Looking for a few thoughts and opinions on these two calibers. I'm considering buying a new gun for my girlfriend. It will be primarily a Coues deer rifle, with antelope a possibility as well. She's 5'10" around 140 so I'm just a tad concerned with recoil. I will develop a load to be as accurate as possible but I will probably limit her to a 300 yard max.
Let me know what you think. I've never owned either caliber so I'm trying to get some real world experiences.
243 was my first rifle, I still have it 30yrs later, so obviously I'm pretty partial to and started both my kids with it. I got my daughter a 7mm-08 3yrs ago at 13 she fell in love with it. I'm pretty impressed with it myself. Honestly they both kill very well, if you think there might be chance she'll go after elk some day 7mm-08 for more appropriate bullet selection, otherwise flip a coin and choose heads you'll be tickled with either. or take her shopping and let her choose the rifle she likes chambered in either cal.
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Keep in mind the animals we shoot for food and display are not bullet proof. Contrary to popular belief, they bleed and die just like they did a hundred years ago. Being competent with a given rifle is far more important than impressive ballistics and poor shootability. High velocity misses never put a steak in the freezer.
.243 is one of my favorite rifles, my family has killed coues muleys, elk, and lots of javelina with it. it has little kick i shot my first deer with one when i was 10 yrs old and my nephew and my wife have learned off the same gun, the 243 we have has over 36 deer under its belt, i imagine the barrel life in it is almost gone but it sure has done me well, both are good i just love the 243
I vote for the 7mm-08. You can load from 100 to 168 grain bullets and cover all your bases. The wife has one that has shot everything from prairiedogs to moose. She regularly shoots it out to out to 750 yards and rings the gong almost every time. The load of choice is varget 42.0 under a 140accubond with CCI BR2 primer.
Here is her moose from last week.
I had the family out this past weekend doing a little practice. We shot 100 gr bullets out of a sporter barreled 243 with a wood stock and 130 gr bullets out of a varmit barreled 260 also with a wood stock.
My wife is 5' 9" and 125ish and the first words out of her mouth after one shot from the 260 were "F.... this rifle you can keep it". My 11 and 12 yr old boys didn't care for it much either. I was glad I didn't bring the 7-08 because I know it kicks more than the 260.
What seemed like a negligible increase in recoil to me was enough to prevent all three of them from wanting to shoot more than 3 shots out of the 260, but they darn sure burned through the 243 ammo.
Chris
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Ignorance can be treated with education, sadly there is no cure for stupidity.
That recoil sensitivity is a fickle thing ain't it. You never really know what some one is ok with till they shoot it.
__________________
Keep in mind the animals we shoot for food and display are not bullet proof. Contrary to popular belief, they bleed and die just like they did a hundred years ago. Being competent with a given rifle is far more important than impressive ballistics and poor shootability. High velocity misses never put a steak in the freezer.
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