.243 Winchester ballistics chart
The .243 Winchester trajectory with a 100-grain hunting bullet: drop, wind drift and retained velocity from a 200-yard zero to 700 yards.
What is the .243 Winchester?
The .243 Winchester is the .308 Winchester necked down to 6mm, and it has been the benchmark dual-purpose varmint-and-deer cartridge since 1955. Light 55-70 grain bullets near 3,700 fps make it a flat-shooting varmint round; 90-105 grain bullets around 2,900-3,000 fps turn it into a mild-recoiling deer and pronghorn cartridge that a new or recoil-sensitive shooter can actually shoot well.
Older rifles with a 1:10 twist stabilise conventional hunting bullets up to about 100 grains but struggle with the longest high-BC match projectiles, so the .243 is best treated as a field cartridge rather than a long-range target chambering. A 1:8 or 1:7.7 barrel unlocks the heavier 105-115 grain bullets and stretches its useful range considerably.
Typical uses: Varmint and predator hunting, deer and pronghorn in open country, and low-recoil training.
Sample load
The trajectory below is calculated for this representative factory load in a standard ICAO atmosphere. The bullet is an entry from the app’s bullet library, so the calculator opens with it already selected. Your rifle will differ — enter your own chronographed velocity and verified BC in the calculator for numbers you can dial.
- Bullet
- Hornady 100 gr InterLock BTSP American Whitetail
- Muzzle velocity
- 2,960 fps
- Ballistic coefficient
- 0.405 (G1)
- Zero
- 200 yd
.243 Winchester key figures
- Muzzle energy
- 1,946 ft⋅lb
- Supersonic to
- About 1,050 yd
- Point-blank range, 6 in zone
- 288 yd (245 yd zero)
- Point-blank range, 3 in zone
- 224 yd (193 yd zero)
- Drop at 300 yd, 100 yd zero
- 12.0 in
Point-blank range is how far you can hold dead on and still hit a target zone of that height, using the zero shown. Work it out for your own load with the maximum point-blank range calculator , or see how the .243 Winchester stacks up in the cartridge comparison chart .
.243 Winchester trajectory table
| Range (yd) | Velocity (fps) | Energy (ft⋅lb) | Drop (in) | Elevation (MIL) | Elevation (MOA) | Wind 10 mph (MIL) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 2,725 | 1,649 | 1.6 | -0.5 | -1.5 | 0.2 |
| 200 | 2,501 | 1,389 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 |
| 300 | 2,288 | 1,163 | -7.2 | 0.7 | 2.3 | 0.7 |
| 400 | 2,086 | 967 | -21.0 | 1.5 | 5.0 | 1.0 |
| 500 | 1,895 | 797 | -42.8 | 2.4 | 8.2 | 1.3 |
| 600 | 1,715 | 653 | -74.4 | 3.5 | 11.8 | 1.7 |
| 700 | 1,549 | 533 | -117.8 | 4.8 | 16.1 | 2.1 |
Learn more
New to reading a table like this? These guides explain the numbers: