.204 Ruger steel plate penetration, surprising result.
Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 9:01 am
I finally got my Howa 1500 in .204 Ruger out to the range to start working up loads last week. My start load was 25g of Benchmark behind 34g Midway Dogtown's.
In sighting in the first couple of shots were about 12 " high which went over the tractor-tires-filled-with-sand backstop and hit the 1/4" plate steel inclined at a 60 degree angle backstop behind them. Surprisingly, the little 34 grain hollow points blew about 1/2" holes right through the steel!
After getting it shooting reasonably well, I fired several shots at the 300 yard gong, which is made of 2 pieces of 3/16" steel welded together, and they almost went through it! They blew out 1/2" diameter bowl shaped holes that went through the first plate and deeply into the second one.
I suppose the .204's velocity makes them perform like miniature "Explosively Formed Penetrators" or EFP's that we hear about in Iraq.
Has anyone else seen that kind of result on steel from the little .204's?
In sighting in the first couple of shots were about 12 " high which went over the tractor-tires-filled-with-sand backstop and hit the 1/4" plate steel inclined at a 60 degree angle backstop behind them. Surprisingly, the little 34 grain hollow points blew about 1/2" holes right through the steel!
After getting it shooting reasonably well, I fired several shots at the 300 yard gong, which is made of 2 pieces of 3/16" steel welded together, and they almost went through it! They blew out 1/2" diameter bowl shaped holes that went through the first plate and deeply into the second one.
I suppose the .204's velocity makes them perform like miniature "Explosively Formed Penetrators" or EFP's that we hear about in Iraq.
Has anyone else seen that kind of result on steel from the little .204's?
The rancher at one of our sites even made a wind chime out of irrigation pipe that some of the shooters (not our group) had shot! Gary