The .243 Winchester (6×52mm) is a popular sporting

rifle A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with b ...

cartridge. Developed as a versatile short action cartridge to hunt both medium game and small game alike, it "took whitetail hunting by storm"Ron Spomer.
Whitetail Deer Cartridge Shoot-Out: .30-30 Win. vs. .243 Win. vs. .30-06 Springfield
. ''

Outdoor Life ''Outdoor Life'' is an outdoors magazine about camping, fishing, hunting, and survival. It is a sister magazine of '' Field & Stream''. Together with ''Sports Afield'', they are considered the Big Three of American outdoor publishing by Money ...

'', October 28, 2019. Accessed March 2, 2021. when introduced in 1955, and remains one of the most popular

whitetail deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

cartridges. It is also commonly used for harvesting blacktail deer,

pronghorn The pronghorn (, ) (''Antilocapra americana'') is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American ante ...

s and

mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whi ...

with heavier rounds, and is equally suited to

varmint hunting Varmint hunting or varminting is the practice of hunting vermin — generally small/medium-sized wild mammals or birds — as a means of pest control, rather than as games for food or trophy. The targeted animals are culled because they are con ...

with lighter rounds. The .243 is based on a necked down

.308 Winchester The .308 Winchester is a smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge widely used for hunting, target shooting, police, military, and personal protection applications globally. It is similar but not identical to the 7.62×51mm NATO ...

, introduced only three years earlier. Expanding monolithic copper bullets of approximately 806mm - Barnes TTSX
. Terminal Ballistics Research. Accessed March 8, 2021 to 85
. Terminal Ballistics Research. Accessed March 2, 2021 grains or traditional lead rounds of 90 to 105 grains with controlled expansion designs are best suited for hunting medium game, while lighter rounds are intended for varmints.John Haviland.
An American Favorite: The .243 Winchester
. ''

American Rifleman ''American Rifleman'' is a United States-based monthly shooting and firearms interest publication, owned by the National Rifle Association (NRA). It is the 33rd-most-widely-distributed consumer magazine and the NRA's primary magazine. The magazi ...

'', November 18, 2013. Accessed March 2, 2021. In at least ten

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

sWhich AR-15 Can You Hunt With?
. Stag Arms. Accessed March 2, 2021. and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

,Deer Act 1963 Chapter 36
.

The National Archives National archives are central archives maintained by countries. This article contains a list of national archives. Among its more important tasks are to ensure the accessibility and preservation of the information produced by governments, both ...

. Schedule 2: "Prohibited Firearms and Ammunition". 1963. Accessed March 2, 2021. the .243 or similar cartridges are the smallest bore cartridges that are legal for hunting deer; this has been revised in the UK to allow Muntjac and Chinese Water Deer to be taken with .22 (5.56mm) chambered weapons. The cartridge can be extremely accurate to and beyond, but may not retain enough terminal energy to reliably drop medium game at that distance.Ron Spomer.
243 Winchester Versus 7mm-08 Remington
. ''Ron Spomer Outdoors'', November 25, 2019. Accessed March 3, 2021.Gary Zinn.

. Chuckhawks.com. 2017. Accessed March 2, 2021. Highly experienced hunters use the .243 Winchester to routinely drop bucks up to , while less experienced hunters can be just as capable with the .243 because of its very low recoil yet high

velocity Velocity is the directional speed of an object in motion as an indication of its rate of change in position as observed from a particular frame of reference and as measured by a particular standard of time (e.g. northbound). Velocity is a ...

.William W (Bill) Goddard.
BEST CALIBER FOR DEER HUNTING
. Mossy Oak, November 13, 2018. Accessed March 6, 2021. Besides hunting applications, the cartridge is popular with target and

metallic silhouette Metallic silhouette shooting is a group of target shooting disciplines that involves shooting at steel targets representing game animals at varying distances, seeking to knock the metal target over. Metallic silhouette is shot with large bore r ...

shooters for those same recoil and velocity properties, with superb accuracy. The .243 Winchester has regularly made the top five of rankings for "Best Whitetail Deer Hunting Cartridges" from sources such as '' Field and Stream'' and ''

'',Bryce M. Towsley.
Top 10 Cartridges for Hunting Whitetail Deer
. ''

'', September 14, 2017. Accessed March 3, 2021. and its widespread popularity (called the "whitetail hunter's favorite" by the

Browning Arms Company Browning Arms Company (originally John Moses and Matthew Sandefur Browning Company) is an American marketer of firearms and fishing gear. The company was founded in Ogden, Utah, in 1878 by brothers John Moses Browning (1855–1926) and M ...

BAR Mark III
.

