Couple to add, some good, one question mark at the edge of this load's effective range. There were some strange issues with the load and/or rifle that I haven't completely diagnosed yet, I'll probably update the 243 Improved thread once it's all sorted.
20" 243 Improved Tikka, reamed from a stock barrel. 115 NR DTAC 2900 FPS at the muzzle with 47.7 grains of H1000.
#1: Wife's antelope doe at 450. Half value ~20 mph gusty wind. Hit was about 3" left of ideal, through both scapulas. Antelope was almost exactly broadside, bedded. Stood up, turned, tried to follow the herd and only made it about 10 yards before tipping over. This bullet was a deep cut. Impact around 2300 fps.
Exit outside hide:
Entrance under hide, onside shoulder
Entrance side shoulder, back side:
Exit side ribcage:
#2: Buck antelope at 280, 5 mph wind. Bedded, ever so slightly quartered to. First hit was lower third behind shoulder, exited ~6" behind shoulder. Elongated 2.5" exit. One small jacket fragment was found under the hide.
Second shot, quartered to at same distance. Through shoulder, into stomach, bullet base fragment found under hide.
Lungs were destroyed, made a mess of the stomach. Total distance traveled was about 30 yards. These were standard cut DTACs, first ones I've used on game. Seem to behave the same. Impact velocity around 2525 fps
Lungs:
Exit holes. Farther back one is the quartered-to follow up shot. The one nearer the shoulder is from the initial shot.
Holes through the rib cage. Left side is the size of the cavity as the second, quartered-to shot exited the onside shoulder. Wound channel through the shoulder and scapula roughly matched that hole. Hole on the right is the exit from the first, bedded shot.
#3: Raghorn bull elk. This is where things got strange. First shot was 825. Was hunting solo with a SWFA 3-9, really never saw a single impact aside from the hit. Even when shooting at this sidehill afterwards (open dry dirt) I couldn't observe a bullet impact. There were some issues like that on the antelope hunt as well, including a clean miss (on the same buck the day before) at 270 yards prone with a bipod and rear bag. After checking zero, the same issue occurred again on a big mule deer buck that left unscathed. Whatever the issue was, I only made one hit before the bull made it into the pines. It shattered the lower socket of the front shoulder and most of the bone between the lower leg bone and scapula. Permanent cavity in the muscle was 2.5" or larger with a baseball size or great bloodshot area. Didn't get a good picture, but there was basically no damage to the tissue under the shoulder. Bullet did not get through the shoulder. Strangely, I never did find the bullet, or even a fragment. Could have looked more carefully, but it was dark, cold, and I was in a hurry to get the bull broken down. Bull was broadside at the time of the shot, and no other wounds were observed in the area of the hit. When I got over there, the bull had bedded just inside the trees. Threaded one shot through the pines ~3" behind his jaw through the neck and he dropped. That bullet blew through bone and all and left a 2" exit.
I should have done a better job investigating, but my assumption was that the bullet would be lodged somewhere in the shoulder and would be found while butchering. Nothing was found while removing the bloodshot section. Impact would have been around 1875 fps, maybe that's beyond the capability of a bullet this size to break an elk shoulder socket at the very thickest point.
Exterior of entry side and shot location. This should have killed the bull if it made it through.
Back side of shoulder. This view makes the shot look lower. There was no exit through the hide low, it was up where an exit would have been into the rib cage.
