.243 winchester

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243's are cool for your parameters. I have a 22-250 for the varmint job and it's great, but if I didn't I'd be looking at 243. They are all over the place in the used racks. You will find a nice specimen that fits you like a glove for reasonable money :)

How can you go wrong :)
 
helotaxi said:
Not true. The Creedmoor factory loads have the load data on the box. Standard consumer grade powders. Nothing special about the loadings that they use.
Click to expand...

The only hunting ammunition that Hornady sells in 6.5 Creedmoor is Superformance
 
I had a 6mm Rem built on a 98 Mauser action back in the 80s. Great gun. My ex-wife got it. You can form 6mm brass from 7X57.
I now own a Ruger #1 in .243 Win. Fine, fine rifle and caliber. I have killed six deer, 3 coyotes and one cow elk with it. All were one shot kills using 100gr. Hornadys and H380 powder.
With a good bullet and a good shot a .243 can kill any American game. It isn't the best medicine for grizzlies and moose, granted, but for just about everything else it works great.
For coyotes and such it is a wonderful round. Kinda hard to go wrong with a good .243.

George
 
I used to have an old S&W rifle in .243. It was very accurate and I killed a couple deer ans a hog with it. It was pretty much sighted in when I got it and I only took it to the range when I first got it to check zero and again the following year before deer season. I owned it for a couple years and never did unscrew the turret caps on the scope. Never did shoot it very much, less then two boxes of cartridges in two years. I remember it being sweet shooting, pretty light recoil.
One thing I have herd is that they are a barrel burners, I do not know how true that is.
 
That is match ammo though.

Looking at Hogdon's online data, for 140gr. A-Max, their max velocities are 2736 fps.

Or if you compare the Hogdon load data for the Creedmoor and the .260 Remington, the .260 max uses more of the same powder without compressing a load, while the Creedmoor has less powder than the .260 and it is compressed.

Example..

.260 Rem 95gr. V-Max
H4350 Max load 49.7 grains @~3284 fps

6.5 Creedmoor 95gr V-Max
H4350 Max load 47gr. Compressed @~3224fps

In essence, the 6.5 Creedmoor is almost exactly the same as the .260 Rem...Hornady just loads hotter factory rounds for it. Now that Lapua is making .260 Rem Brass, the .260 Rem has 4 companies making brass for it and 7-8 making factory ammo for it.

6.5 Creedmoor has 1 company making brass or factory ammo for it.
 
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I have a Rem 700 in .243 that is a fine rifle and easy on my rotator cuff surgery shoulder. It isn't a tack driver as it only shoots between 5/8" to 3/4" groups but I have never missed anything I have shot at out to 300 plus yards. Great coyote killer with little or no pelt damage. Try it you'll like it. Frank
 
Looks to me as well that .260 is running away with the title in the 6.5mm battle.

10 years from now, I'm guessing that a few of these 6.5's will no longer be with us. The 6.5x55 will always be around, as a surplus round, but I do see the .260 Remington improving in popularity.

The 7mm-08 is pretty popular and was introduced in 1983, I think - the .260 Remington is getting there as well, even though it came in 1997. The fact that it a .308 necked down only helps reloaders and rifle manufacturers.
 
With hunting bullets the .260 is great. Fits well in any company's short action. Move over to high BC match bullets and you start running into problems with action and magazine length. That issue alone is why the 6.5 Creedmoor was developed. It matches the performance of the .260 with longer bullets while fitting in any short action. It is essentially a .250 Savage case necked to 6.5mm and improved.

That said I still like my .243. Rem ships with a 1:9 barrel these days and Savage with a 1:9.25. My 1:9.25 Savage sporter shot middle weight and light weight bullets (down to 55gn Blitzkings) fantastically well. The 6mm Rem is capable of a little more velocity (hardly anything earth shattering) but often requires a long action. If a long action becomes a must, I'm going with something that gives a real benefit in velocity over the .243Win.
 
