If there was a rifle caliber with an effective range far beyond the distances most hunters shoot at, and with a proven record of killing almost every big game animal reliably, and with low-enough recoil that even kids could fire it without difficulty, you’d think it would be super-popular. That’s the description behind the .243 Winchester, though, and it’s surprising to see that 71 years after its commercial release, the caliber is still a hard sell to many hunters, even as new cartridges are released that offer no real-world usage improvements on this classic deer-busting round.