Reading a new book on deer hunting and the author raises an issue I hadn't heard of before. He claims to have processed a deer that was shot at close range (less than 50 yds) with a .243. The first shot, aimed at the chest cavity, essentially disintigrated into shrapnel and did no lethal damage. The second shot, a lucky brain shot, dropped it.

My question is whether or not this is "normal". I have a .243 and was using it this season. Didn't have any shots, but based on how the deer move in that area the shots would have been 40-50yds.

Wondering if that type of hunting is too close for the .243.

i would think it is more the type of bullet used.

+1

Would be interesting to know the type of pill.
Sounds like a frangible varmint type doing what it was designed to do.

i killed a whitetail buck in e. wa. from about 30yds with a .270. it was a hornady hot load featuring a 140gr nosler ballistic tip. that buck never moved another inch, flopped over quivering. the bullet shattered into a billion pieces, the largest we found was the base, completely devoid of lead. the heart and liver were shattered, tho my partner salvaged a piece of the heart for dinner. ended up munching on a fragment. not a close-range projectile.





willy

Old cup-and-core bullets of smaller caliber were notorious for fragmenting at close range. When they first came out a few decades ago, my hunting bud referred to the NBT's as 'meat grinders' after similar serial 'failures.' He did swat the largest muley I've ever seen/packed with one of those pills, recovering the base of the cup on the off-side of the buck's neck.

I started pushing Barnes X's when they first came out, and all have performed as expected. In the ubiquitous Remington 700 .243 with a 9.25-twist barrel, the 85 TSX is a good'n and can be had in factory offerings. The same tube will generally stabilize the 6mm 105's in AMax or VLD for a slicker hammer.....

Mule deer. 7 yards. Hot-footin' 130 gr. X in .277. Complete pass-though the port/starboard side ribs with the lungs turned to raspberry jello. I got to eat the heart and liver....

In the late 1980's I nailed a airborne Montana whitetail @ 7 yards w/ the 130 grain NBT stepping out @ 3000 fps. My bud kicked it out from the river bottom & yelled up to me, so I was somewhat ready. Squared up & disengaged the M-77 thumb safety, had the scope cranked down to 2X.

We saw each other at the same second & she pirouetted broadside left as I pulled up to a scope picture full of fur & shot.

Perfect heart shot, thru & thru, the aforementioned "raspberry jelly" was all that was left of the heart & part of the lungs.

The Nosler Ballistic Tips have been good to me, do have a box of Barnes TSX to try this summer thou.

c/22

Barnes fan for about 20 years now for my fast rifles, almost exclusively for hunting. Zero failures. My other rifles, 2800 fps and slower, use a wide range of bullets, including ballistic tips, but I reserve ballistic tips for small critters I want to make into jello when shooting in a fast rifle.

If memory serves correct, when the NBT's first came out, the jacket was not as tapered toward the tip as the contemporary version. It was relatively uniform along its length, and likely too thin at that, leading to the ire of many initial users as I noted above and Nosler's change to its present section. I just went Barnes and haven't seen the need to change back. I probably still have an old box or two in .277 and .284 if anyone wants 'em.





Hoping for a slick 6mm/.243 LRX in the not too distant future....

Personally I cant see spending the money on Barnes bullets when you can buy Hornady Amax for half the price.
I shoot Amax and Vmax in my 6mm, 243AI and 7-08AI exclusively with no issues.
Food for thought to those that are thinking of trying the Amax you want a faster twist say for your 6mm/243 a 10 twist is borderline and some rifles will now stabilize the 105 Amax. I run 8 twist on all my 6mm/243 spouts runnin 105 Amax and 9twist on my 7-08 runnin 162 Amax.
The be slickery wind cheaters!