Armored farmer
Member
If I had a caribou to hunt I would probably use it too. I think it is a great cartridge. Groundhogs and coyotes is all I have used it on, so far.243 is actually quite popular up here in the rural villages. (Not sure why.) I watched a friend hit a cow moose in the lungs with a 12 ga slug from probably 20 yards. She flinched and laid down. She kept her head up for quite a while as she bled out.
Folks up here do it pretty often. It's not the preferred, but it works. As for "varmint gun" I use a 243 for caribou.
I had an opportunity to moose hunt in Ontario with the folks that ran a fishing camp on a remote lake. I was talking with the old resident trapper who was going to be our guide. I told him all I had for a rifle was a .243. That's when he said, 'you dont shoot a moose with a varmint gun".
So before I headed back up to Canada for the hunt, I bought the cheapest .30-06 that I could find.
an H&R handi in .30-06.
So that's what I did under the very same circumstances.