Do yourself a huge favor and switch to Hornady Interbonds. I've shot deer with the Interlock(your basic lead bullet), the SST(pretty much Hornady's Ballistic Tip), and the Interbond. The interbond is pretty much a blend of the strength of the Interlock with the accuracy and aerodynamics of a polymer tip. the Hornady Interbond is probably one of the best overall bullets on the market. Read one of the last issues of Field and Stream ,they had a very good in depth look at the major bullets on the market today.This is the article paco is talking about.

I've had the interbond go through through both shoulders, so i really can't tell you how much weight it retained. i've had pass throughs with interbonds on every shot. The one time i found an Interlock was when it almost went completely through a deer lengthwise and i found it stuck under the hide. I didn't think the SST's that i recovered from deer and the ground behind my targets retained weight well enough. Use those for smaller deer, pronghorn, or varmints. I don't know if they make the interbond for .243 or not, but if they don't, I'd go to an interlock or something stronger than a ballistic tip. Oh, and about 1" groups, I'll say this: For 95% of hunters, 1" groups don't mean crap. As long as you can for sure put the bullet in the chest area at the ranges you'll be shooting at, you're fine. For some reason(and they did a study on it in F&S), the .270 Win(my caliber of choice), just doesn't group wortha damn. It won't make sub-MOA. i really don't spend time tightening groups. I'd be more concerned about trying to make shots in the wild that aren't off a bench, like moving shots and shots in cover.

slayer