SmallCaliberCentral

I'm fairly new to reloading, but not to long range shooting. I have a H&R Handi Rifle .204 22"BBL. Down it as a cheap, worthless gun if you will, but I happen to LOVE it! I collect these guns and have them in several different calibers. I've been reloading my own ammo for my Savage .22-250 and I'm making one hole at 100y now with it. I can't help but think my .204 will do the same, or better. (1/11" twist) I'll be using Benchmark powder with 39gr Sierra Blitzkings. Anyone wanna recommend a starting and stopping place? I've looked on this site at the table for that bullet and kinda have a good idea, but I'd like feedback from something other than a chart. I understand about OCW and I'll find that soon, but I have to know where to start. I'll also measure my chamber and figure out a C.O.A.L. that will work best. I want it making one hole at 100y like my others. Is Benchmark a good powder for this? If not, what powder? I don't want your recipe, just a starting point...

Darkker wrote:http://www.Hodgdon.com

Good start and go to their start loads, for save and sane reloading, then work up for your rifle Bill K

204tackdriver wrote:I'm fairly new to reloading, but not to long range shooting. I have a H&R Handi Rifle .204 22"BBL. Down it as a cheap, worthless gun if you will, but I happen to LOVE it! I collect these guns and have them in several different calibers. I've been reloading my own ammo for my Savage .22-250 and I'm making one hole at 100y now with it. I can't help but think my .204 will do the same, or better. (1/11" twist) I'll be using Benchmark powder with 39gr Sierra Blitzkings. Anyone wanna recommend a starting and stopping place? I've looked on this site at the table for that bullet and kinda have a good idea, but I'd like feedback from something other than a chart. I understand about OCW and I'll find that soon, but I have to know where to start. I'll also measure my chamber and figure out a C.O.A.L. that will work best. I want it making one hole at 100y like my others. Is Benchmark a good powder for this? If not, what powder? I don't want your recipe, just a starting point...

My first 204 ruger was a H&R Handi. Loved that little rifle, but I could never get it to shoot better than 1moa and most of the time I was closer to 2moa no matter what I tried. I tried 4 different bullets (including the 39 SBK) with 4 different powders and a couple different primers and finally gave up and sold the thing. I replaced it with a factory savage and my first grouping with the savage 16 was better than any grouping I ever got with the handi rifle over 3 years of trying to dial that thing in. I now shoot consistent .5 moa or a little better with the savage. I'm not knocking handi rifles, I like them, just hope you have better success than I did with that caliber and I can certainly offer no good advice about where to start.

Powder choice seems to be all over the place with Benchmark being one of them. Primer choice more often than not comes seems to come down to Remington 7 1/2 or CCI400/450 being the most prefered although there are others. But the two thing highly recommended by many members to NOT-USE are;

-Remington 6 1/2 primers & Hornady brass (I believed its labeled Frontier on the case head but could be wrong).

Under the "Reloading the 204 Ruger" tab there is a thread near the top called "Favorite Loads". There is good info in there.

Well, I shot 6 different powder charges (going up in increments of .5gr) from 24.1 - 26.6gr of Benchmark Powder with Wolf Magnum Primers. I settled on 25.6gr (with the original 39gr SBK). It shot a .75MOA at 100y. What was very strange, however, was EACH powder charge had ONE 'flier'... and each one was in the very same spot! I would shoot a group of 4 shots low and left and ONE shot would be high and left. With the 25.6gr charge, the 4 shot group low and left was a .75"MOA group. They started out 2MOA and closed in as I went up in powder charge. Once I passed 25.6, they began to open up drastically. Here's where I see a problem with making this gun shoot with pinpoint accuracy: I tried to seat the bullet .020" from the lands... It CANNOT happen. The lands are entirely too far. If I did that, the bullet wouldn't even seat in the case. Industry standard is 2.260" COAL. I'm shooting mine at 2.380" which is seating the bullet in the case approximately .215". I will NOT seat it any less! My next experiment will be with seating depth. I've seated a batch at 2.370" COAL. That's .010" deeper than the first batch. I'll see if that pressure change has any effect on it. That may answer the question the previous person had about this Handi-Rifle... the chamber may be too long to make it shoot with the pinpoint accuracy you'd expect from this round. The bullet has a long way to jump to get to the rifling and there's no way to take up that distance. Might consider getting a Savage Axis in .204 cal, as well...

No matter which factory 204 you purchase, ALL will have the same SAAMI spec throat, which is quite long by 'normal' rifle standards in the 204. Do some research on the caliber here and you'll see this question/issue has been raised ad nauseum and the answer is always the same.....204 Ruger rifles have what is possibly the longest factory throat in any varmint rifle cartridge, and will shoot well even with this seemingly very long throat.

If you want to touch the lands, you'll need a custom barrel with a non-spec reamer. Then shooting factory ammo is no longer an option...... Read up on the caliber before you go further.

(I built a fast twist 204R with a custom-ground reamer to touch the lands. Shoots in the .2's with my handloads, but it's a full custom option, NOT factory, and as such, no factory ammo allowed.)

204tackdriver wrote:Well, I shot 6 different powder charges (going up in increments of .5gr) from 24.1 - 26.6gr of Benchmark Powder with Wolf Magnum Primers. I settled on 25.6gr (with the original 39gr SBK).

I shoot Benchmark and 39ers out of my Cooper and that is exactly where I am at. I tried messing around with different COALs but book value was just as accurate as any other. One thing that I did find increased accuracy in my cooper some was a loose neck tension (I am using the Redding bushing neck dies). Awesome load and I get about 3720fps. Have about 4K rounds through it and still get .3s and .4s if I do my part.