Well... I might have found the culprit. I went to load another batch of ammo, and noticed... My seater stem had come loose.

Thanks, all.

The coating on my current cleaning rod is starting to wear in a couple of spots, I think it's probably time for a new one. What's everyone's go-to choice in .20 caliber?

Or should I just put some plasti-dip on my current rod? (Just kidding.)

I'm with RAMOS on this one. Have had carbon build up in front of the chamber on both of my 204's and 20 SCC. Give it a good cleaning with something like Butches, Sweets, Wipe out Patch out etc. Then J-B bore compound on a patch over a tight fitting bore brush to remove the carbon. You do have to fo...

I appreciate the advice. I will give it an extra good inspection after this cleaning.

So, the last two times I've taken out my .204 with a factory Savage barrel, my 100 yard groups have been growing. Where it used to shoot in the .5" range, now I can't get it under an inch, and often its more. I also have an occasional "squirrely" round if I'm loading down toward the m...

Factory Hornady 40g-grain ammo will put 5 shots into .75"-.9" for me, so I wouldn't completely blame the ammo right away. I started out with a Simmons Whitetail Classic scope on my .204, just to hold me over. The scope was kicking around, I said "Eh, why not." I could occasionall...

Will have to give that a try! Have you or any one you know have good luck with benchmark or H4895 powder? It kind of depends on your rifle. With everything perfect, Benchmark turns in slightly smaller groups than RE-10x for me, about 0.1" difference. However, groups with re-10x are much more c...

For being a "target" rifle, their triggers are not much better, and their accuracy is not necessarily anything to get excited about.

If you want a target rifle, get a 10/22, and replace the trigger, barrel, and whatever else yourself.

Unless I'm mistaken, they're just V-max with a different color tip. Vmax bullets are pretty cost-effective, and usually shoot relatively well. What kind of weird results are you seeing, and what powder, charge weight, and primer are you using? And, have you tried the 40 grain version?

My major complaint with Hornady brass is that it seems to work harden very quickly and is prone to split necks. Once I started annealing the brass on a regular basis I haven't had those problems. Out of curiosity, how many firings are you talking about? I haven't had any split on me yet, but I'm on...

Hornady brass, with no work other than sizing and measuring, keeps five shot groups in the .4's for me. Better brass may shave a little off of that, but I doubt that it would shave much. A casual observation of the flash holes showed them to be impressively circular, burr-free, and uniform. I haven'...

VihtaVuori is probably the cleanest. I usually shoot Re-10x, and shot 100 loaded with N140/N150 to see how the powders did (long story short, about the same as RE-10x), and it took me only about half the cleaning time/passes to get the bore looking good. My cleaning routine is two patches soaked in ...

Stainless is softer and easier to machine, so it is easier for a manufacturer to do a good job on it. However, a good shop can do just as well of a job on chro-mo as they can on stainless, and there is evidence that a well-made chro-mo *may* have a slight accuracy edge over stainless. Also, because ...

Thanks guys before I got my 204 one guy said the 32 gr z max was a good bullet for that. So like a dummy I bought up 3000 of them. I fount a guy that has a bunch of 39 gr bking I just bought 7 boxes 0ff him. And he sold me once fired Winchester brass 15.00 @ 100 he had 200 he could let go so I boug...