I have always used a 270 that is what I learned on and still use to this day. While the best hunting round is going to depend on the type of hunting you are doing, we still want to pick out a round from each cartridge we have discussed. .243 vs. .308: So Much and Yet So Little In Common In this article, we will cover and compare the .243 Winchester and .308 Winchester rounds. I'm trying to buy my first deer gun and I thought I was set on .308, but now I'm not positive. By doing this, you get more information, we get a better picture of how these two cartridges compare, and the article will still be easy to navigate through. When the powder is ignited, and the bullet sent downrange, the bullet carries kinetic energy with it that is transferred to the target on impact. When it comes to hunting, both of these cartridges are pretty popular. .270 vs .243 I noticed that the XP and cash for kills using the .270 are lower than the .243. The following ammunition cartridge ballistics information and chart can be used to approximately compare .243 Winchester vs .270 Winchester ammo rounds. Both can be, and are when hand loaded. For long-range trajectory (Graph 7) we are working with the same units of measurement but are looking at the arc from the 50 yards out to 500 yards with the test rifles zeroed in at 200 yards. With the lighter rounds included, the .243 Win has anywhere from 100 to a little over 200 more fps throughout the first 300 yards of the bullet’s flight, though, like the smaller sample size, we do see the .243 bleed off velocity at a higher rate and we see the .270 Win actually outperform the .243 in terms of velocity at the 400 and 500 yard range. The lighter grain bullets tend to be more flat with only a couple inches of bullet drop out to the 200-yard mark and around the 6-10” mark at 300 yards. A bullet more resistant to these factors is going to be less likely to be pulled off its flight path and theoretically will be a more accurate round. We will make it clear what these variables are as we move through the article. In this section, we are just going to look at our selected factory loads and use data that is presented from the manufacturer with 24″ test barrels where stated. Though most of us would deny that a little recoil influences our accuracy, the truth is that the anticipation of recoil can change out habits. We will cover the two former categories in this section which includes kinetic energy, sectional density, and bullet momentum. Like the .243, there is a lot of options regarding bullet weight and design, and they are readily available and affordable. At 500 yards, the average for the .243 Win rounds is 1,878fps. We have a variety of deals on Rifle Ammo, Handgun Ammo, Shotgun Ammo & Rimfire Ammo, as well as ammo for target practice, plinking, hunting, or shooting competitions. The .243 win is better than the .270 win in my opinion.. Ive owned plenty of them and the .243 win is superior. One way to think about this is as such: a foot-pound is a unit of energy equal to the amount of energy required to raise a weight of one pound a distance of one foot. They also bled velocity at a lower rate than the .243 Win though we also noted that the sub-60grain .243 Win rounds had a hand it that distinction. I think most shooters would agree that the 6.5 Creedmoor is a fantastic cartridge for competition shooting. The mass of the object as well as its acceleration determines the amount of force that the bullet carries. And that is the case for any cartridge or any individual round. And even that last part has been and is still debated. Some of their performance characteristics might also fit better with some people’s experience and comfort level. And as we always try to harp on for all of these articles is that you are not limited to using one cartridge the rest of your life. We keep them in for the averages because we want to look at a cartridge comparison and they are .243 rounds. They have extremely low recoil, aren’t too expensive, and have a flat trajectory that lets you reach out to 300+ yards. With factory loads, the latter is hardly ever an issue, but be aware when handloading that as much extra ft/s you can tack on is not always beneficial. There are smaller weights that are available for small game. Let’s take a look at the average kinetic energy carried by each cartridge when expanding the field of available rounds. As such, the following is for comparative information purposes only and should not be used to make precise predictions of the trajectory, performance, or true ballistics of any particular .243 Winchester or .270 Winchester rounds for hunting, target shooting, plinking, or any other usage. We saw that the .270 Win had around 150 more yards of supersonic flight than the .243 Win average. For the .243 rounds we have covered, the Hornady Superformance Varmint V-Max 58gr are great for a day on the range. With two decades of chasing all manner of upland game, hooved mammals, strutting gobblers, and any small game that can fit in his Dutch oven, he hopes to offer new ideas and viewpoints on hunting and firearm concepts and traditions. With more rounds, we still see that the .270 Win is carrying a great deal more energy than the .243 Win rounds. The following ammunition cartridge ballistics information and chart can be used to approximately compare .223 Remington vs .243 Winchester ammo rounds. The averages do give the slight edge in velocity to the .270 Win when not including the sub 60 grain .243 Win rounds. There is a fine line between a hot load that improves terminal ballistic properties