RE: 243 vs 30-30
One other thing to consider...Go to a few local sporting goods stores and price ammo...In some areas of the country its very hard to find .260 and 7mm-08 ammo...
Ammo for a .243, .308, .270 and 30-06 can be found at almost any sporting goods store...While there also price ammo...Its going up...I have bought 5 boxes of Remington 100gr CoreLokts since Christmas, it's going for $15.24 at the local WalMart....
A few years back I was hunting with a buddy that bought a .260...He knocked his scope off and shot the ammo he had brought with him sighting in...We had to drive 45 miles to find one box of ammo and it wasn't what he had sighted in with, so we had to do this again...He paid about $24 for that one box and it was the last one at the store....These things do happen...If he was using one of the cartridges above, the corner gas starion would have had them...This was over Thanksgiving and we lost one afternoon and one morning of hunting, just because he wanted to shoot "something different"...He now shoots a .243...
A .243 will kill deer as well as a .270 or a 30-06...