Any 243 fans left?

I just bought this wood stocked Savage 243 off of GB and am waiting for it to ship. This will be the 7th 243 I have owned and I hope its a shooter. I like the wood stock over a plastic stock if I can get one.

Savage AXIS (Model 22683) Hardwood Rifle / Weaver Scope Combo .243 - Bolt Action Rifles at GunBroker.com : 1008455159

Buy Savage AXIS (Model 22683) Hardwood Rifle / Weaver Scope Combo .243: GunBroker is the largest seller of Bolt Action Rifles Rifles Guns & Firearms All: 1008455159
www.gunbroker.com
 
12Bravo20 said:
I have a PSA PA10 in 308 and I am still considering rebarreling it to something with lighter recoil. I have narrowed my choices to .243 or 6 CM. If I was to buy a new left handed bolt action for hunting, it would be a left handed Savage in .243.
Click to expand...
I considered a .243 lefty bolt this year but decided to get one in 6.5 Creedmore.
 
Lennyjoe said:
I considered a .243 lefty bolt this year but decided to get one in 6.5 Creedmore.
Click to expand...
I'm thinking .243 or even 6 CM since they have lower recoil than 6.5 CM. I have bad shoulders I'm dealing with and my Savage Model 12 in a Choate Varmint stock and my PSA PA10 (both in 308) bothers my shoulders too much to enjoy. And I have suitable calibers already in the AR15 with my 6.8SPC and 6mm ARC rifles.
 
My daughter hunts whitetails with one and it has done the job well with my mid range loads with 100 grain Nosler Partitions.
I like the round better than @CraigC does, but what I do agree with him 100% on is that you should use a quality controlled expansion bullet with it for deer sized game.
I shot a doe with her gun with a regular factory Federal 100 grain soft point and it ran off without a trace of blood. I was lucky to find her. Perfect double lung shot. No exit wound, I suspect because the bullet came apart but I didn't dig in to the entrails to confirm.

I do think it has good things going for it. It's soft shooting enough for the ladies in my house, it's accurate and I love the Ruger 77/Leupold VX-2 setup, and with the Partitions it does the job very well.
So I'm willing to spend a little more on projectiles.

6.5 CM is one that has been mentioned a lot, and it's one I refuse to buy. There is no logic to my attitude on that.
I just refuse to buy into all the hype like it's leaps and bounds better than anything the hunting world has ever seen. I know every round/gun/brand has it's fanboys and I'm guilty of that too. But the die hard 6.5 beats everything crowd annoys me, so I won't buy one. Is it stupid? Of course it is because it's a good round. But I'm stubborn and a little weird I guess. lol
 
12Bravo20 said:
I have a PSA PA10 in 308 and I am still considering rebarreling it to something with lighter recoil. I have narrowed my choices to .243 or 6 CM. If I was to buy a new left handed bolt action for hunting, it would be a left handed Savage in .243.
Click to expand...
I have identical guns in .243 and .308. I was a bit surprised that the felt recoil from the .243 didn't strike me as being much lower than the .308 (100 grain bullets at 3200 FPS and 150 grain at 2800 -- run-of-the-mill hunting rounds). The .243 did of course generate lighter recoil, but there wasn't nearly as much difference as I was expecting. The .243 recoil seemed a little more snappy, which sort of maximized the felt effect, and closed the difference gap some.

The guns (since this thread is lacking pitcherz):
n95iOrm.jpg
 
@I6turbo I can see that with light weight rifles. I will definitely keep that in mind. My Savage Model 12 with the Choate Varmint stock is pretty heavy. My PA10 is heavy too so switching to .243 or 6 CM should make more of a difference.
 
My Dad used to do some hunts in Alaska and the guide there used a .243 a lot , he stressed shot placement .

Obviously a grizzy bear would not be what he was talking about .
 
Arkansas Paul said:
6.5 CM is one that has been mentioned a lot, and it's one I refuse to buy. There is no logic to my attitude on that.
I just refuse to buy into all the hype like it's leaps and bounds better than anything the hunting world has ever seen. I know every round/gun/brand has it's fanboys and I'm guilty of that too. But the die hard 6.5 beats everything crowd annoys me, so I won't buy one. Is it stupid? Of course it is because it's a good round. But I'm stubborn and a little weird I guess. lol
Click to expand...
I was on the fence as well but decided to pull the trigger on a 6.5 Creedmore Savage Apex II just in case I didn’t like the cartridge. Needless to say, with 140 gr Hornady SST’s and IMR 4350 I’m getting cloverleaf clusters at 100 yds. im now all in on this cartridge and plan to do more testing with other loads after deer season.
 
Arkansas Paul said:
I shot a doe with her gun with a regular factory Federal 100 grain soft point and it ran off without a trace of blood. I was lucky to find her. Perfect double lung shot. No exit wound, I suspect because the bullet came apart but I didn't dig in to the entrails to confirm.
Click to expand...
It's not just .243.. apparently it happens often:

But there’s one consideration that’s become a head scratcher. A whole bunch of deer hunters are reporting sub-par blood trails from deer—even well-hit deer—shot with their 6.5 Creeds.
Click to expand...