. Accessed March 4, 2021. and "American favorite" by ''

'') assures chamberings in newly manufactured offerings of not only bolt-action rifles, but also

semiautomatic rifle A semi-automatic rifle is an autoloading rifle that fires a single cartridge with each pull of the trigger, and uses part of the fired cartridge's energy to eject the case and load another cartridge into the chamber. For comparison, a bolt- ...

s (e.g., Browning BAR and AR-10 platforms), lever action rifles (e.g., Henry Long Ranger and

Browning BLR The Browning BLR is a lever-action rifle manufactured for Browning Arms Company by Miroku Firearms in Japan. It comes in many different variations and is chambered in numerous calibers from small and fast ( .22-250 Remington and .243 Winchester ...

), and even pump action rifles (e.g.,

Remington 7600 The Remington Model 7600 is a series of pump-action centerfire rifles made by Remington Arms. The Model 7600 is a progression from the original Model 760 pump-action rifle which Remington produced from 1952 to 1981. Production of the Model Six be ...

). '' Gun Digest'' estimates that (as of the end of 2018) the .243 Winchester is the second-most popular of all hunting rifle chamberings (after the long action .30-06).Gun Digest Editors.
Ammo Brief: The Versatile .243 Winchester
. '' Gun Digest'', December 26, 2018. Accessed March 6, 2021 Commentators such as popular ammunition author Chuck Hawks have opined that the .243 Winchester (as a "6mm NATO" round) should replace the

5.56×45mm NATO The 5.56×45mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 5.56 NATO, but often pronounced "five-five-six") is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge family developed in the late 1970s in Belgium by FN Herstal. It consists of the SS109, L110, and ...

(.223 Remington) for most

United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

use cases but not until the 2020 release of the

6mm ARC The 6mm Advanced Rifle Cartridge (6×38mm), or 6mm ARC for short, is a 6 mm (.243) caliber intermediate rifle cartridge introduced by Hornady in 2020, as a low-recoil, high-accuracy long-range cartridge, designed for use in the AR-15 platform ...

did a .243 caliber cartridge find limited adoption by the US Armed Forces.

History

Well-regarded '' Field and Stream'' editor and Harvard-educatedWarren Page, 67, Ex-Gun Editor Of Field and Stream Magazine
. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', January 24, 1977. Accessed March 6, 2021. technical gun enthusiast Warren Page began experimenting with wildcatting a .243 caliber (6.2mm) round in the 1940s sometime after the

6mm Lee Navy The 6mm Lee Navy (6×60mmSR), also known as the 6mm U.S.N.Hanson, Jim, ''The 6mm U.S.N. - Ahead Of Its Time'', ''Rifle Magazine'', Vol. 9, No. 1 (January–February 1977), pp. 38-41 or .236 Navy, is an obsolete American rifle cartridge. It was ...

was discontinued.Mike Ramienta.
.25-06 REMINGTON VS. .243 WINCHESTER: THE BETTER OVERBORE
. ''Gun News daily'', August 17, 2020. Accessed March 6, 2021. When the

was introduced in 1952, Page started necking down the .308 design into a new .243 wildcat cartridge. After Page's hunting success with and much writing about this new version, Winchester developed a factory loaded .243 soon thereafter. It was first introduced in 1955 for the

Winchester Model 70 The Winchester Model 70 is a bolt-action sporting rifle. It has an iconic place in American sporting culture and has been held in high regard by shooters since it was introduced in 1936, earning the moniker "The Rifleman's Rifle". The action has s ...

bolt-action and Model 88 lever-action sporting rifles and quickly gained popularity among sportsmen worldwide. It was a ground-breaking development with at first only two factory loads, combining a versatile and effective combination of 80-grain bullets optimized for high-velocity, long-range performance for varmint hunters (e.g., groundhogs, coyotes, prairie dogs) and 100-grain bullets suitable for game up to the size of deer and pronghorn antelope. Its predecessor in the Winchester lineup, the very similar .257 Roberts, could have easily been selected to accomplish the same tasks, but was not available factory loaded with either lighter, varmint-weight bullets or pointed, long range spitzer (pointed) bullets, so it never achieved the popularity of the newer round. Remington also saw the 6 mm (.243 in) family as suitable for this dual-purpose use and introduced their version, the .244 Remington, in the same year (1955) based upon the .257 Roberts necked down to accept .243 bullets up to 90 grains in weight. The Winchester round remains available today whereas the .244 Remington, later renamed the 6mm Remington with the introduction of 100-grain bullets, is far less popular even though it can push all bullet weights slightly faster with maximum loads due to the larger capacity case. The fact that the .243 Win was originally offered in a 1 in 10 inch rifling twist rate, a rate better able to stabilize heavier, 100- and 105-grain bullets, versus the .244 Remington's 1 in 12 inch twist (hence the 90-grain factory offering) was also a factor in their popularity. Since the enactment of the Deer Act 1963 in the United Kingdom, which stipulates a minimum bullet diameter of .240 inches, together with minimum levels of muzzle velocity and bullet energy, the .243 has long been perceived as the entry-level caliber for legal deer-stalking. Firearms that would normally be chambered in

