243 Winchester Ballistics Chart (History, Uses, Hunting)

The 243 Winchester is a .24″ caliber centerfire rifle cartridge that is has a rimless, bottleneck case design. The 243 Winchester cartridge casing is reloadable after the cartridge has been fired or spent with various combinations of primer, powder and .243″ diameter bullets.

243 Win History:

The popular 243 Winchester centerfire rifle cartridge originated as a wildcat based on the 308 Winchester case, necked down to accept .243″ diameter bullets. Warren Page developed the first prototype of this cartridge.

Warren Page, then shooting columnist for Field & Stream magazine, was an avid wildcatter, and had convinced many American hunters through his writings that his .24″ caliber wildcats would effectively harvest varmints and deer as a combination cartridge.

Winchester agreed, and this cartridge was made available to the public by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1955 in their new Model 70 Featherweight bolt action rifle using a 22 inch, 1 in 10 inch twist barrel and offered 80 and 100 grain bullet loads for its intended dual purpose use as a varminter and a deer cartridge.

243 Winchester Uses:

The 243 Winchester 80 grain bullet load was designed primarily for varmint and predator hunting and the 100 grain bullet loading was designed for use as a thin skinned big-game cartridge. Today there are many various weight bullets offered in factory produced ammunition, such as can be found on our sponsor’s page, here.

It was the first true dual purpose class of hunting rifle cartridges and it is now among the top five most popular and widely available of all centerfire rifle cartridges in the world today.

The 243 Winchester rifle cartridge chambering is an excellent choice for varmint hunting as it is a powerful varmint cartridge and one that I consider as a long range varmint cartridge. The 243 Win. offers lower recoil, and at a high power flat bullet trajectory level.

The heavier .243″ diameter bullet does better in the wind than any smaller caliber. Rifles with a 1 in 10″ twist rate will shoot quite accurately many different lightweight bullets.

The 243 Winchester rifle cartridge chambering is an excellent choice for deer and antelope hunting as it is a very flat shooting cartridge when loaded with heavier bullet weights. Rifles with a 1 in 9″ rifling twist rate will shoot quite accurately many different heavier weight bullets including Berger VLD’s.

243 Winchester bullet weights less than 80 grain are better suited for use on varmints such as groundhogs, prarie dogs and predators such as bobcats, coyotes and wolves.

Bullet weights between 80 grain – 90 grain have been used quite successfully for dual purpose use on varmints, predators and smaller thin-skinned big-game animals for years.

Bullet weights greater than 90 grain are better suited for use on big-game such as wild pigs, wild boar, javelina, blacktail deer, whitetail deer, mule deer and black bear.

The popular 243 Winchesters in most rifle configurations are very well known for their extreme accuracy. Bolt actions are very popular, which is partially due to the fact that little recoil is felt by the shooter therefore reducing recoil flinch when shooting.

The 243 Winchester offers very good hunting ballistics when hunting for any of the following animals:

• Bobcat
• Cougar
• Coyote
• Antelope
• Hogs
• Javelina
• Blacktail deer
• Mule deer
• Whitetail deer

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You can see our more in depth rifle ballistics chart on many different calibers of cartridges, here.