pet loads for a 243 Axis youth

[BC Guide]

I have bought my daughter a rifle for christmas. I am looking for advice on good loads. She will be mostly using it for practise so cheap bullets will be great. Advice on muledeer loads would be a good as well.

thanks for your time.

[wbm]

43.5gr H4831 with 85gr Sierra HPBT. Mild load and very accurate in every 243 I ever shot it in. For mule deer, lots of good factory ammunition available. Just find one her 243 shoots well.

[BC Guide]

43.5gr H4831 with 85gr Sierra HPBT. Mild load and very accurate in every 243 I ever shot it in. For mule deer, lots of good factory ammunition available. Just find one her 243 shoots well.

Sounds like a great place to start. those HPBT will make great coyote rounds as well.

[darkker]

I am looking for advice on good loads. She will be mostly using it for practise so cheap bullets will be great. Advice on muledeer loads would be a good as well.


There is no Spoon my friend, they are all different. But for getting used to recoil, sound, feel, etc; just pick ANY starting load in whichever manual you have. Cheap bullets that also work for coyotes, you can find in Nosler's store(ShootersProShop). Or any of the "Don't call them Nosler" Noslers, like Dogtowns, Varmint Nightmares.

You don't have your profile filed-out, so where and what are "Your mule deer"? Mule deer are very easy to kill, the...."Issue" people have with taking down these "big" animals is that most people can't shoot or judge distance. When you are shooting farther than you are capable of, and start talking about "Kill Zone's" that typically means you HOPE the bullet lands in that general area; and causes the deer to magically die fast. In that case, you probably do want a strong bullet that can destroy every vertibrae and hip the animal has. Otherwise any 85+gr bullet will very easily do the job.

[Dan Fletcher]

The hunting load I developed for my grandson was the 95 gr. Hornady SST with a charge of IMR4895 that has a velocity in the 2700-2800 fps range and shot 3 shot groups less than .75 inch at 100 yards. I also developed a practice load with the 55 gr. Nosler soft point and around 40 gr. of H4831SC which resulted in much lower recoil and shot to approximately the same point of impact as the 95 SST. Initially he wouldn't shoot the rifle with either of these loads because of the muzzle blast. I got him to shoot the rifle by loading the 55 Nosler SP with Trail Boss charges calculated as shown on the Hodgdon web site. Recoil with these loads was a little more than a 22 lr and muzzle blast was much less than normal 243 loads. After shooting these, he very quickly moved to normal 243 loads. Based on this experience, I'll be starting my other grandsons with loads using very light bullets and Trail Boss.

[TaxedinMaine]

I made some similar loads for my sons when they made the move into a 243.
I made a quick call to hornady and then made up some 87gr SP loads at about 2800-2850. They worked great, we only shot one deer with them but it worked just fine.