Light .243 load suggestions for a 7 year old

lanole

lanole

Member
My younger brother (7 years old) wants to go hunting with us this year. We've been working with him very dilegently on the aspects of firearm safety and marksmanship with a 22lr. He has picked up remarkably fast. I plan on letting him try a shot at his first deer this year while hunting with me in one of our box blinds. My smallest rifle is a .243 H&R. I know the .243 is mild on recoil, but I wanted to load up some "milder" .243 loads for him to practice with. I have IMR3031, IMR4350, and H380 powders. I will be using Nosler 95 grain BTs. I know there are maximum load limits, but I can't seem to find any minimum load limits. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
My old manual doesn't show 95 Grain bullets.

Beginning loads for 85 grain bullets in the powders you have are as follows:

IMR-3031 31.4 (2800 fps)
IMR-4350 37.4 (2800 fps)
H380 34.5 (2800 fps)

AGAIN, THOSE ARE FOR 85 Grain Bullets, which in the recoil world are lighter recoil than the heavier 95 grain bullets.

Keep in mind that recoil, or the lack there of takes second seat to accuracy.....got'ta hit what your shooting at first and foremost.
 
The load I worked up for my son is: 85 grain Nosler partition, 37 grains IMR 4064, Rem 9-1/2 primer. Very accurate in his stainless modle 7 and has always given a quick, one-shot kill.
 
remington has a new round called managed recoil,not sure if they have them in .243 or not but the .270's are awesome!
 
Or you can back up and punt! A friend of mine loaded up 110 grain Speer Varmiters in an old 30/30 for the same purpose. At close range (50 yards or so) his young brother in law shot this recoiless load into his first buck 25 years ago. I have used them on groundhogs out of a .308 and they didn't complain. The '06 won't throw 'em-wrong twist, I suppose.

I've never loaded the 100 grain Speer plinker, also in .308 diameter, but it might be an option, too, if you have an old 30/30 around. I will say if you use the .243 stick with heavier bullets or partitions like the boys say. I have seen some bad work done with 75 grain hollow points on deer that required an unneccessary amount of effort out of all parties involved (the deer, the shooter, and the dumb so-and-so that did the blood trailing!)
 
Thanks for all the input. I just bought a savage 7mm-08 for a custom short action project. I cut the synthetic stock off to his length and put a Limbsaver recoil pad on it. I found the youth loads on Hodgdon's website and loaded up a few 120 grain bullets with 31 grains of H4895. I sighted it in at 100 yards with decent groups. Most importantly it has no recoil and he was able to shoot the rifle without being afraid of it. Can't wait for the special youth hunt this weekend. We'll be hunting over a food plot where the longest shot will be about 100 yards so this round should be adequate (I was a little concerned about a slower moving 243 round). Thanks again for all the suggestions.
 
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