Originally Posted by
John Duxbury
You are making this too complicated and are obsessing over things that either are unimportant out to 300m range or are not true.
For a .243 out to 300m or so, any of those bullets will work fine. My recommendation is to just go and buy a box of 90 grain Ballistic tips, or an 90 grain ELDX and use a max charge of 2209. Use whatever shoots the best group at the fastest velocity. Or if you want cheaper, a standard Prohunter or Interlock. (I dont use SST's because they blow up too easily at any range and because they are recommended by Nathan Foster who says ignorant things about .243's.)
Forget about energy measurements as an indication of anything. They aren't. Forget about boat-tails versus flatbase bullets; out to 300m it wont matter, and you seem to be assuming that one design is measurably more accurate than the other. (The only difference I have seen in the performance between boat tails and flat base, is that I have observed that boat tails might tend to end up in more funny places after hitting an animal than a flat base, but that might be my imagination.)
Look, dont get caught up in marketing and assuming progressive means better. Just because one bullet is the latest thing, does not assure you that it will shoot well in your rifle anyway. I had one rifle that shot 90 grain ELDX's quite well. I shot deer with the .243 from far away (far away for me means 250 metres or so) in to 10 metres, and the bullet worked fine, cant complain about it. But its nothing that an old Sierra Prohunter wouldnt have done either; meanwhile, my Sako will not shoot the 90 grain ELDX, it absolutely hates them, but will shoot the 90 grain Ballistic Tip and others fine. You still have to try them and see if you rifle will handle them.
Meanwhile I am still using the ancient 85 grain Sierra HPBT at 3200 fps in the Sako. Because it still works.