243 55 gr ballistic tip loads?

[Randy Bohannon]

I've bought a box of these bullets to replace the quantity of 58gr vmax ammo the rifle came with as the latter have been so good on foxes.


i have rl15, rl17, n140,h4895 and H4350 as the most suitable powders on the shelf.

quckload seems to indicate that the slower powders like rl17 and h4350 would be better but published load data favours the faster powders like 4895 and n140.

Does anyone load this bullet and like to pass on their experience?

[tanglewood]

Nosler site recommends N150 for the 55 gr 6mm (.243) and Vihtavouri load data starts at 58 gr. Where have you seen data for N140 for that bullet weight? I'm curious, because I suspect my googling skills have failed me.

58 gr vmax are a pretty good round through a .243. At the moment I'm loading just below the max with N140, at 43 grains. They shoot flat through my 9.25 twist barrel, with a 200 yd zero they're dropping 2/3 moa at 250 yards, and a full inch (1 MOA) high at 100. I reckon that's pretty flat, certainly enough for any foxes I'm likely to take on out to 250. Muzzle velocity is going to be around 3700fps. Longest test (target) shot so far was 415 yards with 4 full MOA dialled in.

[Randy Bohannon]

Nosler site recommends N150 for the 55 gr 6mm (.243) and Vihtavouri load data starts at 58 gr. Where have you seen data for N140 for that bullet weight? I'm curious, because I suspect my googling skills have failed me.

58 gr vmax are a pretty good round through a .243. At the moment I'm loading just below the max with N140, at 43 grains. They shoot flat through my 9.25 twist barrel, with a 200 yd zero they're dropping 2/3 moa at 250 yards, and a full inch (1 MOA) high at 100. I reckon that's pretty flat, certainly enough for any foxes I'm likely to take on out to 250. Muzzle velocity is going to be around 3700fps. Longest test (target) shot so far was 415 yards with 4 full MOA dialled in.

I couldn't find any manufacturer load data using the 55 grain BT and N140, I extrapolated from the data Vihtavouri provided for the 58 grain V-max together with info for the 55 grain Blitz King from Sierra: http://accurateshooter.net/Downloads/sierra243win.pdf and fiddling about on quickload.

This was what engendered my question as I have an appreciation of how over-bore the 243 actually is and that the powders that suit it are much slower than I am used to from loading for the 308, for example.

I ended up trying H4895 on the basis of the data published on the Hogdon site, up to a max of 44.5 grains. Speed was well down on published specs but I did find an accurate load at 43.5 grain for around 3700 fps to.

I suspect this sort of velocity is the maximum one would get without moving to slower powders like RL 17 which I now understand to be a more appropriate burn rate for max velocity even with bullets as light as 55 grain.