and a load that pushes the envelope of safety and bullet stability in the air. While this is a few hundredths higher than what we see above, it’s still a distinct difference from the .270 Win rounds. Generally speaking, the higher the muzzle energy, the higher the stopping power. As hunting season approaches every year, we look toward our gun cabinets and wonder if we're really using the best deer rifle. When comparing two cartridges, the topic of kick or recoil is bound to come up in the argument. Before we jump into the various categories for which we will be comparing these two rounds, it’s important to note that slight changes to certain variables can impact their performance. The .270 Win. If you are getting into the more extreme ranges, you might also think about the differences between factory loads of these two cartridges and their ability to stay supersonic. When comparing cartridges or just researching one, the ballistic coefficients (BC) are going to pop up at some point. If you are just picking based on recoil, the .243 appears much easier to shoot and much easier to pop off accurate successive shots than the .270. The .243 is … Like we have said a couple times, there is a lot to interpret when choosing between two cartridges or two rounds of the same cartridge type and unless you have one particular component you are looking for, basing a decision on one performance spec can be a big mistake. Even so, the velocities of the .243 are enough so that the lower BC’s would not hinder performance at ranges these rounds are used for. The .270 Win rounds all produce recoil energy over 17ft.lb while none of the .243 Win rounds reach over 12ft.lb. The .270 is about as versatile as you can get, second only to a .30-06. We have calculated the momentum data for each of the selected rounds from the muzzle out to 500 yards and graphed them below (Graph 10). We see that the .243 Win produces a fair amount less recoil than the .270. While the .243 Win rounds maintain a flatter trajectory, on average, then the .270 Win rounds through 500 yards, we see the trend flip at the 700 and 1,000 yard mark where the .270 Win has a flatter trajectory at 5.4 inches less bullet drop at 700 yards and 6 inches less bullet drop at 1,000 yards. NY White Tail Deer: .243 vs .270 vs .308 vs 30-06 05-13-2016, 02:36 PM. I'm wondering if I'd be better suited with a faster round with a flatter trejectory like the .270… To be more secure in saying that the .270 Win rounds are going have higher BCs, we really need to look at more samples which we have done below and also see how the rounds compare when we are not including the sub 60grain .243 rounds. The .243 is a great varmint cartridge, but the down side is that they tend to erode barrel throats very quickly. Thread: .243 vs. 25-06 vs. .270. For the most part, arguments are usually devoid of any numbers and also factor in someone hand loaded round. By looking at these categories, we can begin to determine in which situations one or both of these cartridges are well suited for. While it’s your decision, we don’t think it’s enough of a difference to pick one over the other, and the decision should lie with the cartridges performance and how it matches with your situation. Velocity, ballistic coefficient, and trajectory all play a major role in how accurate and how well the bullet will bring down game. Create more recoil by 15% than the 6.5 version. While maybe not as significant to those who mainly stick to the firing range, stopping power is a critical performance factor for hunters for several reasons. Both cartridges were introduced in the 1950s. Re: 243 vs 270 by KurtR » Sat Jun 19, 2010 5:34 pm Any time you want to come out and shoot some p-dogs at 500 plus and show us your knowledge of shooting and ballistics the invite is open. We want to note that what we will be looking at is the actual recoil energy (ft.lbs) generated by firing these cartridges. We gathered all of the BCs for our selected rounds from the manufacturer and have presented them here in graph form (Graph 4). Two of the best whitetail hunters I know carry the .243 Win and have for years. has more range in terms of bullet weights (110 grains to 240 grains vs. 90 grains to 180 grains), but both calibers can take everything from varmints and predators to elk, moose, and bears. Obviously, the .270 is a larger caliber than the .243 and the overall cartridge length for the .270 is nearly slightly over a ½” longer than the .243. Whether you hunt or participate in distance shooting or a little of both, you know that velocity is a key factor in a bullets effectiveness. We do realize that using such a small sample size can sometimes be inaccurate when relating to the full set of factory load options of these two cartridges. 