 grain Remington Core-loc did it's job perfectly. This was one of my best deer ever and the longest kill I have made with my .243 Winchester.. Oh my brother-n-law did quit well too, a few days later he took a nice buck at about 200 yards with My .243 Winchester rifle. You see he dropped his rifle from his stand and broke the scope, but that is a story for another time...