God bless Ruger for introducing the 204 R

[gemihur]

Had it not been for Ruger's introduction of the 204 with support and assistance by Hornady in 2004, the 222 Remington Magnum case might have lost to the annals of time.
I had become somewhat concerned, prior to it's announcement, as to my future of feeding my first wildcat, a 222 Rem Mag Improved barrel by Mike Bellm, as I am a contender devotee.
Since it's introduction, Gary Reeder has embraced the design and introduced his own line of 'Raptors' in .240, .257, 6.5, 7mm, and 30 cal. I can say that I shoot the two larger bores of the Raptor lineup, the 7mm and the 30 Raptor and find them intriguingly accurate and effective.
The 204 Ruger cartridge is, in it's own right, a fabulous design but I don't need to tell ya'll that.
Thanks, Ruger, I owe you a debt of gratitude.

[MTPaul]

Gemihur - I too would offer my appreciation to both Ruger and Hornady for their collaborative project over 20 years ago to produce a rifle and cartridge that has proven itself more than adequate in numerous small game applications to effectively reach out with speed, accuracy and better long-range performance. As compared to other 20 caliber cartridges (eg. 220 Swift, 222, 22-250), it does all this without the disturbing recoil allowing the shooter to see their impacts. My entry into the 204R family may have come recently, but I have no less become a firm believer of the effectiveness of this little round.

[Rick in Oregon]

I'd also offer sincere thanks to both Ruger and Hornady for the introduction of the 204. Although I do not own a Ruger so chambered, nor do I use Hornady 204 ammo or their brass. BUT, I do have four rifles so chambered, and all of them have demonstrated stellar accuracy and have sent countless varmints skyward; mostly ground squirrels, a few rockchucks and badgers too. As the 12 twist is the most common found in this caliber, I primarily use the 32gr Nosler BT or Varmageddon, saving the 40gr bullets for my 11 twist M700 custom build. Thankfully, most 12 twist rifles shoot the Sierra 39gr
SBK quite well.

When I need effective performance on these grass rats past 250 yards, the 204 comes into its own. The below pic shows typical mounds in an irrigated field near here. Average range to the other side of the field is just past 350 yards (looks closer, as pic was taken with a telephoto lens). The 204 is perfect for launching the rats at that range, and less noise, blast and recoil doing it. (For fun, how many squirrels can be seen in the pic?)



Another aspect of the popularity of the 204 was the new availability of good quality .20 caliber bullets. That led to the development of other excellent calibers using the .204" bore size. The 20VT has become one of my favorite calibers for what we do here, as it has great velocity for the amount of powder used, even less blast, recoil, and boasts speeds of 3,800 fps using only 18.5grs of powder. The 20 Practical and Tactical are two other examples, and both utilize readily available 223 brass. We've noticed less availability lately of quality 204 brass.

My Cooper M38 VR 20VT cooling her barrel in between strings in the rat patch. IMHO there is no better medium range varmint caliber:



With a 20VT and a 204R, a varmint shooter pretty much has what could be called the perfect duo of calibers, covering 85% of what we expect from a varmint rifle caliber:



My 220 Swift has gone down the road since the 204 came available. As I don't hunt coyotes any more, my 22-250 also went away, but four 204's in my safe clearly show I look upon the 204 Ruger with much favor. So yeah, thanks Ruger and Hornady!

[MTPaul]

Rick - Ok, I'll take a stab at counting, or at least trying to id the number of grass rats my tired nearly 74-year-old eyes can see in the irrigated field. Two are clearly seen, circled in black in the image below, one standing on the left side of the picture and one (or possibly two?) prone on the right side at the top of the mound. Even my old eyes can see those. Upon closer examination, there might possibly be three more, each circled in red. One whose head might just be peeking out of its hole in the center of the frame and one who is just partially visible lying prone on the top of its mound on the far-right side of the frame. There might even be one more near the center of the frame, a little further back from the one I circled in black on the right side of the frame. It is out of focus but maybe... To be absolutely sure, I'd have to confirm the last three thru my binos or my scope.

Ok, what say you or others?

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[Rick in Oregon]

Paul, you've got a keen eye there buddy.

Let's see if anyone else wants to play "spot the rat".

Won't be too much longer till we're doing it for real. I'm sure we're all wanting to rid ourselves of the winter doldrums and get back at it. Just for fun, here's another rat puzzle....



And to keep the forum alive and interesting, here's a shot of a field we shoot that is the epitome of what a proper rat infested field should look like. This was a fine day indeed!



Fields that appear like the one above are a rifleman's dream, not so much for the rancher. A dream for some is a nightmare for others. We're all here to make life easier for those ranchers, by way of a nice accurate rifle!

[MTPaul]

Rick - At this time of year I think it is a safe bet to say we're both champing at the bit and suffering from a mild but never-the-less curable case of cabin fever. As the winter weather here in MT trudges along there are faint hints of fair-weather lurking in the weeks to come. Case in point, this morning's low temperature was 5F and snow flurries but the forecasted weather by this coming weekend is mid 40s and sunny! It'll take some time for the accumulated snow to finally disappear as it measures ~30" on the flat level ground but hope springs eternal!

As for spotting a few furry creatures in the picture with the pivot track, I see four targets for sure and I circled them in black and several indicated in red that would require further careful investigation in order to confirm.

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And while the following picture may not clearly identify targets of opportunity, in this case prairie dogs, you'll have to take my word for it, it was a target rich environment and the 204R (pictured) and 223, both made by Cooper, were up to the task at hand. Spring can't come fast enough...

