204 ruger

MightyPotty

MightyPotty

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Hi everyone! I intend to buy a rifle for hunting varmint and kill paper in .204 caliber. After some research I found this model 'Remington 700 varmint Stainless Fluted bullbarrel x-mark pro trigger' and I think for the price it seems to offer many good points.

1-May I have your opinions please ?

No others company offer Stainless Fluted bullbarrel for that price.

2-DO you think that I should go with a Tikka t3 varmint or a Savage Model 12 long range Precision Varminter bolt action at +/- 1,160$

3- With 1200$ is it better to built a rifles ( or is it possible)?

Thank you for your help!
 
MightyPotty said:
Hi everyone! I intend to buy a rifle for hunting varmint and kill paper in .204 caliber. After some research I found this model 'Remington 700 varmint Stainless Fluted bullbarrel x-mark pro trigger' and I think for the price it seems to offer many good points.

1-May I have your opinions please ?

No others company offer Stainless Fluted bullbarrel for that price.

2-DO you think that I should go with a Tikka t3 varmint or a Savage Model 12 long range Precision Varminter bolt action at +/- 1,160$

3- With 1200$ is it better to built a rifles ( or is it possible)?

Thank you for your help!
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Savage 12 FV...get it in 204, and switch out the barrel down the road. It would be easy to take the barrel off and get it fluted. It is still a factory gun and has a better trigger. (my opinion) If you really need stainless, there is a stainless version for a few bucks more.
 
I have owned several Remingtons in 204 Ruger. This is my favorite varmint caliber by far.

Some thought to ponder:

This cal. fouls quite badly, and it does not have great barrel life. I wear one out per season (1500 rounds) , and since i think the basic rifles are so good, i just buy a whole new rifle and spare the expense and hassle of an after market barrel.

I am not a fan of fluted barrels, particularly with the likes of Remington and Savage. These are hammer forged and button rifled barrels and I think this is a recipe for shifting points of aim, particularly on a gun that will get hot from shooting many rounds.

So... from my personal experience... awesome varmint caliber...wickedly fast, very accurate, zero recoil.

Go cheaper rather than more expensive on the gun. Something like a Savage whatever will be fine, A remington SPS Varmint, a Tikka Varmint (my favorite factory guns!!) are also good, but don't waste money on window dressing. Get a heavy varmiont type barrel and have fun.

An alternative would simply be to go 223. MUCH better barrel life, not much more recoil, better ammo selection, and better long range performance. A 204 is almost unsteerable in wind beyond 300 yards. I have made very long shots on calm days though.
 
A friend of mine shoots a Tikka T3 in .204ruger. HE LOVES IT! I think its now his favorite gun. Turns gophers into a pile of goo. Very precise right out of the box.
 
Love the .204 to death. :D

Obtunded said:
This cal. fouls quite badly, and it does not have great barrel life. I wear one out per season (1500 rounds) , and since i think the basic rifles are so good, i just buy a whole new rifle and spare the expense and hassle of an after market barrel.
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Curious, because most folks I know who shoot the .204 are shooting twice or better that number of rounds and still getting great accuracy from the same barrel. (And these folks are shooting over pdog towns too, so plenty of relatively rapid fire). I also can't say I've had much of a fouling issue.
 
$1200 isn't enough to build a rifle. It will buy you a fairly decent scoped rifle though.
You may not be able to find the .204 in smaller places. Nothing worse(except getting to a range half an hour or more from home to find you left the bolt at home) than getting out hunting only to find you left your ammo on the kitchen table. .204 factory ammo is kind of pricey too.
 
I have the Tikka super..very accurate,

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CV32 said:
Love the .204 to death. :D



Curious, because most folks I know who shoot the .204 are shooting twice or better that number of rounds and still getting great accuracy from the same barrel. (And these folks are shooting over pdog towns too, so plenty of relatively rapid fire). I also can't say I've had much of a fouling issue.
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I am on my 4th 204 rifle (The actions are worth almost as much as the gun, so I don not consider a new gun to be much of a loss). I have roughly 300 acres of gopher infested hay fields, between mine and my neighbour's property so I am an avid gopher and coyote hunter most seasons. Donp, CyaN1de and Shockman can tell you all about it.

I use an absolutely stock SPS Varmint currently.

