- Question is what is better
for a new deer hunter, the 243 Winchester or
the 7mm-08 Remington? We're gonna dive into both on this episode of Ron Spomer Outdoors. (soft music) Well, back in the good old days, the old time deer hunters used to think a fun way to introduce a
new shooter to deer rifles was to put a 12 gauge or a
thirty-ought-six in their hand and let it knock 'em over. That's how I got started. But today we're a little smarter. Rather than start a new
shooter off with a big flinch. It's probably wise to use a
lighter kicking cartridge. Before we dive into
these two popular rounds, one being a lot more
popular than the other. I'd of course like to thank
all of our subscribers and especially our Patreons. You could join us on Patreon, just go to patreon.com./RonSpomerOutdoors, and we'll sign you up. Good to have your support. And of course the Patrons
will already have, make it possible to run
these videos week after week. We really appreciate it. Now the 243 and the 7mm-08 are both cartridges based
off of the 308 Winchester. They just use a little bit lighter bullets because they're narrower bullets. This gives them certain
advantages and disadvantages, but both of them are great whitetail
deer hunting cartridges. And neither of them kicks quite as hard as the 308, or the
thirty-ought-six, or the 270, or this 280. There are just all kinds
of popular deer cartridges that kick a lot more than these. And the idea whether you a new shooter is to sort of lighten the
load, and make it easy. I mean, a great way to start anyone learning how to shoot a rifle is with a 22 long rifle a Rimfire. Virtually no recoil, it's like shooting a BB gun. So they can really learn gun
control, trigger control, and how to shoot precisely. And then I like to work them up in size. But at some point you're going to want an effective deer taking
cartridge as well. A lot of folks will use the 223 Remington and fairly successfully. But quite a few others think that's just a little bit too puny. So the next step up seems
to be the 243 Winchester. But then there are a lot of guys who don't think that's quite got enough bullet weight or horsepower. And that's where the 7mm-08 comes in. Now plenty of you can argue
for the 260 Remington, the 6.5 Creedmoor, the
257s of various stripes, especially the 257 Roberts. There are a lot of other
great cartridges out there for starting that don't
have a lot of recoil, but have been proven really
effective on taking deer. But I just wanna concentrate
on these two in this episode. Because I get asked this question a lot. Should I go with the 243, or the 7mm-08? Well here are some of the
advantages and disadvantages, practically speaking. There are a lot more ammunition options it seems like in 243, it's just a lot more widely available. You can get bullet sizes
from about 55 grains in a Varmint bullet, up to 100 grains in your deer bullets. And all of them will really take dear it just depends on your bullet placement. But in general your deer hunters are probably gonna be using
a 90 to 100 grain bullet in the 243. So we're gonna concentrate
on the ballistics from that and the recoil in this episode. Now the 7mm-08 although
it's a great versatile all around cartridge, just doesn't seem to have as many options in factory loaded ammunition. Most brands, most
manufacturers will load it, but they generally stick with
140 and 150 grain bullets. Now I've got a Swift Scirocco here, or is it an A-Frame? It's an A-Frame at 160 grains. And that begins to
really show the advantage of the 7mm-08 with heavier bullets, deeper penetration, and
use on larger animals. So if you ever think your new
shooter might wanna graduate to an elk hunt, or even a moose hunt, or Africa for several of the
bigger plains games animals, the 7mm-08 is the way to go. But if you're going to be
shooting mainly in North America and hunting whitetails,
mule deer, pronghorn, a lot of perhaps coyotes, foxes
and the smaller predators, you might be better off with that 243. And the recoil is part of the reason why. So I ran some numbers on the recoil, got my recoil chart here
in an eight pound rifle. And I've put some other cartridges
in here for a comparison. So you can begin to
feel it or understand it a little better. So the 243 Winchester
pushing 100 grain bullet 3000 feet per second, in that eight pound rifle
is going to kick at about 10.9 foot-pounds of energy coming back at a velocity
of 9.4 feet per second. Now compare that to the 7mm-08 with a fairly common 140 grain bullet at 2,900 feet per second. You're getting 16.5 foot pounds of energy at 11.5 feet per second. So yep, a little bit
more, but how much more? How does that compare to what we know? So I threw a thirty-ought-six here, 150 grain bullet at 3000 feet per second. There you're up to 21.7 foot pounds. So anyone who's shot a thirty-ought-six will begin to appreciate
the differences here. 13.2 feet per second on
that thirty-ought-six. So you're doubling really
the recoil out of that 243. You're not doubling the feet
