.243 realistic effective max range
- Thread starter mike243
- Start date
A Guy Out West
Well-Known Member
You can make this as complicated as you wish, or you can make it very simple. Sight in your rifle for it's maximum point blank range, the furthest you can aim dead on and still hit a vital.
1. Determine the killing zone in inches, or what ever you use over there. Guessing for a red deer it would be around 10 inches, heart lung area on a broadside animal.
2. Determine how high you need to sight in your rifle at 100 yards to stay within that zone out to as far as you can hold dead on without holding over. Thus your bullet will stay within the kill zone with a dead on hold all the way to it's target.
With my 30/06 shooting a 180 gr. spitzer, I sight in 3" high at 100 yards and can shoot all the way out to 300 yards with a dead on hold in the kill zone. No knob jobs on dials, no guessing about hold over, just pull up aim and shoot. You need to adjust your 100 yard sight in for the caliber your shooting. Once you determine the distance of your maximum point blank range, you will know the max range at which you can shoot your intended game.
Naturally, the muzzle energy needs to be there too. Your bullet will have to be able to expand and penetrate to vitals. Shooting beyond MPBR is another matter entirely. Good luck.
1. Determine the killing zone in inches, or what ever you use over there. Guessing for a red deer it would be around 10 inches, heart lung area on a broadside animal.
2. Determine how high you need to sight in your rifle at 100 yards to stay within that zone out to as far as you can hold dead on without holding over. Thus your bullet will stay within the kill zone with a dead on hold all the way to it's target.
With my 30/06 shooting a 180 gr. spitzer, I sight in 3" high at 100 yards and can shoot all the way out to 300 yards with a dead on hold in the kill zone. No knob jobs on dials, no guessing about hold over, just pull up aim and shoot. You need to adjust your 100 yard sight in for the caliber your shooting. Once you determine the distance of your maximum point blank range, you will know the max range at which you can shoot your intended game.
Naturally, the muzzle energy needs to be there too. Your bullet will have to be able to expand and penetrate to vitals. Shooting beyond MPBR is another matter entirely. Good luck.
go here JBM - Calculations - Trajectory
go to Vital Zone Radius (2.0 to 100.0 in) [5.0] [?] I use 2"
try it, to make sure it's close
capt david
You will get this
I sight dead on at 200yds and know im 7.5" low at 300yds, my limit.
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Click he
That's cos you're shooting heavy animals behind the shoulder with a small bullet. This is the crux of the matter. We know, from collective experience, research and basic understanding of anatomy, that bringing the shot placement forward significantly reduces the length of the dead run and significantly increases the chance of instant collapse. This is particularly true for the 6mm, which relies on pinpoint application of its energy and wounding affects, rather than just brute force and a big hole roughly in the right place. I used to regularly watch our head shepherd shoot red deer in the high shoulder with a .223 cheap soft point, can't remember ever seeing one of those make it more than 3-4 paces. Small calibers can be extremely effective when used to target specific elements of anatomy.
We do spend an awful lot of time circling around this key issue. We dress it up as a calibre debate when in fact its primarily a shot placement debate. The heart shot has to be executed perfectly to induce a fast demise, doesn't really matter what bullet we're talking about. Why? Because there's no CNS involved, and hearts are tough organs, they require quite specific injury to reduce blood pressure very rapidly. A lot of H/L shots that I've inspected at gralloch time don't involve the "H" at all. No "H" makes it just a rear "L" shot, an almost guaranteed runner.
Even after a seemingly perfect heart shot using any of the regular small bore calibres, how often do we read about deer running unbelievable distances? Only to find afterwards that the heart was utterly destroyed? All the time. The heart really is a very mysterious and sometimes bewildering organ when it comes to achieving fast kills.
Bankable, short runner heart shots require absolute precision and very specific bullet performance. @NigelM and his 7mm ABLRs for example, shooting prone, high quality semi-custom rifles, ballistics worked out to 2 decimal places... half MOA as a maximum allowable outcome of load development. This kind of field accuracy is not really that common. As soon as shooting sticks or an improvised rest or shooting off hand is involved, forget it, bankability and hearts just don't go together.
Look at the videos on YouTube of the bloke in Yorkshire chasing deer around fields after they've been shot with 180gr .308 GameKings, missing the heart by and inch or two. And finally, consider the same Yorshire guy's videos of roe bucks taken with 243s using the high shoulder shot (and numerous others exhibiting the same method from around the world, on animals as small as muntjac all the way up to the heaviest of New Zealand red stags ).
@mike243 has told us that he only shoots deer in a very specific way. I suggest to Mike that if he were to spend some time researching different shot placement options in relation to anatomy, he would likely conclude that his success rates with any calibre at various ranges would improve if he elected to prioritise CNS over blood supply. Perfect the hilar shot, and you get two for one.
If ultimately it's a matter of needing to protect the carcass for game dealer considerations etc, and you don't like head or neck shooting, then there really is only one option and that is to be conservative and reduce ranges accordingly, and accept that if you shoot exclusively for the heart, occasionally you're going to get a very long runner, or potentially a lost deer.
