204Ruger

Recently purchased a remington 700 sps varmint in 204 and was wanting some info on the 35 grain berger bullet as far as good powder, primers and brass, and bullet seating, any info helps to get me in the right direction, mostly plan on shooting coyotes

Love that bullet and cartridge for coyotes! I am using 24.5 grains of RL10X with either Federal 205M or Remington 7 1/2 primers. Start lower and work up.

Will have to give that a try! Have you or any one you know have good luck with benchmark or H4895 powder?

Although I don't shoot the Berger bullets, Benchmark is my go to powder with the 32gr. Vmax pills. If Ramos is using said bullet, I would start there. The other powders you mention will also work. You just need to work up your own loads.
Good luck, and be safe!

204guy wrote: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 consistently small across the entire load range for me (SD=0.12 for re-10x, 0.25 for Benchmark), and gives me a nice, wide OCW "sweet spot" at the high end. Because of that, if I'm not out for absolute accuracy, I can simply throw the 10x from my Uniflow, and still get quite respectable accuracy.

I too want to try the 35 gr berger HP. I have only tried RL10 in it with 39 gr bking. I have a few 200 35 gr HP to work up a load.

I shot lots of coyotes with the 35 gr. FBHP Berger bullets and used H4895 powder. That was back in 2004 through about 2007.

The loads listed below were shot using Hornady brass and Remington 7½ primers back on August 17, 2004. These loads were VERY HOT!!! I would not recommend starting load testing anywhere near these powder weight charges. I'd recommend starting somewhere around 27.0 gr. of H4895 and work your way up in .2 or a grain increments if 27.0 gr. doesn't give you accuracy and reasonable velocities. Hodgdon lists 28.2 gr. of H4895 as the maximum load for the 35 gr. Berger FBHP bullets.



Here's a target I shot back on January 20, 2006, while getting my scope adjusted so my rifle was shooting 1 inch high at 100 yards.



Good luck on working up a good load.

I shoot 32 gr in my Ruger #1 .204 and 39 gr in my Kimber 84M .204. Both bullets are Sierra BKs and pushed with Benchmark and Remington 7.5 BR primers.