Last spring I bought a .243 Winchester for a duel purpose rifle. One was for my youngest daughter to hunt deer with and the other purpose was for me to hunt coyotes. Thanks to some of the members of this forum, I was able to deal with some of the "perks" of this little rifle and develope a workable deer load and coyote load.
My daughter hunted all season with the .243 but didn't see any shootable deer.
This morning at daylight I went coyote calling, mouth calls. I used the stratigy of chambering a shell with the lighter 60 grain bullet with an 80 grainer handy in case one stayed farther out. After two sets without drawing any interest from coyotes or birds, I had about decided that the conditions weren't just right.:cry: On the way back to the pickup I decided that one more calling set wouldn't hurt anything. About three minutes after my most convincing terrorized bunny squalls, I caught a flash of movement of one coming hard at me from my right side. When he went behind a sage brush and stopped, I cocked and shouldered the Handi. After a second he came into the clear and started across a clearing about 60 yards in front of me. I stopped him with a lip squeak, centered the cross hairs behind the left shoulder, and gave him a 60 grain hollow point between the ribs. He went down then and there. :lol: It was about a 60-70 pound male. By the time I got him back to the road he felt like about 160-170 pounds. Guess I walked farther than I thought. :roll: After skinning him I found a 1/4 inch hole behind the left shoulder where the bullet went in and about a quarter sized hole about six inches behind the right shoulder where it came out. About two minutes with a needle and thread fixed that. :grin:
Anyway that was two firsts this morning. It was the first blood for the new .243 Handi, and it was the first coyote of the year for me. Thanks to everyone that responded to my questions about how to overcome the "perks" of this little rifle. You were a part of today's success! :wink:
