SmallCaliberCentral

Hey folks - I am new to the forum and new to the 204. I bought the 204 model 10 Savage and it was not very accurate out of the box. I was getting 1.5-2 MOA with Hornady 40 gr VMAX. After a 100-150 rounds of dollar per round ammo, the gun tightened up. I was able to get a 0.35 to 0.4 MOA. The gun ran remarkably well for about 2 months. I was able to hit a MINI sporting clay target (about 2.25 inches in diameter) at 330 yards with no issues at all. Pretty darn good work for that rifle. A couple of weeks later, the gun started to open up again - to about 4-5 MOA. Sent it back to SAVAGE and they returned it to me stating "nothing was wrong - the gun shoots sub MOA. I tried three different scopes on the gun - a NF 2.5-10, a Zeiss 5-25 and a NF 5.5-22 with similar results. I asked other, more competent shooters to try their luck. I got similar results as before 4-5 MOA.

So, I sent it back to SAVAGE again - this time with a nice note to the CEO. They kept the gun for about 6 weeks and sent it back and things are better but not sufficient to shoot small dogs at normal ranges. I am at a interesting turning point here. I do not reload, although I have equipment on order, so that will start soon enough. But I am very concerned about the stability of this rifle on a hunting trip.

Any ideas are welcome. Also, is there anyone out in the forum that can vouch for a 204 RUGER UPPER for my JP platform? That rifle has performed flawlessly for a number of years, but I am somewhat concerned about the accuracy with 204. Again, thanks for any and all assistance.

Avagadro

Not sure how much of a voucher I am, but my home made upper shoots great. Shilen 9 twist and nosler 40 g give me consistent results around .5 moa.
Wifes savage shoots 32g SBKs well with a 12 twist barrel.

Thanks DS,

That is good information. Savage says that the 40 gr bullet is the ideal choice for the 204 with a 12 twist. I tried the 32s and did not get very good results. Eventually, the 40s worked - at least for a while. Sounds like your upper is smoking!! I would take that in a minute.

I did not mention that Savage put a new barrel on my 204. But as I said, I have not seen the accuracy yet. I will work up some loads and see what I can come up with. In the interim, I may get myself an upper. Did you built your upper or purchase it? That wasn't clear to me and what would you recommend for a 204 load?

Thanks a lot!!!

This link will probably answer your questions. It's my favorite AR. Personally, I can't make 40 grainers work in a 12 twist. I've had excellent luck with H322.

http://www.204ruger.com/forum/viewtopic ... 29&t=10245

Hi Avagadro,

I have a Savage Model 12 in the 204 caliber, it shoots the 32 gr sierra very well. It is said that many of the 204 calibers will not shoot the 40 gr bullets accurately, many of those same rifles will shoot the Sierra 39 gr bullet Very Well.

My savage will shoot the 32 gr and the 39 grain bullets very well, I do Hand Load.
When I started hand loading my powder charges were increased in .2 gr increments untill i found a load that would group well.
I found that trying to load in Higher increments (.4-.5grs) you could totally miss the Accurate load.
I typically can hold .6-.7 in groups @ 200 yards on a good day.
Good luck, you could try asking Savage what factory loads they tested with or if it was a hand lload.

I havent ever tried a factory Load, so I cant say how good or bad they shoot in my rifle??

There are quite a few savage 204's being shot with hand loads @ the club I belong to.
I can tell you alot of guys are shooting 32 grn Hornady bullets, with BLC-2 powder and getting good results.

Good luck
foxguy

204R with 40gr bullets.

Some rifles like em.
Some rifles hate em.
The rest tolerate em.

HSM ammo offers a 39gr BK load that just might work well for you.

My 1-12 does not shoot 40gr's very well. The exception is Berger 40gr's. I believe the reason it shoots them so well is because the bullet length is shorter than even Sierra's 39gr (which my rifle shoots excellent). However after saying all that mine is a bolt gun. I do find it strange that you had good accuracy and then it fell off.

