bought a new 204 ruger hawkeye

[howler]

I have been shooting a 204 Browning A bolt Varmint Stalker for about 3 years and it is the best shooting rifle I have ever owned or really seen. But with its extra weight it made for a little heavier carry gun than I would like So I started shopping for a new rifle. I landed on the 204 Hawkeye, I flitz'ed the barrel 200 strokes, 50 at a time, then clean, I had to shorten the COL from 2.366 to 2.286, the Hawkeye's magazine is just a little shorter than the Brownings, So I went to the range with the loads I developed for the browning hoping they would perform maybe not equaly as well but a good coyote moa, the load was 25 grains of reloader 10x with a 39 grain serria Blitzking, remington 7 1/2 primer, ww cases, anyway I sighted it in so I would at least hit paper at 100 yards and proceeded to test the load I was surprised .52 for a 3 shot group
,

anyway here is the rifle the trigger tested out at just over 3 lbs plenty good for the job intended, I like the rifle so far and I think it will put some fur up in fine style.

[UTcaller]

Nice rifle howler..I bought the same rifle a few months ago.It's quite a shooter.I really enjoy mine.I have been shooting the factory 45 grain softpoints exclusively through it and it really seems to like them. one inch groups or less with the factory ammo.I am going to work up a good load with the 45's once I shoot up the factory ammo.I really like how crisp the trigger is on the hawkeye but didn't like how heavy the factory set trigger pull was.I had a gunsmith friend of mine put a different spring in it and it now has a nice 2 lbs pull.I have only shot a few coyotes with it so far but it seems to be a good combination(45 sp bullets/Hawkeye rifle).





Good Hunting Chad

[KVW]

Good looking rig! Don't you just love when you use your first load development and It works. I wish that it would work out that way all the time.. Congrates on the new gun.

[howler]

UTcaller, what caliber is your Hawkeye,

[UTcaller]

howler,

Mine is the .204 ruger too.

Good Hunting Chad

[Ryan S Albright]

work a little on the load and the groups will tighten up.

[howler]

Yeah I think I will wait till spring to work up a load, I'm very happy that it shoots the ones I had loaded up already so well . I think I'm going to try some H4895 and see what developes

[Hotshot]

howler, is that knife on your bench for extracting brass on hot loads or just for cutting tails off of rattle snakes?

Nice lookin' rifle it should serve you well. I wish Ruger would get back into the varmint rifle game. They gave us this great cartridge but nothing exciting in rifles for a long time.

[howler]

that was my screwdriver for adjusting the scope, ha I always seem to forget at least one thing.

[luis]

have the same rifle, and use 27.3 grains of benchmark, 32 grain blitzking, win. brass and the fed.205 primer-COAL is 2.300. at 100 yards three shots will touch and at 200 yards it will print 1/2" three shot groups of the bench using a harris bipod and leather bag . it wears a 6-20x40 nikon. installed a timney trigger as well.