I'm with you. The question, "what is the effective range" has to relate to terminal energy, and nothing to do with drop charts, or kill zones, etc'.
Personally, if you have to be concerned about the suitability of your rifle to be effective, at a given range, shoot closer, or even better, get a more powerful rifle
Here's an article that I found very interesting to read. From 243 and bigger
Myth Busting Big Game Calibers
Myth Busting Big Game Calibers
mike243
Well-Known Member
I hadn't heard of the Hilar shot until now, I have just googled some images of the correct placement, next time out I will try it if I get the chance of a shot, I have shot several reds with both my .243 and .308 and all but 1 has run, never far but they have run, the yearling I shot last week ran the furthest by quite a way, about 70-80 yards, one of the reasons I didn't take a shot yesterday was the deer were standing within 15 yards of the boundary hedge and I didn't want the headache of going next door and explaining the situation and getting my deer back if it had run onto his land, I only do this as a pass time, as much as I love it I try to minimise headaches and things going tits up while doing it, that is why I had opted for the safe-ish heart/lung shot as my go to shot, I get enough hassle in the week through work to not want any at the weekend, I will however be trying the Hilar placement next time out if I see the right beast in the right place
thank you Mike
A Guy Out West
Well-Known Member
Totally agree on the limit of 300. 688 yards is just too dam far. I believe the days of the long shot gangsters is numbered in many US states, people are waking up to the fact that it is not ethical. I would bet you that for every one they bag, there is two or three that run off to die in a hole somewhere.
I'm with you. The question, "what is the effective range" has to relate to terminal energy, and nothing to do with drop charts, or kill zones, etc'.
Personally, if you have to be concerned about the suitability of your rifle to be effective, at a given range, shoot closer, or even better, get a more powerful rifle
This is an extremely simplistic statement that completely ignores a host of contributing factors to terminal ballistics. If all that mattered was energy, we'd all be shooting .338 Lapua Magnums and FMJs. A good way to spend half an hour is to read up on the respective roles of bullet construction / velocity / expansion, sectional density, calibre / frontal area, and the small matter of bullet placement. I remember a very interesting talk given a few years ago by an elderly gent at our local Deerstalkers Association, an ex-NZFS guy who hunted deer with a .30/30 lever gun for 50 odd years. Low velocity, soft, round-nose 150gr bullets, 4x fixed power scope, no rangefinder or anything remotely modern. He would have killed more deer than probably everyone on this forum put together, and he had to recover the tails to prove it and get paid!
The over reliance on energy as a means to kill deer is one of the reasons guys "over gun" themselves, and still completely fail to make clean kills. One of the most common fails you'll see down here is a younger hunter with his brand new Tikka 7mm Rem Mag... He chooses "premium" controlled expansion ammunition, because it must be better, and heads off into the bush. He sees young red hind at 150m, and in a flush of excitement shoots from an improvised rest and does not fully control the recoil impulse. The deer is knocked clean off its feet, having been hit well behind the shoulder, halfway up.
Hurrah! Just as he's about to head over to the prize, said deer scrambles to its feet and hurtles off into the timber never to be seen again. Cue huge frustration and subsequent blaming of tools and posts to a hunting forum about how crap everything must be.
An experienced hunter will identify a few related factors to the loss of the animal. Poor shot placement, due to rushing / rest / recoil / limited understanding of anatomy, resulting in a hard bullet not meeting sufficient resistance, in turn resulting in sub-optimal expansion, poor transfer of energy to the animal due to the impact area being rear lungs and surrounding cavity, with a large percentage of energy expended into thin air onto the other side of the animal. The animal will die, eventually, but if our young shooter was using a .243 Win with a 100gr bullet and he'd shot it into the hilar zone, he'd be posting a completely different story on the hunting forum.
God knows I've seen this happen too many times, particularly in southern Africa, with guys shooting springbok with 180gr or 200gr premium bullets from a .30-06. That video of the yorkshireroestalker bloke's 180gr GameKings on roe deer is a perfect example of this.
Energy is just one factor of terminal performance, and absolutely not the most important. The most important is shot placement. Do we need to resurrect the example of how a broadhead arrow kills to demonstrate this?
Chasey
Well-Known Member
IMHO the effective range of the person holding the rifle becomes directly proportional to the calibre of the rifle after about 50 yards
A bad shot with a big gun is more likely to stop the animal than a bad shot with a small gun
300 is a distance I hold doable for fox and rabbit where I am pretty much going centre mass and if I miss so what.
As someone once said, its deer stalking not target shooting, so why shoot deer out to 300?
I have absolutely no doubt that a well placed 243 100g would stop any deer in the UK at 300yards. I also know I wouldn't take on the shot out of respect for the animal and the understanding that the margins for error and the variables are just not strong enough.
