204Ruger

Anyone have a good load (or powder) for this bullet. I've come up with a couple of pretty good loads, but nothing that knocks my socks off.

Thanks in advance.

Joel

I have good accuracy and FPS with CFE 223, in the upper end of max loads, with the 32 grain lead free one. Start lower and work up, in your rifle.

My two most used rat bullets are the Nosler 32gr BT and Varmageddon, usually factory seconds for the decent price. Colony rodent shooting uses lots of bullets over the course of one season.

In my 204's, I use mostly RL-10X and H4895 (for the 39gr SBK), but in the past couple of years with the price of components getting out of hand, especially powder, I find myself shooting my Cooper 20VT more and more, it uses only 18.5grs of powder for 3,700 fps. My 204's get more velocity of course, but at a higher cost per shot.

Results with the 32gr Nosler BT and VG in my 20VT shows these bullets are capable of very fine accuracy:



Many a sage rat has been launched skyward with these two bullets, and almost always with factory seconds too. What's NOT to like?

I have enough CFE to last for awhile and looking forward to trying some with the VG. The upper middle target was using Vihtavuori N130 and it worked pretty well.

Anyone use Pro Varmint in their 204? I have a couple of pounds of it.

Thanks Rick. Will look into those.

I've used Pro Varmint to develop 3 loads for my 204, got good accuracy, speeds were in the 3800-3900 fps zone for the 32vmax, and the 34g dogtown's, the 39g sbk's were in the 3500 fps zone.

I use the 32gr Varmageddon hollow point and get great accuracy with CFE 223 and 748. I had been shooting exclusively the seconds from the shooters pro shop. Two weeks ago or so I got an email from Nosler (not SPS) and they had them on sale. They were on sale and listed as “discontinued” so I bought 4 boxes (1000 bullets). The price was great, $29.95/250 ! I see they are still on the Nosler site at that price but no longer listed as discontinued. So I’m not sure what’s going on, but if you like that bullet, now is a good time to buy them even if they aren’t going to be discontinued, and I hope they are not!

I just picked up 500 off the Nosler site. $29.95/250 is a great price.

Thanks for all the input.

The 32 gr. Varmageddon Tipped is the most accurate bullet I've shot in my .204. I use 30 gr. BLC(2), I think max is 30.9. But my most accurate load came at 28.5 gr. One group measured. 169. All loads were .5 or under though. Those were three shot groups. That's the only powder I've loaded in my .204, I just figured, if it aint broke, don't fix it.

Just fired 10 different loads with the 32 Varm yesterday. Best grouping was with CFE223 at 29.5 Grains. Shot out of a Mossberg MVP Varmint with a Vortex 4-12 44mm at 8 power. 100 Yard group of 5 was under 1" close to 3/4" and I wasn't really really trying to squeeze them out. Also, at 73 years old, not the marksman I used to be.