I really like m y .243. I do have a 22-250 and a .270 WSM as well for something on either side of the power spectrum, but the .243 is real sweet. Without a doubt, it is the easiest of all my rifles to come up with an accurate load for a desired bullet weight. I have eventually come up with several good loads for each of my rifles, but it takes a lot more work to find an accurate combination for a 7 mm mag than it does a .243.

Originally, I loaded up 100 gr Hornadys in the .243 to use for deer. No problem. I got great groups using 3 different powders. Then I tried 75 gr Sierra HP bullets. I tried just one powder and found the right charge weight very quickly to turn it into a super accurate and fast varmint round. Lately though, I have been working up loads for an 87 gr bullet. Once again, it was easy to find a powder that gives great groups. I have found really nice groups in all weights using H4350, W780, RL-22, and Big Game powders, but my all time favorite powder for this cartridge is Ramshot Hunter.

Everybody needs at least one .243 just for fun.
 
You want a .243, for what you're asking it fills the bill nicely. My newest rifle was ordered in .22-250 only because I have a .25-06. The .25 is like a .243 on steroids. Had I not owned the 06 I would have gone to the .243 in a heartbeat.

The 06 I use for long range ground hots and larger game. The .243 is just as versatile and that's the beauty of it. Light bullets for varmint and heavy for medium game to deer.
 
I bought a little Sako Forester carbine in .243, back around 1970. I've killed about two dozen bucks with it, and several coyotes. After meddling around with various bullets in my reloading, I finally got lazy and just settled on the Sierra 85-grain HPBT for everything bigger than prairie dogs. 55-grain on those. :)

On deer, I've limited myself to neck shots or cross-body heart/lung shots. So far, DRT with no trailing or second shot needed.

What that bullet does to a poor innocent coyote, jackrabbit or feral cat probably just shouldn't be allowed to happen. Yuck goes everywhere.

At seven pounds with 2x7 scope, ammo and sling, it's an easy tote on a walking hunt.

I gotta congratulate the boys at Federal. They finally came out with my pet load and it groups as tightly as my handloads! Good on 'em!
 
quote:
"prairie dogs. 55-grain on those"
I'm currently messin' with 55's but can't get close to the lands, and some pills shed their jacket before reaching the target (4000fps).
The pills were closeouts and probably poor jacket adhesion
 
Love my Ruger 77MkII Varmint in .243. The first ......243 I had was an Interarms Mk X Mauser and it liked the heavy bullets. The Ruger will NOT shoot 85 to 100gr bullets accurately, but with the 75gr Hornaday's it's a tack driver! With the heavy barrel there is no recoil and if I can cover the target with the cross hairs I can hit it!
 
Are the Marines actually considering the 6.5x47? Or is that just some fantasy of the Military Channel?
Click to expand...
I think the Marines will be the last service branch to change
anything to anything.

The .243 is a great little round.
 
243/deer

Since I have already chimed in on this thread I figured I was done. However, several have touted the killing ability of the 243 on deer sized animals. I will admit, except for the first 243 rifle I bought, a Remington model 600 somewhere around 1965, all have been used as varmint rifles. Except one.

I did buy a used Sako 243 in 1984. It still has the original Burris scope on it. In the mid 80’s I took it to the range and tried the light bullet loads I was using in the varmint rifle. It wasn’t a group, more like a pattern. At the time I was shooting and loading with a friend that had more time to load than I did. As it turned out he had less time to spend documenting his loads than anyone on the planet. He gave me some of his 100 gr. Round nose reloads of unknown mixture. Now I know what you’re thinking, but I’d been around this guy for several years and he was absolutely meticulous about his loads. He just forgot to write them down sometimes.

Anyway, these 100 gr. round nose bullets grouped in that Sako almost as good as the tailored 243 varmint loads in the heavy barreled rifle. When we ran them through the chronograph they were slightly faster than published factory rounds.

Needless to say I worked up a load using Win 760 powder and have killed several West Coast Black Tails with them. As Art says, they drop DRT. I would not hesitate to use them on any breed of deer, to the point that I very seldom use my tried and true hand-me-down .270.

I don’t know the value of this combination on really long shots. Deer hunting wise I’ve never seen or shot at one over 150-170 yards with this rifle.
 
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