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[Rick in Oregon]

Paul, I'll not give it up just yet, as I was hoping others would play our little game too. We'll see.....

You missed one though that I'll point out. He's right in the center of the pic by a large dirt clod in the wheel track. That guy got launched very soon after taking the photo. The rats that day were using the deep wheel tracks as a rodent freeway, dropping down where you couldn't see them, them re-emerging 25 yards away appearing like a different rat. Tricky little buggers using Army trench tactics!

That photo was taken with a Nikon 300mm tele lens from 226 yards, so the rats appear much closer.

Chomping the bit indeed. We've got a week of rat shooting scheduled very soon once the WX gets into "spring mode". Rifles all cleaned/lubed, ammo all loaded up, camp trailer ready to get "un-winterized" soon. Tick-tock......

Young ones coming up for a lookie-see last season (telephoto lens again):

[Bill K]

Heavens I will throw in a couple photos from a year or so past also. Now just waiting for snow and cold to go away and varmints to start poking out of the ground and lava rocks.

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[Bill K]

I don't shoot them, but enjoy the band tail pigeons feeding in the front yard area. They are good eating however, when I do take a couple each year.

[Bill K]

I don't climb those rocks to recover a chuck or other varmint, due to my old age. My shooting partner, that move to Colo did it for me and his, at times.

And a couple shots of one pivot we shot in. Lot's of fun. As you two know.

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[Jim White]

I too am thankful that Ruger brought out the 204. I'll never forget the first time I shot one from a bench out in central Oregon. It shot as straight as a laser with minimum recoil and you could see the impact. It was like shooting a rimfire 17HMR almost, very little blast and hardly any scope bump. The rifle was a CZ-527 Varmint.

Later that fall, I picked up my 1st 204 and it was a CZ-527 American, a very accurate rifle and a great walkaround tool.

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Within a year I picked up a pair of Remington 700 Varmint and other than bedding the actions I haven't done any thing to them and once the loads were determined they hoot as straight and as tight as I can hold them.

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Back from my 1st trip I had discovered this site. In those days there were many post throughout the day and a wealth of information to be had.
As we know today, the information and knowledge is still there but the postings are way down from times past but thats a different story for another post. Those that have been here for any length of time know (or should know) about "Rick from Oregon". IMO he is the guru of ground squirrel or rat rodeo expertise. He's been extremely helpful to me along with many of you other folks out there. Anyway, in some of our chats and post here, he kept raving about the 20VT. Now, I was skeptical at first. To me, the 204 was the cats meow for open field on a pivot bench shooting helping the ranchers clear the fields of these little pest. It shot straight, and at the time was reasonable to reload and you could shoot many rounds without the barrel getting hot, I mean; what more could you ask for?

Well, I took his advice and started looking further into the 20VT. I had heard of the 17 and 221 Fireball but that was about it. I finally decided to bite the bullet and take the leap; besides Rick hadn't ever steered my wrong. At the time Cooper Firearms was the only outfit producing the 20VT and the availability of funds vs. the availability of rifles never meshed up so. The only other manufacture making a rifle chambered in a 17 or 221 Fireball caliber was Remington. I wanted the repeater option that would function reliably so I started the hunt for one of their rifles [and there is some differences between a 223 and a Fireball action and bolt!]. That took some searching because Remington had just stopped production of those but I eventually found one and ordered up a Lilja barrel and a HS Precision Varmint and handed it off to Russ Haydon to put it together for me. The first time I shot it, I understood precisely what Rick had been telling me all this time. Hardly any blast, no recoil and once I figured out the load, it shot just as good as my 204's.

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Since then, I've taken a liking to another fine shooting "rat" caliber and thats a 221 Fireball. I've been fortunate to come across these two on different occasions and I like them as equally as i do the others mentioned herein.

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and

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and these two shoot just as good as they look. I'll add this to those who haven't tried the Fireball cartridges; you don't know what you're missing out on. I haven't tried the 17 Fireball but if it's like the 20VT or the 221 Fireball I'm sure its just as much fun to shoot.

Circling back, I'm very appreciative that this round came about, otherwise I would have missed out on all the pleasure of time in the field and all of y'all's fine company.

[Bill K]

The 221 FB and the 17 FB are both fine rounds and worth adding into the small caliber fold, for shooting those critters we like to pursue. I am like, Rick in that I take one of each, along with the 20 VT/20SCC and 204R on most all my rodent/chuck hunts. Switch around so as to not overheat any barrel, giving them a rest to cool down in between sessions on the bench.

[Jim White]

Bill...I take several too for the reasons you mentioned and to clean them up easier. For the 204 (x3) I'll shoot 40-50 rounds and then pull it off the line to clean and cool down and for the 221 (x2) and 20 VT (x1) I'll go 75-80 rounds to clean, it never seems to get the barrel hot so thats less of a concern for me but I do keep tabs on it. Toss in a 17 HMR and 22 LR and its a fun time for sure. Meanwhile I'm hoping they don't pass a 11% ammo tax thats additional to the 9% sales tax already.

[Bill K]

I think all of us here in the commie state hope the same. Maybe the 11% extra tax will be stopped and taken down. But time will tell, with the way government offices have been doing the last few years with the lib's in control.

[gemihur]

The 204R has permitted the brass available for two of Reeder's Raptors to join my lineup. the 7mm and the 30 cal.

I'm into the wildcats and after I started with the 222 Rem Mag Imp I got concerned how I would locate further brass acquisitions.
Luckily, Ruger's introduction of the 204R came to my rescue!