I load roughly 33 grains of BL-C2 (I load to the top of the case and scrape it off level) and use either a 32 grain Blitz king or a Vmax bullet. That gets me 4100 fps. These guns open up after 1000 rounds and are grouping ~ 2" at 100 by the time they are at 1300-1500 rounds. Still usable, but not highly accurate.

Using Wipe out after a day of shooting produces a thick slime that looks like ball point pen ink.
 
Obtunded said:
I load roughly 33 grains of BL-C2 (I load to the top of the case and scrape it off level) and use either a 32 grain Blitz king or a Vmax bullet. That gets me 4100 fps. These guns open up after 1000 rounds and are grouping ~ 2" at 100 by the time they are at 1300-1500 rounds. Still usable, but not highly accurate. Using Wipe out after a day of shooting produces a thick slime that looks like ball point pen ink.
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Interesting. My experience is very different. I typically shoot heavier bullets (38 gr and higher) and don't load my .204's quite that hot (typically 26-28 gr H4895). I also don't use a dirty powder like BLC2. I still get velocities over 3,800 fps from a 50 gr Berger in my 1 in 10 twist Pac-Nor.
 
Ball powders are sooo much easier to load in that tiny case mouth. The powder is still easy to find and is one of the cheaper varieties. Dirty, yes, but fast and convenient.

Even though I can get custom 20 cal barrels, it isn't worth it for me. A new gun is the same cost as a re-barrel, and they are accurate enough with a load-tolerant bullet like a BK or Vmax The actions are sold off when I'm done.
 
Obtunded said:
Ball powders are sooo much easier to load in that tiny case mouth. The powder is still easy to find and is one of the cheaper varieties. Dirty, yes, but fast and convenient.
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True enough. I do use W748 with a 38 gr Wildcat bullet in my CZ 527 American, and its pretty clean.

Even though I can get custom 20 cal barrels, it isn't worth it for me. A new gun is the same cost as a re-barrel, and they are accurate enough with a load-tolerant bullet like a BK or Vmax The actions are sold off when I'm done.
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I wanted to shoot heavier .20 cal bullets than is possible with the usual 1-in-12 factory twist barrels. (Though, thankfully, TC has now been the first to move in the right direction in that respect). Hence my custom job.
 
Interesting you should say that because I found that the 40's (When the 204 came out, there were only 32 and 40 grain bullets) never shot as well and I suspected it had something to do with the twist rate, which - by the greenhill formula - should be tighter than 1:12. That helps justify my suspicions.
 
My love affair with the 204 ruger is still going strong, I really enjoy watching gophers explode through the scope. I shoot a 700 sps varmint, 32gr Vmax 28gr benchmark. I've shot up to 200 rounds before seeing any loss of accuracy. I've got well over 1500 rds through it and it still shoots .75 moa. Never had good luck with 40 gr bullets either but don't care,believe velocity is more beneficial within 300yds anyway.
 
Hi guys, I'm on my second 204, the first was a remington sps regular barrel and the second is a tikka t3 lite. The only reason I switched is for the detacible mag. They both shoot 40 bergers very well with H4895 and/or RL-10x. I also load 35 and now 30 gr bergers. Found the wind drift and longer range coyote shooting beter with the 40gr bergers. The remington liked the pedal down and grouped best with 27grs of H4895 and 40gr bergers, but my tikka likes 25.5grs of h4895. The remington was solid 3/4"-1" 5-10 shot groups and the tikka is 1/2"-3/4" 5 shot groups with some a little smaller (best was two .25 3shot groups). I do find that groups open up around 70 rounds or so, but have not shot enough to shoot out the barrel yet, not enough gophers around here.:mad:

-Chad
 
With all do respect to the 204, it is a fantastic round and a great shooter. But honestly, ballistics wise, powder/primer/bullet cost, in my opinion a 5.56 is more servicable.

True it does not have the entertaining explosions to watch through the glass that the .204 has, but with all else being equal, at the end of the day the .223 will have a longer barrel life, and be equivalent in costs to shootLove shooting the neighbors .204 though.
 
Nothing wrong with a 223 at all (and I'd recommend one to someone getting started), but the 204 is a bigger case, and a smaller bullet and almost 1000 fps faster. That makes it a superlative varmint round.
 
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