SmallCaliberCentral

I got 15 total for the AM. I shot 14 in the 1st 3 hours then changed locations to get the 15th. Here's the carnage. :lol: Glen, I'm going to put my ignorance on display and ask if you're shooting them with a scattergun or blasting them with a rifle gun (as Alvin York would say). I have friends who ...

Last I heard, Litz was a ballistician for Berger Bullets. G1 and G7 (and all the other gees) are based on different modeling so AFAIK there is no conversion.

A picture is worth a thousand words.



Three rounds of 26.2gr of RL-10X w/ 32gr Noslers (WS2-coated) at 200 yards, 0.375" OA, 0.171" C-C.

wirelessguy2005, I don't have an FCV but you're not getting a whole lotta help here. I have a Savage 12 VL in .204, which also is a 12 Series Varmint rifle, and it's the most accurate firearm of any sort I've ever owned. It rarely shoots more than 1" @200 yards. If I could manage to stuff a 30-...

I'm loading 26.1gr of RL-10x and 30.6gr of BL-C2, shooting 32-gr WS2-coated Nolsers and using BR-4 primers in my 26" Savage 12 VL. These two loads are virtual ballistic twins and both consistently shoot under 1/2" @100 yards. I had one 3-shot miracle group @200 with the RL-10X that measure...

Great. It broke already. To make matters worse, they're giving me a rasher of crap about taking it back to fix it. I've already wasted one range trip trying some of their voodoo to get it to work, which of course it didn't. Today they gave the the second set of spells and incantations they wanted me...

Maybe they should just put a dial on the chronos so we can adjust them ourselves. :) There's not a snowflake's chance in Somalia that I'd get even close. Knowing me, it'd be more wrong after I'd "adjusted" it than before. Part of the problem has resolved itself. There a new gun shop in to...

So I finally sent my chono back to the factory for recalibration. The same loads that were giving me +/-4200 fps now are clocking 3900. I'd have preferred 4000 but now at least it's believable. I spoke with one of the company's technicians. He said they calibrate the customer's chrono against their ...

Has anyone chronographed any factory .204 ammo? I'd heard rumors that even Hornady can't hit that claimed 4225 fps mark so today I chronographed some Hornady and Remington factory ammo from a 26" Savage VLP. Or should I say tried to test some. The numbers I got were ridiculously high, I think b...

I got a form letter back from Savage. They checked the block that says "send it back to our service department if you want and we'll check it out." I'm underwhelmed by their customer service. Rather than send it to them and be without the rifle, not even knowing if they'll do anything to i...

My Savage 12 VL shoots ~1/3" or less with about anything I stick in it. The first time I shot it at that distance, it put four rounds into 11/16ths at 200 yards with 32-grain Hornady factory stuff. Its 5-shot 200 yard groups are almost always under 1". One 3-shot group measured 0.375"...

This is a pretty good read on the .20s, (at least the wildcat varieties).

You might also consider the .223 WSSM. It'll push a 40-grain pill as fast as a .204 will shoot a 32-grainer.

I found a web site describing the differences in the appearance of primers mangled by a sloppy firing pin hole versus excessive pressure versus excess head space and mine definitely look like sloppy firing pin hole type. FWIW, I'm fiddling with Christoper Long's 'optimum barrel time' method to deter...

First, the case mouth needs a bevel to ease the bullet's base entering it. If you trim the case but don't chamfer its mouth, it can take too much force for the seater to get the base of the bullet started into the case mouth (especially with a non-boattailed bullet), slightly crushing the shoulder. ...

I sent copies of those photos to Savage via snail mail. If they don't display an interest, I'll look into it myself. I shot it again yesterday with exactly the same load. Temperature was ~5°F cooler than previous. Out of 10 rounds, a couple show slight cratering, five or six show very slight crat...