Avagadro wrote:Hey folks - I am new to the forum and new to the 204. I bought the 204 model 10 Savage and it was not very accurate out of the box. I was getting 1.5-2 MOA with Hornady 40 gr VMAX. After a 100-150 rounds of dollar per round ammo, the gun tightened up. I was able to get a 0.35 to 0.4 MOA. The gun ran remarkably well for about 2 months. I was able to hit a MINI sporting clay target (about 2.25 inches in diameter) at 330 yards with no issues at all. Pretty darn good work for that rifle. A couple of weeks later, the gun started to open up again - to about 4-5 MOA. Sent it back to SAVAGE and they returned it to me stating "nothing was wrong - the gun shoots sub MOA. I tried three different scopes on the gun - a NF 2.5-10, a Zeiss 5-25 and a NF 5.5-22 with similar results. I asked other, more competent shooters to try their luck. I got similar results as before 4-5 MOA.

So, I sent it back to SAVAGE again - this time with a nice note to the CEO. They kept the gun for about 6 weeks and sent it back and things are better but not sufficient to shoot small dogs at normal ranges. I am at a interesting turning point here. I do not reload, although I have equipment on order, so that will start soon enough. But I am very concerned about the stability of this rifle on a hunting trip.

Any ideas are welcome. Also, is there anyone out in the forum that can vouch for a 204 RUGER UPPER for my JP platform? That rifle has performed flawlessly for a number of years, but I am somewhat concerned about the accuracy with 204. Again, thanks for any and all assistance.

Avagadro

Don't know how this turned out but I had the same problem with Hornady factory 30-06 ammunition. When the original "Light-Mag" ammunition came out the first LOT I got shot excellent. The later LOT's, couldn't hit a bull in the butt with a base fiddle. That's the way it is with factory ammo and it doesn't matter whether its a gas gun (AR or such) or a bolt gun; if the gun doesn't like it, it won't do well.

1. You could ask Savage what type of ammo are they testing your gun with to get the sub-MOA groups; and then try and procure some, of the same LOT and give it a go.

2. For accuracy though try to start reloading as soon as feasible but don't expect the advertised velocity results.

3. Based on what I've read, most factory 12-twist tubes don't care for the 40-grain bullet. For me, my CZ is the exception but my two Remington's despise them [Hornady] and I dunno' why because the bearing surface is almost identical between them.

HTH,

Thanks to everyone!! I appreciate the help. I have only shot factory ammo - Hornday 32s and 40s and some Remington Silver also 40gr with my Savage. The 32s were really bad and the 40s worked well for a while then pooped the bed as mentioned in the initial post. Who knows what happened.

I have some additional 40 cal Hornady bullets in 40 gr VMAX. I will try some loads with those.

I also have 32 gr Sierra BKs coming along with some Sierra 39 gr BK bullets. I have some powder - 2 lbs of BENCHMARK and 2 pounds of H335 and WIN primers. When I ordered this stuff, that was all I could find, so I am going to work with what I have. This is my first attempt with metallic reloading, although I have reloaded close to 1M shotgun shells. But that is a piece of cake compared to rifle reloading - IMHO.

While my tenure with reloading rifles is short, I can appreciate all of the work that you folks have put into your rifles. That is commendable!!!

Thanks again to all! I will keep you posted over the next several days.

Regards,

Avagadro

I have never fired a factory round in my 204, but I would be willing to bet that reloads are a whole lot more consistent as far as repeatability for accuracy! Of course this will depend on the person behind the press! IMHO, factory rounds will not even compete with reloads thru the same rifle. If you still have the empty boxes for the factory loads, check production #'s against each other box. I would imagine that no 2 boxes have the same production # on the box. That could cause some of your problems.
As for the rifle, I would suggest a inch/pound torque wrench, so you will be able to check the torque on the screws holding the rifle in the stock. Also may be used to double check the torque on the scope ring screws for proper tightness, and to make sure the scope mount screw are doing their job. Any changes in these things can cause a rifles accuracy to go "south" all of a sudden.

Avagadro wrote:I also have 32 gr Sierra BKs coming along with some Sierra 39 gr BK bullets. I have some powder - 2 lbs of BENCHMARK and 2 pounds of H335 and
WIN primers.

Looks like you are on the right track for your reloading. My Howa will shoot under 1/2in. moa w/ 32gr vmax over Benchmark. For the 39's my Howa will shoot around 3/8 moa, over RE10x. For the 40's, I did have to go to H4895 to get them to shoot close to 1/2 moa. All primers used are WSR.