7.62×51mm NATO The 7.62×51mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 7.62 NATO) is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It is a standard for small arms among NATO countries. First developed in the 1950s, the cartridge had first been introduced in U.S. service f ...

are sometimes available in .243 in countries–such as Spain–whose regulations restrict or forbid private ownership of so-called military calibers (restricted to bolt action-repeating rifles). No military is known to currently designate this round for service. In a non-sporting context, bolt-action rifles chambered for the .243 were utilized by the Los Angeles Police Department's special weapons and tactics (

SWAT In the United States, a SWAT team (special weapons and tactics, originally special weapons assault team) is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to ...

) unit during its early years. A specialist 115-grain projectile can move up to 3,150 fps from a 28-inch barrel, or over 3,000 fps from a 26-inch barrel. P. O. Ackley created an improved version of this cartridge called the .243 Winchester Improved (Ackley). Like other improved cartridges, this created a steeper shoulder and blew the sides out, giving about 10% more powder capacity, and some small improvement in velocity.

Performance

Performance-wise, the .243 Winchester closely matches the 6mm Creedmoor but the .243 Win has more bullet and casing options, as well as more factory loadings and firearm options available.Chuck Hawks.
Compared: .243 Winchester and 6mm Creedmoor
. ''ChuckHawks.com''. Accessed January 29, 2022. The .243 Win also has slightly more powder room, while the 6mm Creedmoor is usually loaded to slightly higher pressures. With very little recoil, even less than that of the

.30-30 Winchester The .30-30 Winchester/.30 Winchester Center Fire cartridge was first marketed in 1895 for the Winchester Model 1894 lever-action rifle.7mm-08 Remington The 7mm-08 Remington is a rifle cartridge that is almost a direct copy of a wildcat cartridge developed around 1958 known as the 7mm/308. As these names would suggest, it is the .308 Winchester case necked down to accept 7 mm (.284) bullets with ...

out to 500 yards, with less recoil yet also less terminal energy. The recoil has been measured to be so light that it "can be shot by anyone that can handle a rifle."RECOIL!
. AccurateReloading.com, April 29, 2000. Accessed March 9, 2021. Among popular small-bore rifle ammunition the .243 does have approximately three times the recoil factor of the

.223 Remington The .223 Remington (designated as the 223 Remington by the SAAMI and 223 Rem by the CIP) is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was developed in 1957 by Remington Arms and Fairchild Industries for the U.S. Continental Army Command ...

and twice the recoil factor of the .22-250 Remington, but only half the recoil factor of the more powerful long action

.25-06 Remington Considered by many as the most balanced of the "quarter bores" for hunting medium-sized game, the .25-06 Remington remained in obscurity as a wildcat cartridge for nearly half a century before being standardized by Remington in 1969. Its design ...

(without muzzle brakes). As the .223 and .22-250 are not recommended for deer hunting, the .243 has the lowest recoil factor among small bore deer hunting cartridges. Lack of overpenetration on medium game has traditionally been perceived either as a problem (lack of exit wounds and blood trails) or as a feature ("uses up all the energy in the deer") of traditional lead .243 cartridges versus larger and heavier rounds, but monolithic copper .243 ammunition weighing as little as negates this characteristic and causes adequate penetration and blood trails through even larger-bodied medium game like wild hogs. The .243 produces a velocity of per second from factory-loaded expanding monolithic copper projectiles weighing fired from a barrel.Barnes TSX 243 Win
Federal Premium Ammunition. Accessed March 9, 2021. Other variations of commercially loaded .243 ammunition are available with bullet weights ranging from 55 grains (3.6 g) up to 115 grains (6.8 g). Twist rate of the barrel can sometimes be a factor in deciding which bullets to use, 1:10 being the most popular as it is sufficient to stabilize up to 100 gr bullets. However, for very low drag-profile or bullets heavier than 100 gr, a 1:8 or 1:7 (for 115 gr VLD bullets) is necessary.

References

External links

.243 Winchester Cartridge Guide
by AccurateShooter.com
Cartridge Dimensions
{{Winchester Cartridges Firearms 243 Winchester 243 Winchester

History

Performance

See also

References

External links