I got the Ruger M 77 Compact in .243 for my daughter to hunt with. I've been having trouble finding a factory load that the bullet opens up with. she's killed several deer with it over the years but most of them run off like they weren't even hit. a few tims I told her she missed and she would insist that she didn't. We would go look ( by the way, we always look )and sure enough, there is blood.

I've had to put my bowhunting tracking skills to the test several times.

I don't know if the shorter barrel is causing the bullet to lose too much velocity and not letting it open up or what.

Here are the shells we tried

Winchester Power Points....She shot one deer through both shoulders and broke them both but I still had to part the hair to find the exit wound. She shot another thruogh both lungs, and it ran about 80yds with no signs of acting hit. It did leave one heck of a blood trail though.


Handloaded Ballistic tips...these performd OK. They didn't leave a real big exit wound but the deer didn't go far.

Remington Accutips.....I wasn't real impressed with them either. She hit a couple behind the shoulder and they'd run a good ways before going down.


Last year we tried Remington Scirroccos...They seemed to do a little better.


I don't know what to think. Is it the short barrel? She puts good hits on these deer, through both lungs, broad side and they run like they weren't hit. Have you guys noticed this with short barreled .243's?