If I intended to go out and cull animals at 300+ id take a 338lupa or a 30 06 which are designed for the task. Equally if I were shooting the same animals inside 150m I wouldn't touch a 338 or 30 06 with a barge pole.
A bad shot with a big gun is more likely to stop the animal than a bad shot with a small gun
300 is a distance I hold doable for fox and rabbit where I am pretty much going centre mass and if I miss so what.
As someone once said, its deer stalking not target shooting, so why shoot deer out to 300?
I have absolutely no doubt that a well placed 243 100g would stop any deer in the UK at 300yards. I also know I wouldn't take on the shot out of respect for the animal and the understanding that the margins for error and the variables are just not strong enough.
If I intended to go out and cull animals at 300+ id take a 338lupa or a 30 06 which are designed for the task. Equally if I were shooting the same animals inside 150m I wouldn't touch a 338 or 30 06 with a barge pole.
Extreme conservatism at work hey @Chasey... .338 Lapua Magnum? Farkin'ell! Holy moly, I'd be unable to shoot for weeks for laughing so hard if someone pitched up with one of those for a quick meat deer shot. I really really would like to get you over here, we'd go up the back and drop a couple of reds with the teeny weeny itsy bitsy Creedmoor at 400m and you'd be converted in a flash! What was all the fuss about you'd say?!
.338lupa.... BOOM!
.338lupa.... BOOM!
Chasey
Well-Known Member
Or you could just get a Blasa R8 or Winchester XPR which looks like any other hunting rifle?
6.5 Creedmoor is a stunning long range round for paper and would defo be my long range competition choice. And as said a perfectly placed 6.5 round or 243 round will defo kill any UK deer but its terminal energy at 300m is low (338 is 4X higher) and id expect more issues with off target shots than with a 30 06 or 338.
I have shot a few chest shots with 243 (usualy head shoot) and found the blood trail to be poor With a creadmore or 243 at 300m on a red, I would be concerned about tracking the animal so the terrain would impact my decision as would the wind and the angle of shot. With a 30 06 or 338 id be far less concerned over the finer points.
I dot own either and have used 308 for longer range but currently exploring the 6.5 55. At the moment I have had two bad runners with the 6.5 so still more inclined back to the 308. But I am willing to fiddle a bit more with head selection before giving up. Currently on 140g BT Nosla
Keep going! Please! Brilliant entertainment!
I understand that the shot placement and range should be adapted to the cartridge at hand. Say a 22lr for deer... purely head shot and like Dodgy said a few special spots to be aimed at when using the 243. That is all ok however if one advises newcomers to the sport would they not be better off choosing a cartridge that is a bit more forgiving, is known to be useable on all shot placements taught in DSC1 etc. It would mean a cartridge that is just more universal when it comes to shot placement.... wouldn't that be a bonus?
edi
edi
That's a tad extreme Chasey.
Just taking a slightly different view, the 6.5 Lapua running 129 ABLR is carrying just short of 1600 ftLb at 300 meters, more than enough energy for any Red stag or anything else on this island. It always exits and always gives a blood trail. The low recoil makes a precise shot much easier with a hunting weight rifle. I think the Creedmoor gives a very similar level of energy. You simply don't need anything bigger unless you are taking shots well beyond 300 meters. It's a completely different proposition to a 243 because of the bullets available.
With the ABLR or ELDX high BC bullets you are carrying energy much further than with traditional hunting bullets which is making the 6.5's and 7's all you need these days. If shooting deer beyond 400 meters I would be stepping up to 7mm, the 280ai is still carrying 1500 ftLb at 600 meters with a 168 ABLR.
Not sure I would be contemplating a 338 Lapua unless I was trying the 1 km shot !!!
I'm really sorry, but whilst all of this is true, it really has little to with the original question !
Shot placement has to be a given, because it's relevant at all distances.
Bullet choice is a very good point, and should certainly be part of the equation, but does the expansion of a bullet not depend on the velocity of the impact (all other things being equal ?) and terminal energy, is directly related to bullet weight V velocity ?
Anything else, whilst critical to achieve a successful kill, has nothing to do with the ability of a rifle/bullet combination to have sufficient terminal energy to make a humane kill !
Hereford
Well-Known Member
From my experience, expansion is considerably better at ranges plus of 150m (and very poor under 50m!). I change tack and pin through the shoulders sort of sub 70 metres - after that it is engine room mainly for me but I haven't shot a deer past 220 (paced), in fact I've only shot a handful past 175 metres as I have been unsure of my capability in those instances. Having recovered the (105g SP) bullet in those instances the deformation was much more pronounced at longer range than the 'pencilling' at much shorter distances. Just in my limited experience, mind you.
Assess the shot - nothing wrong with 100g SP in the right place - its all the other variables that can affect it (and any other calibre, for that matter).
Assess the shot - nothing wrong with 100g SP in the right place - its all the other variables that can affect it (and any other calibre, for that matter).
A Guy Out West
Well-Known Member
The shot the girl made on the 688 yard cow looks to be a Hilar shot to me. What do you guys think??
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