243

[JParrott]

Been shooting it for years - Remington 788 - to date haven't taken a whitetail deer in 30+ years with anything else. They shoot fast and flat, manageable recoil, and are pretty light. IMO - they are a good all around medium range rifle and cartridge.

Wal-Mart had a sale on the Savage Axis' a month or so ago that I missed but they didn't have any in stock locally anyway, otherwise I'd have picked up two or three.

 

[Dave]

My kids shot total of 3 Columbia Blacktails, 3 Mule deer, and 1 Whitetail with that BLR 243. The Whitetail and one of the Blacktails were pretty good size bucks. The rest were all younger bucks. Only one dropped in his track but none of the others went far. I shot 2 mule deer with it and both were smaller meat bucks that dropped in their tracks. The one I lost was a huge Mule deer. I was probably stretching the barrel a bit. But I did hit him. It took me a while to pick my way over to where he had been. He went about 150 yards and laid down. It got up and moved twice. Blood where he laid down but not much when he walked. It had rained and the ground was soft so he left good foot prints. But there were lots of deer in the area so the tracks got mixed together. I lost his trail. I really wish I had been packing the 30-06 that day. If nothing else there would have been more of a blood trail to follow.