New 204

[jo191145]

Whenever you do decide to trim, why stop at 1.83? I hate trimming so I'd go to 1.75 as long as I was doin' it.

I followed your advice and just finished trimming 1000 pcs of brass to 1.75 but now they are too short to hold a bullet. What did I do wrong?

I hope you guys are joking.
1.750 would remove almost half the neck
1.830 would already be the shortest brass I ever heard of.

Remember 2004? Everyone wanted to know how to stretch they're brass so they could reach the lands.
Last time I checked a chamber length on one of my barrels (Long time ago) it was 1.880 I think.

[Hawkeye Joe]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....Ray you didn't. Did you?? Naa.. You hang out here too much to do that . I hope!! Not sure what caliber Hotshot is talking about . It aint the .204... Maybe a typo
The chamber length of my LRPV is 1.874.Can't seem to get my Norma longer than 1.85

[Hotshot]

I thought it was a joke. 1.83 is under trim to specs by the book and there didn't seem to be any need to trim them at all. Sorry Ray-guess you could make 223's out of all those short brass. Funny it took you that many to notice how short they were.

[Sagebrush Burns]

I went with the very short 1.83" trim length because there was almost 10 one thousanths(sp?) variation in the new brass and I wanted to start everything as close as possible to "perfect" uniformity. I have found with other calibers that as I long as I don't go too crazy there is no problem trimming just a skosh short.

[rayfromtx]

GOTCHA!

[Hotshot]

SB,

I am sorry for poking fun without making it more clear that I was doing so. Thanks to ray for keeping me honest. I really should have worded my post a little different. I would hope nobody could trim a case down to no neck without noticing a problem.

[Sagebrush Burns]

Finished with brass prep! Of 500 brass, 50 weigh 93 grains, 110 at 95 grains, the rest at 94 grains. That seems pretty consistent to me for factory brass. Gonna start load development and (if the snow will stop) try to get to the range over the week-end and start barrel break-in and load testing. Scope hasn't come yet, but can temporarily mount one from another rifle.

[Sagebrush Burns]

Got out to the range today for barrel break-in. Fired a box of Hornady factory 32 grain V-Max. One round and clean for the first 10 rounds, then two rounds and clean for the next 10. Everything in about 2" not that it matters. Cleaning the barrel thoroughly now and next time out I'll start shooting groups and chronographing. One more box of Hornady factory ammo for starting point comparison and my test loads using Hornady 32s & 40s and Berger 35s, H335 and CCI450. Let the games begin...

[Gube]

The UPS man brought my brass and dies so I can get started on case prep. Got RCBS standard dies and 500 Winchester brass.

Be sure to check your "runout" The RCBS seating dies are notorious for unaccebtable run out with the 204. You may want to try Redding competition or Hornady dies with the sliding sleeve.

[Sagebrush Burns]

Thanks, Gube, I'll check it out. Been using standard RCBS dies for 223 and 22-250 and getting fine accuracy with each, so hopefully I don't have a problem here...

[Lee C.]

They recomend your trim lenght to be 1.840, All my cases are trimed at 1.843 for my gun. any thing under 1.830 I don't even use. I would be looking at getting some new brass if they where that short.