No, ej, a .260 is a necked-down .308. Far less recoil, with bullets in the 120 grain to 140 grain range. It's a 6.5 mm round. The 6.5x55 round is what a lot of Swedes and Norsemen use on moose, so it can't be that bad.

I got the Ruger M 77 Compact in .243 for my daughter to hunt with. I've been having trouble finding a factory load that the bullet opens up with. she's killed several deer with it over the years but most of them run off like they weren't even hit. a few tims I told her she missed and she would insist that she didn't. We would go look ( by the way, we always look )and sure enough, there is blood.

I've had to put my bowhunting tracking skills to the test several times.

I don't know if the shorter barrel is causing the bullet to lose too much velocity and not letting it open up or what.

Here are the shells we tried

Winchester Power Points....She shot one deer through both shoulders and broke them both but I still had to part the hair to find the exit wound. She shot another thruogh both lungs, and it ran about 80yds with no signs of acting hit. It did leave one heck of a blood trail though.


Handloaded Ballistic tips...these performd OK. They didn't leave a real big exit wound but the deer didn't go far.

Remington Accutips.....I wasn't real impressed with them either. She hit a couple behind the shoulder and they'd run a good ways before going down.


Last year we tried Remington Scirroccos...They seemed to do a little better.


I don't know what to think. Is it the short barrel? She puts good hits on these deer, through both lungs, broad side and they run like they weren't hit. Have you guys noticed this with short barreled .243's?

Thats the exact results I have seen with the 243 on deer. If forced to use one for deer I would load the nosler Partition as a first choice and the Ballistic tip as a second choice. I have had a lot of expierence with seeing the 243 used on deer while guiding. In the hands of a very good shot and a person who can pass up iffy shots, its ok. For beginers by whom it most often used, I feel its about the poorest choice out there. I have seen far to many deer run to far and seen to many people give up on them and they die later. And YES I have sometimes seen them drop on the spot. Just not often enough to suit me.

Were I to buy a new one, it would be a toss-up between the Savage accu-trigger and the Browning A-Bolt.