Ok guys, I didn't want to type out a chapter on this but here goes...

We own 3 farms in eastern NC, kill 45-60 deer a year and have since the early '60s...I have 2 brothers and plenty of family that hunts...So,we have killed a ton of deer with about every type weapon that can be used...

A few years back, I decided to try every factory loading for a .243... I and a few buddies use this cartridge...I've personally killed about 300 deer with mine...What we found out is that the standard cup and core type bullets were actually putting deer down quicker than the premium bullets...They didn't always pass through but with center lung shots the deer went down within 40-60 yards...With the premium it would be closer to 60-100 yards...

Something else we have noticed through the years, larger calibers do usually give more pass throughs but not always a better blood trail...Exit holes can and do get blocked by intestines, fat, muscle, whatever...In addition, we also noticed that with a larger caliber and a center lung shot there was no noticeable difference between how far a deer ran...There was more difference seen in the type bullet used within the caliber than simply moving to a larger caliber...

So, in our opinion, with whitetails the standard CoreLokts, InterLokts, PowerPoints, HotCors and GameKings were superior to the higher priced premium bullets...