per second recoil velocity, but the energies are doubled. Now, if you wanna go down the scale to that familiar 223 Remington, well with a 55 grain bullet
at 3,250 feet per second, that's only kicking at 3.9 foot pounds in 5.6 feet per second. So there are your differences in there. They're fairly significant, but yeah, if you're really
really worried about recoil, I would go with the 243. But if you think your new shooter can take a little more kick initially
until they get used to it, I would go with the 7-08 if you're thinking of upgrading
in the size of animals you're eventually going to hunt. Now, what are we gonna look
at for ballistic performance? This may be not really necessary because both are more than
capable of taking whitetails out to 300 yards. And you can even extend that maybe to 400. Certainly have been done many a time. I've done it a few times myself. But most new shooters I think are going to be staying
inside of 200 yards. Out West here for pronghorn and mule deer. I think a few we'll
stretch it out to three. And again, it depends on your shooter. But I can remember taking
some new young shooters out and their first deer was
taken at 300 to 350 yard range because they'd done a lot of
practicing at that distance. And they were extremely calm
shooters and could do the job and the bullet certainly did it. I believe it was a 95 grain ballistic, probably there's Winchester
Ballistic Silvercap here. That's what I remember it being. And no problem taking the deer and the kid made a hard shot. So wow, that's pretty effective stuff. 320 yards with the 243. So don't be afraid of that. But I think your bigger concern is going to be that recoil issue because either one of these is really going to do the
job inside of 200 yards. But let's just look at some quick numbers. If we zero both of them to go no higher than three
inches above point of aim, we're going to get a
maximum point blank range. That means a dead on hold at
the center of a deer's chest out to about 300 yards. You look at those 300 yard
numbers of the elevation column and it's dropping 3.72 out of the, the 243 and the 7mm-08
Remington is dropping 3.70. They're almost precisely identical drops. That's pretty cool. The wind deflection. I think we're gonna have an advantage in that seven millimeter because it has a much higher
ballistic coefficient bullet. Look on the top of your
charts under the second one after drag function is
ballistics coefficient is 0.379 in the 243 with 100 grain bullet. 0.485 on that 7mm-08 that's
significantly higher. So you're gonna get a
better wind resistance out of that longer higher BC bullet. So let's just look down that
windage chart to 300 yards and we've got six inches, 6.14 out of the 7-08. That's a 10 mile an hour right angle wind. And it's 7.70 so yeah, inch and a half or
so difference in the windage not a huge deal. Once again, these two are
coming right in there. So as I say, you can look
at those charts all you want and look at the energy and
things and worry about it. I don't know that I would. Even a 243 is keeping more
than 1000 foot-pounds of energy out there at 300 yards. And most of us always say, well, if you've got 1000
foot-pounds of energy on a whitetail or a mule deer, that's more than enough. And I found that to be the case. Bullet placement number one. And again, that's why we
concern ourselves with recoil. If you can choose one of these cartridges that your new shooter can
handle without flinching, that is the most important part. So I think those are your options. Now almost everyone
chambers for both of these, although you will find
a few more in the 243. And of course they're both short actions, so you can get a fairly
light compact rifle. Now I've got a 7mm-08
here in my right hand. And my left hand I've got a 243, but either one of them could be chambered for one or the other. So don't think that
you're not going to find the rifles chambered for these cartridges. They are certainly out there and you can even find a few in the 243, I mean in a lever-action. I've got buddies with a 243
lever-action Browning rifles, and they really love those. Single shots, break actions
are pretty commonly found and break actions especially the 243. So shop around and I'm
sure you're going to find something for your new shooter. And I'm gonna wish you a lot of luck and happy shooting and happy hunting. Get them started off on the right foot. Forget that laugh a minute knocking them over stuff
with a big kicking rifle. That's a lousy way to start a new shooter. You wanna break 'em in gradually until they can really put 'em in there. And then they can increase the recoil and tolerate it as they go. Recoil is mostly a process of shooting it and learning how to shoot it
gradually working your way up. You don't wanna start with a heavy kicker. So 243, 7mm-08, you guys get to pick 'em, enjoy it, Ron Spomer signing off, do subscribe to our channel. Really appreciate the sport. Hunt honest and shoot straight. (upbeat music)