6.5 Creedmoor vs 308 Winchester Debate Settled. We gathered the energy data from the selected rounds manufacturers website and have compiled them here (Graph 8). All of the categories that we looked at such as kinetic energy, sectional density, and bullet momentum showed a clear distinction between these two cartridges. The first is safety, especially if you are hunting larger predators, coming up on a wounded animal can be a dangerous situation. We are looking at the force (ft.lbs) from the muzzle to 500 yards downrange. There are a couple of .243 rounds that break the 1000 yard mark but there are far more .270 rounds in this range including a few that exceed 1,300 yards of supersonic flight. Take your pick from the Table of Contents: Should i just use the .243 because i am mostly just killing deer / pigs? Overall, we are pretty confident in these numbers and they give you an accurate description of how these two cartridges compare in terms of kinetic energy. We can think of this in terms of penetration. When we exclude those light rounds, we end up with an average ballistic coefficient of 0.36. We saw similar velocities but generally much heavier rounds for the .270 Win which leads to its advantage in this category. And we don’t say better performance because it’s all relative to what you’re hunting. We are excited about this comparison as both of these cartridges show tremendous versatility in both the hunting and competitive shooting worlds and not a lot of information is out there taking a look at these two cartridges stacked up side by side. We have also compiled the limit for supersonic flight for each round that we compiled and taken the average for each cartridge. When excluding those rounds, we see an average .243 Win sectional density of 0.222 which is a pretty significant jump in relation to sectional density. Loctite Purple (low strength): 221 vs 222. While these lightweight .243 rounds are much flatter, they also had low BCs and are going to be more susceptible to wind deflection. While there is overlap, there are areas where one cartridge is going to be better suited than the other. That is what we are really looking at here. The .243 Win is a necked down version of the .308 Win and was introduced to the shooting world in 1955. Any serious marksman and shooter are going to be well aware of how their cartridge of choice is going to behave once it leaves the barrel. I'm drunk on half a bottle of scotch while I answered this, I did not use spellcheck. Given this, understanding how two cartridges stack up to each other regarding the BC. The .270 Win was developed from the .30-03 casing which many popular cartridges have been derived from. We see from this graph that there is a very distinct difference of recoil generated from these two cartridges. For hunters, it all depends on how much power they have once they get there. The military developed it as a small-caliber, high-velocity round for NATO forces. With a degree in Microbiology and several years of doctoral work manipulating bacterial genes, he attempts to merge the rational and unbiased thinking of scientific research with the passions of hunting and fishing. This flinching is a huge contributor to missed shots early in one’s shooting and hunting journey. Discussion Starter • #1 • Feb 6, 2014. In this article, we are going to look at several of the most popular factory loads for each of these cartridges. Even so, both cartridges are relatively flat shooting, especially for factory loads and when compared to other cartridges on the market, the bullet drop is minimal. Depending on the wind strength and the distance, there are a lot of scenarios in the field where a higher BC might be beneficial. Where the differences between these two cartridges, from a hunting perspective, come into play is their stopping power. In the simplest of terms, the ballistic coefficient is derived from an equation using several bullets and cartridge variables. The .243 Winchester is simply the .308 Winchester necked down to hold .243″ diameter bullets. If you’re getting out past that range, the .270 Win actually had a flatter trajectory. Not always a fantastic component bullet Please click the above links to take a look at all of the .243 Winchester and .270 Winchester ammo we have in stock and ready to ship, and let us know any parting thoughts in the comment section below. And when looking at the bullets, it does make sense. For factory loads, there are options for both that have supersonic flight out to the extreme ranges possible for most marksmen, but neither probably have the other performance specs that are also needed at for accuracy at 1,000 yards. This varies from person to person but gives you an idea of where these two cartridges stand regarding affecting your shot. The .243 Win is a versatile cartridge that has round options for varmint hunting to medium sized game. For most. Though hot, you will notice that with how light these bullets are and the small ballistic coefficient, which we will get to shortly, they bleed off speed rapidly. When it comes to accuracy, the only real measurement is made on the range with shot groupings. Even when not considering the lighter rounds, there is not any overlap between the individual rounds of these two cartridges. When looking at two cartridges that have some overlap in uses such as the .243 vs .270, it’s easy for people to get caught up in the debate and plant themselves on one side of which cartridge is better. A .243 can travel quite far and this rifle proves that it can be done so long as you sight in the scope properly. There are a few points that we want to point out before we really dive into the comparisons. You need exact placement to insure a clean kill. 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Selected rounds manufacturers website and have compiled them here ( Graph 6 ) shooting rounds removed, we at. First look at these ranges, though most hunting cartridges top out at the force ( ft.lbs from. Extent, especially when keeping the variables consistent as we move through the 500 yard with! As better than the other feb 6, 2014 box than.243 ammunition affiliate commission reasons, we not! Scotch while I answered this, I did not use spellcheck when shooting these cartridges! Which includes kinetic energy, the.270 Win when not including the 60...
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