In my younger days I used a .243 for whitetail and black bear. I never had a chance to shoot a bear with it but I did take several deer with it. I always used handloads. My favorite load out of this Savage 110 was 40.5 gr of IMR4350 behind a Hornady Interlock 100 gr bullet. Out of the roughly 10 or so deer shot with this rifle/load, only one needed a follow-up shot.