Thread: 15 inch 243.

Hi all

I am thinking of purchasing a new suppressor for my tikka t3 243 and shortening it up as short as possible, make it a good short bush gun, butting suppressor right up to stock. Suppressor will most likely be hardy compact, and planning to shorten to 15-16 inch.

Will this still have decent range with factory ammo. Only usually shooting to 250-300m max. Interested to hear peoples thoughts and experience.

Cheers

I think 243 is one of those cals that benefits from longer rather than shorter barrel

Originally Posted by blip

I think 243 is one of those cals that benefits from longer rather than shorter barrel

Over bore.

Mate of mine has a 16inch tikka with dpt can for bush stalking. Havent chrono'd it , but it still drops deer and has shot steel out to 500m.

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In 243?

Originally Posted by TeRei

Over bore.

Meaning? Not a expert in this field as you can tell

I run a tikka 7mm08 in 15inch and love it can push to 400m . I'm not sure I'd go quite so short on a 243 . If you want 15 inch I'd be looking at 7mm08 0r 308 but that's just me .

I believe 243 would be fine to 250m especially if you place shots

Originally Posted by Tararua243

Hi all

I am thinking of purchasing a new suppressor for my tikka t3 243 and shortening it up as short as possible, make it a good short bush gun, butting suppressor right up to stock. Suppressor will most likely be hardy compact, and planning to shorten to 15-16 inch.

Will this still have decent range with factory ammo. Only usually shooting to 250-300m max. Interested to hear peoples thoughts and experience.

Cheers

You will be burning a lot of powder ($) for not much gain.

if you believe the box you get 3100 FPS from a 95 grain deer load from a 24" barrel.

a 20" barrel is better. If you want as short as possible go for a larger bore

Originally Posted by Russian 22.

You will be burning a lot of powder ($) for not much gain.

if you believe the box you get 3100 FPS from a 95 grain deer load from a 24" barrel.

a 20" barrel is better. If you want as short as possible go for a larger bore

Fully agree with this

It'll be fine with the right bullet.

243 was on my list but went 6.5 Grendel at 16 inch. I think 6.5 Grendel or 6arc would be good options for those distances.

I went the howa mini, carbon stock, with gun works suppressor and vortex 1-6 venom. all up ready to shoot its 3.05kg. super handy and will still go to 300-400 well plus burns a lot less powder.

It will probably look spectacular at night, I imagine the muzzle flash could be impressive! If using factory ammo you might find velocity drop off might be more than you think, I don't know much about 243 but expect it might run a slower powder than say 308, being an overbore cartridge (google it for more details, but basically small bore with large cartridge. I expect why the 243 seems to be so effective is due to the high velocity, loose that and you may as well carry a 223 or similar, no? Going from say 20" to 15" you are likely to loose around 250 fps (rule of thumb is 25 fps per 1" I believe) but it could be more, especially with factory ammo. Reloading would probably allow you to achieve better results with a short barrel.

FYI, I believe the 6mm ARC was developed for AR-15 platform, so probably ideal for a 15-16" barrel. If you can find some load data for that, it might give you an idea what to expect with shorter barrel 243? Bear in mind most reloading data and velocities on packet is based on 24" test barrels, but there might be some USA write-ups on shorter barrels that you can compare with that would give you an idea.

just remembered, you can probably compare loads on the Hodgdon reloading website for rifle (24") and pistol (15") to get an idea of what performance to expect...

https://hodgdonreloading.com/rldc/?t=1

Example:



If you want to get all scientific, you can do a bit of research to figure out what the effective range of the ammo in your shortened rifle might be. For the ammo you are using, you can punch the numbers into a ballistics calculator

https://shooterscalculator.com/balli...tory-chart.php

then for the projectiles you are using to get an idea of what velocities they work effectively at. Some expand at lower velocities than others. Here might be a place to start:

https://www.ballisticstudies.com/Kno...inchester.html

So understand from the general feedback its not the greatest of ideas. And thought it would be the case.

How about shortening a 270 to around the 16-16.5 inch mark?

If you shorten any rifle, you will lose velocity.


How much that matters depends on your use case.


If your use case is, as you stated, hunting out to 300m.


If you use the right bullet, for example buy Hornady Precision Hunter ammo with the 90gr ELDX, it should do around 2700fps. This will still be doing 2050 fps at 300m. The bullet will expand and will kill deer fine.


So it will work and it does not matter that you have lost some velocity.


The same calculations apply to .270