Future trades,

Thanks for your expertise! I have done quite a few things to improve accuracy. I do have a in-lb torque wrench and I torque the screws per the specs offered by the various vendors. I do have a -20MOA rail on the gun - I torque it per spec. Ditto for the action screws and scope mounts. I also paint a line across the screw and the action to determine if anything is getting out of whack. I am a novice to this sport so there is SO much that I do not know. I have not tried anything but factory ammo, but the ammo that I did use was 95% from Hornady and the boxes had the same lot number. I even called Hornady to determine if they had any issues with their lot number and the answer was of course, NO. I also ran some chrono numbers on the rounds and their SD was 10-30 FPS when I measured. Not sure how 30 FPS could cause huge grouping problems, but it could certainly provide some vertical stringing. I also had some issues with the Hornady 40 gr VMAX cartridges being "stubborn" when closing the bolt on the Savage. No one at Hornady or Savage has addressed that issue at this point.

I am very excited about the hand loads. I am impressed with your results. I hope I will be able to achieve the same results that you are getting now. Best of luck and thanks for sharing your experiences !

Best Regards.

Avagadro

Avagadro, talk to us about your cleaning regimen.

My Savage 12FV has a very rough bore, fouls quickly, fouls badly, and groups open up quite a lot. And, it takes a LOT of work to get all of the copper out.

Twenty Bore, GREAT question! I am not sure where to begin, but I have had several people recommend various cleaning techniques. When I first received the gun, I shot 100 or so rounds over a few range trips. I cleaned the rifle with MPRO. I had a lot of copper fouling as well. I worked my %$#$ off removing the copper and powder. I am not sure if I took this all the way to removing everything in the bore, but I was close. All the while I was trying to shoot factory Hornady 32 gr VMAXs along with 40 gr Hornady VMAX ammunition. Somewhere during these cleaning situations, the gun began to shoot much better - somewhere around 0.4 MOA with factory ammo. Then the gun went nuts as I mentioned in one my earlier posts. It would not shoot anything below 2 MOA. I did a more intense cleaning episode using MPRO. I used all of their products in an attempt to clean up the gun. But it wasn't working. I did use some nylon brushes but was careful to not damage the crown (removed the brush and pulled out the cleaning rod). But things never got better. I would let the gun set overnight with the MPRO copper cleaner and would periodically use Hope's cleaners as well. But, the grouping never came back. In my previous post, I mentioned that SAVAGE shot the gun and sent it back to me stating that it was OK at 0.7 MOA. I asked the question about what ammo did you use during the test, was it from sand bags, or lead sleds, what lot number, what ammo, what scope, how many rounds were fired, where is the target and can I see it, etc. They simply sent the gun back to me and frankly, it wasn't any better than it was when I sent it back to them. I did another cleaning and took the gun back to the range but it was still a 2 MOA gun. Same lots on Hornady ammo, etc. After another 100 rounds or so, I sent it back to Savage with a nice letter to the CEO. When the gun came back about 6 weeks later, it wasn't that much better - still 1-1.5 MOA and maybe worse. And I never heard anything back from Savage about the testing, ammo, etc. on either of the 2 returns that I made with the 204. As many have pointed out, it is very strange that the gun was shooting VERY WELL and then went NUTS within the next range session.

That is why I hooked up with this forum - I have already learned more from you guys than Savage would reveal. If you have some other cleaning regimens, please advise. I would welcome your expertise.

Thanks for asking!

Best Regards,

Avagadro

Wipe Out- Patch Out Liquid

1. With a 20 cal pointed Jag, & using patches for a 20 cal. Run a Wet patch thru , Run a second wet patch thru.
2. Wait a couple of hours and run another wet patch thru.
3. Repeat Step 2 untill patches start coming out just wet (ie.. clean), then run 2-3 dry patches thru and you are done.

The Patch out Product has done a Great job for me.
I will usually clean after shooting appx 50 rounds as that is a shooting session for me.

Good Luck.

- Get a good flashlight and shine it down the muzzle; if you can see any copper on the lands its time to clean it. The product "204foxguy" called out is good stuff but, if the barrel has a lot of copper, carbon or powder fouling it may take a while to clean it. I had a 30-06 that went from good to horrible [no matter what I tried] and it took me a whole week to get it clean using that product but it finally did the job and the accuracy returned. In my experience, the powder fouling and copper came out fairly quick, it was the carbon fouling that took so darn long to get out. Another good thing about "Patch Out" is it doesn't harm the bores but don't mix it with anything.

- Make double sure nothing happened to the crown because it doesn't take much.

- FWIW, I've never had good luck with Savage C/S, others have reported good success.

HTH,