I have 2 sons that use the 243. My oldest has claimed my dad’s old 243 when he was 9 and he’s now 21 and won’t shoot anything else. We’ve never lost a deer in 11 years using this caliber. We’ve used 2 different loads with the best success on deer being the 90 grain Swift Scirocco and the 100 grain Nosler Partition (this being our favorite). Stay away from the Ballistic tips and the Hornady SSTs!