Just ask full-time Wisconsin blood-tracker Dean Muthig, who has put his Bavarian mountain scent hounds on 230 deer tracks so far this season. Many of his calls over the years have been from parents who need help recovering deer during the youth rifle season. Not because their kids are making poor shots—Muthig says younger hunters seem to shoot just as accurately as adults. Instead, it’s because they tend to use smaller calibers like a .243—and the 6.5 Creedmoor. It’s not that these kids aren’t killing deer. They just can’t find them.
Click to expand...

“The kid made a great shot, but it’s just one of those things where the deer didn’t bleed at all,” says Muthig, who’s been tracking for 17 years. “The 6.5 Creedmoor is like a .243 where—they kill deer, don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of people who kill deer with them. But they just don’t leave a blood trail, hardly ever. And it’s just because it’s such a small entry hole … It’s the size of a pencil, and a lot of times the bullets go in and expand and there’s no exit, and nowhere for the blood to go. … Or if it does exit, there’s not a lot of room for blood to get out. Running deer cover a lot of ground fast, so you can end up with really minimal blood in the course of a few hundred yards.”
Click to expand...

www.outdoorlife.com

Are You Getting Bad Blood Trails with the 6.5 Creedmoor? This Is Why

When it comes to hunting deer with the 6.5 Creedmoor, you can make lethal shots all day—but you often won't find a blood trail. Here's why.
www.outdoorlife.com www.outdoorlife.com

Now before everyone pounces on the messenger, not my article, take it up with the author.. ;)
 
Chuck R. said:
It's not just .243.. apparently it happens often:







www.outdoorlife.com

Are You Getting Bad Blood Trails with the 6.5 Creedmoor? This Is Why

When it comes to hunting deer with the 6.5 Creedmoor, you can make lethal shots all day—but you often won't find a blood trail. Here's why.
www.outdoorlife.com www.outdoorlife.com

Now before everyone pounces on the messenger, not my article, take it up with the author.. ;)
Click to expand...
There is no way a 6.5mm bullet would fail to leave a blood trail where a 6.8mm (270 Win) or 7mm (7mm-08, 7x57, 7mmMag) would. That's a half a millimeter difference. I ain't buying it.
Like with statistics, the guy who wrote the article could have had 10 consecutive "failed" blood trails, but the next 75 could have been dead right there.
 
I've never liked the .243 but I'll conceded my opinion is based on very out-of-date experience! :rofl: The old cup-and-core bullets of my youth (circa 70s and early 80s) seemed to perform very poorly on big game. I usually saw the lighter bullets explode on deer and the heavy ones poke a tiny hole with no expansion. Probably modern bullets address those issues well but I see no reason for a .243 in the modern age. There's nothing it does that wouldn't be done as well or better with a different round, and in gun stores it seems that 6.5 and 7mm rounds are in greater abundance. As much as I like guns I want to have less calibers, not more, just to minimize what I need to buy and stockpile. FWIW, I'm not much of a hunter anymore so I don't have much need for anything but my 5.56, .300 Blackout and 7.62x39 rifles. If I decide to hunt it will be be Idaho black bear where my 12ga with slugs will do fine.
 
I just got my package in from Graf & Sons with 100 pieces of Starline brass and 100 Speer Grand Slam bullets. The bullets were .32 each. Big deal. Thats not going to break the bank for a premium hunting bullet. I already had 80 of the Grand Slams left from an order a year or two ago. So that should be a lifetime supply of deer bullets.

My new Savage 243 should be here on Monday. Maybe I will load 20 rounds this weekend for it.
 
I'm one of them but we're a dying breed, at least in the area where I live. Just got back from the range and (coincidentally) asked one of the range workers if he sees any 243 brass laying around to save me some. He told me he hardly see's 243 shooters anymore. He added that most are now shooting the 6 & 6.5 CM and the other, newer stuff.
 
.243 ammo was hard to find last year, a shop asked me to sell them some of mine.
Heck no.
I found some 80gr varmint stuff this summer.
Bought a couple and month later it still on shelf, so bought the rest (same lot #).

As for the 6.5Creed and minimal BT..........know a guy that lost a deer, heard of others.
I always wondered if they used match ammo instead of hunting ammo.

Might have to get a doe tag and drag my .243 out to test a WW Deer Season XP.
 
This thread has got me thinking of another rifle in .243, only with a 20 inch, or less BBL, to carry around the northwoods Deer hunting.
Been looking at Ruger, Weatherby, And Howa compact type guns.

Dave
 
Hookeye said:
.243 ammo was hard to find last year, a shop asked me to sell them some of mine.
Click to expand...

I rarely ever buy factory ammo. I reload everything I shoot. I just dug out my stash of 243 bullets and found I have over 1200 bullets on hand. Most in the 100gr range. I was in a store a couple of weeks ago called Atwoods, a farm and ranch store with a gun counter and shelves of ammo. They had a good selection of 243 ammo. And a ton of 308 and 30-06. Plus some of the new 6.5s, Black Out, 223 and even 45-70. And not a single box of 30-30 or the new Remington 360 Buck Hammer. All of it crazy expensive. At least to me. Most was $25 and up a box. The 45-70 was $60 or better per my memory. Thats $3.00 per round.
 
Rebel Dave said:
This thread has got me thinking of another rifle in .243, only with a 20 inch, or less BBL, to carry around the northwoods Deer hunting.
Been looking at Ruger, Weatherby, And Howa compact type guns.

Dave
Click to expand...
How about a Browning BLR? That would make a nice, light woods-walking gun.
 
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