Melly...What ranges will you typically be shooting?? I have used a .243 since 1980...The first 75 deer or so, I used 100gr Remington CoreLokts...About 1995 I started trying different factory loadings to see the difference in wound channels...I would shoot 5-6 deer with each and concentrate on either high shoulder shots (bullet through the shoulder blade) or center lung shots...

I prefer a bullet that will exit on lung shots and on shoulder shots would go through both shoulder blades, didn't care if this bullet exits, as the deer would drop right there...

This is what I found out....

Bullets that amost always exit on lung shots, sometimes on shoulder shots...Hornady 100gr Interlock, Federal Premium 100gr Nosler Partition, Remington 100gr CoreLokt...

Bulets that sometimes exited on lung shots, never on shoulder shots...Federal Classic 100gr SPBT, Federal Premium 100gr Sierra SPBT,
Federal Premium 85gr Sierra HPBT,Winchester 100gr PowerPoint in both the Supreme and Standard loading...

If your shots are up to 200 yards, any of the first group work well...If your shots can be over 200 yards, the Federal Premium 85gr HPBT at 3320 muzzle velocity is a very flat shooting bullet (in my gun I sight it in at 2 1/2 inches high at 100 yards, and its about 3 inches low at 300 yards)...

Another observation...In doing my testing, I didn't lose a deer with any of these rounds, so they will all work...On center lung shots the deer ran less with the second group of bullets (the softer ones) than with the first group...I would say these deer ran 20-50 yards and the first group they would run 40-75 yards, not a big difference, but it was noticable...In addition, all of these bullets would drop a deer, even at close range with a shoulder shot, so they were all "hard enough" to penetrate the shoulder blade and put enough shock on the spine to drop the deer...

You might notice that I didn't try any of the ballistic tips or the new Federal Fusion...For some reason they didn't group well in my gun and I felt the Federal Premium 85gr HPBT had the advantage of opening up quickly that a ballistic tip gives you, but it had a higher velocity...

Hope this helps...Good Luck