As deer season approaches, one of the most effective whitetail rounds is getting pushed to the margins by newly-released calibers that offer no real advantage. [Zac K.] If there was a rifle caliber with an effective range far beyond the distances most hunters shoot at, and with a proven record of killing almost every big game animal reliably, and with low-enough recoil that even kids could fire it without difficulty, you’d think it would be super-popular. That’s the description behind the .243 Winchester, though, and it’s surprising to see that 71 years after its commercial release, the caliber is still a hard sell to many hunters, even as new cartridges are released that offer no real-world usage improvements on this classic deer-busting round. Gear up for deer season @ TFB:Fudd Friday: Wood-And-Steel Semi-Autos For Deer Season New 110 Magpul Hunter Announced by Savage Arms Fudd Friday: What Shotgun Gauge For What Hunting Season? TFB Review: Boyd's At-One Adjustable Gun Stock for the Remington 870 From an enthusiast’s special to the mainstreamLike so many hunting calibers of the 20th century, particularly in the sub-30 caliber segment, the .243 Winchester is a descendant of wildcatter experimentation. As early as the 1940s, Warren Page was experimenting with .243-caliber rounds, and when the Winchester .308 was released in the early 1950s, he necked down the case, jammed a quarter-bore bullet in there, and wrote it up in magazine articles. Winchester realized the benefit of a small-bore bullet that used the same parent case as the .308, and the .243 Winchester was released commercially in 1955.It was the same classic storyline that saw the .270 develop from the .30-06. Once the military settles on a caliber (as they did with 7.62x51 in the 1950s, aka .308 Winchester), then the civilian sector starts to see what else they can do with that cartridge case. Basic cup-and-core ammo for the .243 Winchester. Newer bonded bullets, as found in ammo like Federal Fusion, or mono-metals like Winchester Copper Impact, may be preferable for hunters who don’t mind spending slightly more money in order to get better terminal performance. [Zac K.] With the .243 Winchester, manufacturers generally released two different loads: something with a light bullet, around 80 grains in weight, intended for varmints; and something heavier, around 100 grains in weight, intended for deer. “Small deer,” as so many fudds will chorus, believing that anything less than a 150-grain .30-caliber bullet is marginal on whitetails.But from the 1950s up until today, real-world .243 users consistently prove the naysayers wrong. I’ve never taken a .243 hunting myself, but I know several people who have. My neighbor shot the biggest buck taken in this community last year with a .243. It’s been his gun of choice for years now, and he has taken a few other deer at 200-plus pounds. Only one required a second shot to speed up the killing process. Another friend, a lumberjack with a lifetime of deer hunting success, told me about one of his longest-ever kills: A 403-yard shot on a whitetail that he fired three times at, with a Winchester Model 88 lever-action.“I was glad I finally hit him on the third shot,” he said, “because I only had one more shell with me.” The .243 will definitely kill a deer out to pretty long range, if you and your rifle and optic are up to the task. [Zac K.] Most hunters wouldn’t use a .243 out to 400 yards, but when you’re a blue-collar, working-in-the-woods kind of guy, you take the shots that you can get. If you believe in the generally accepted theory that you need 1,000 foot-pounds of energy to reliably down a deer, then you won’t shoot a 100-grain load much past 300 yards. Winchester says its Power Point loads carry 1.098 pound-feet of energy at that distance, and at 400 yards, that drops to 882 foot-pounds.But at least half of deer killed by hunters are shot at 100 yards or less. From the stats I’ve seen, those numbers drop off drastically as you push past 200 yards. It is true that in some areas, particularly the western states and provinces, or up north on the tundra, the average shot is at longer distances—but from what I’ve seen, those are the places that tend to appreciate the .243 more anyway. Shooters who don’t have hundreds of dollars and hours for range practice are happy to grab a trusty rifle with minimal kick and a point-blank range of 300 yards; they know that if they put the crosshairs on a deer’s vitals, that deer will go down.Or maybe they are shooting at something bigger than a deer? The French-Canadian moose guide that I used to work with had a kid along one fall, hunting in Quebec, toting a .243. He said that .243 dropped a moose with the same authority as a bigger rifle, and if you look at stories from real-world Alaskan hunters, you’ll find plenty of similar tales. I don’t live near elk country, so I can’t comment on the round’s usefulness there, but I do know that they’re supposed to be a lot harder to kill than a moose, so I might take something heavier for those animals. But I also know that people do use .243 on elk and are successful, as long as they’re careful about shot placement.And this is what it all comes down to—shot placement. The reality is that many, many large animals have been killed by small bullets, as long as those small bullets are well-constructed and hold together as they smash through the animal’s vital zone. If a .243 was the only rifle I had for big game, I wouldn’t be concerned at all. [Zac K.] Part of the .243’s bad reputation with naysayers is due to hunters using varmint bullets that weren’t up to the task of big game hunting, shattering instead of penetrating.On the other hand, part of the .243’s good reputation with its fan base is because of the low recoil (less than even a .30-30, typically). That low recoil allows almost anyone to shoot accurately, punching through lungs and heart on a broadside shot instead of a flinched shot putting the slug through the animal’s guts, or missing entirely.You do you; if you think the .243 isn’t up to your hunting needs, feel free to continue using whatever round you think is better. But if all I had for hunting the moose, deer and bears here in the northeast was a .243, I wouldn’t think it was a problem at all. If this post has you ready to hit the range, head over to gunranges.com - a free directory to help you find shooting ranges near you, wherever you are in the United States.