Would you shoot deer with this bullet?

The shot angle on animal and contact velocity would all be factors if I use a particular. The blowing a head off a smaller animal is the result of high velocity contact. I’ve done that to a raccoon with a .416 REM and a 325 X bullet. A 338RUM and a 250gr partition is pretty dramatic also. Better off shooting a some 1 gallon jugs lined up to see depth of penetration.

If you are shooting small deer and wait for a broadside and bullet is placed behind shoulder I don’t see the bullet not working. I know many hunters have had great success with a 243. I personally don’t like it’s performance on deer.

I forgot to mention it was a head on shot but I couldn’t see his head. He was eating my new grass and clover all the way down to the soil.

It didn’t, that surprised me. It was over 42gr of h4350 So it was going fast. Shot was about fifty yards.

Bullet threads bring out the full spectrum of opinions.  I have a .243 but have only killed 3 deer.  All 3 were very dead and all went up to 50 yds after being hit.  All broadside archery angles.  Load was a 80 gr GMX, factory load.  All pass thru's.  I agree with the above statements on this angle.  Any reasonable medium-heavy soft point would be fine.  I chose the GMX that year (2012) because I wanted an "any angle" load since I cannot choose the presentation I might be given and need to be able to shoot when the window of opportunity presents itself.  It's nice to wait for the perfect shot but sometimes that doesn't happen and you need to go thru some armor to get to the engine.  For me, it's copper, copper, copper as long as I can make 'em shoot.  My opinion on that changes when you back off on velocity.  30-30's, 35 rems, .458 SOCOM etc, etc can all get thru armor with traditional soft point when the grain weight is in the upper end of "normal".  Remove 1000 fps from average bottle neck centerfires, and bullet behaviors changes.  All the examples I just listed also have 2-3 times the weight/mass of the load you used.

To answer the question?  Yes I would but I would feel like I needed to be careful.  As a sidenote, a guy at camp has been killing a lot of deer over last 10 years with his 243 using 85 gr hollow tip game kings.  Never lost one and never has had an issue where he has questioned his bullet.

Last season my neighbor could only find Sig 80g copper elites locally for his 243. Box says 3400fps! He shot 2 does @75yds never found either.after he told me about it I loaded him some 95sst over 42g of I4350 and he's killed 2 since and couldn't wait to tell me about it. He gave me the remaining Sig rounds. On paper they should be good but the nose seems "clogged" with copper. I'm thinking they didn't expand at all. I've killed a few with the 100g Hornady sp and all had exits.