ORIGINAL: ox1443
the 243 is for plinking gophers terrible gun
What a joke.
dean790: Never take advice from someone with 5 posts.
The .243 is a great deer rifle. I put my .30-06 away three years ago, and have been using a .243. There has been not one iota of difference in performance on deer. Works just fine on pigs as well. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.
You don't say where you are. I hunt in Texas were deer tend to be a bit smaller than those grown in the corn belt of the Midwest. The deer further north get quite a bit larger. If that's the case you might want to step up to a 7mm-08. Or you might want to consider using a .30-06 or .270 with Remington's managed recoil rounds. That way, once you're back into practice, if you need toyou can upload to the regular rounds and have a perfectly suitable rifle for larger game.