SmallCaliberCentral

Hi fellas, My sweet little wife ran across a Ruger Hawkeye Predator rifle in 204 a little before Christmas and bought it ! She bought it for herself because it was so pretty and felt good. I wasn't too upset, and it is a nice feeling pretty gun, but have always had Savages , and don't know much about them. Besides, she has wanted a 204 of her own for quite a while, not that she shot my 204 Savage much, but still, she wanted one of her own. OK- No problem- as long as I got to shoot it too. Well anyways, I was wondering if anybody has one of these rifles and has any good ideas for starting points on what kind of loads this gun would like. The only bullets I have are Hornady 45's, a few Nosler 32's and some 39 BK's. We have a small cattle farm and coyotes are all we shoot. I've always used Berger 35's & 40's, and Hornady 45's with RE-10x or H4895, but you can't get any Bergers these days. These are tough bullets that drill those yotes hard. All my brass is Winchester fired in my Savage, so I guess I'll have to full length size some for her rifle to start. First thing I noticed is the barrel is not free floated or action bedded. But the trigger is a good two stage - light n crisp. Any ideas or things I should know about this Ruger ?

I would think that after you resize 20-30 of your Winchester case's. Take two or three of the best loads, your rifle shoots, and starting a couple grains or so less, try them in the wife's new rifle. You may find that Predator shoots as well or better than your Savage. Bill K

My Savages like 26 grains of H4895 with the Sierra Blitzkings. This is about 1 1/2 grains under max load. Mine just likes this load for accuracy. Let us know how your testing goes. I have not heard any feedback on your rifle.

cshooter wrote:Hi fellas, My sweet little wife ran across a Ruger Hawkeye Predator rifle in 204 a little before Christmas and bought it

If there's no photo, it really didn't happen

For the Hornady 45g. My rifle likes 23.8-24g of H-4895 for accuracy. (around 3400)

Hey thanks for the tip on that load, I'll take a look at that. Does your rifle do a little sideways stringing after the 3rd shot ? Mine does. Not bad, but it is noticeable. I attribute that to the barrel stock contact. I wonder why Ruger didn't free float the barrel ? That seems to be a given accuracy booster on most production rifles these days. Hmmmm. Any more ideas ?

cshooter wrote:Hey thanks for the tip on that load, I'll take a look at that. Does your rifle do a little sideways stringing after the 3rd shot ? Mine does. Not bad, but it is noticeable. I attribute that to the barrel stock contact. I wonder why Ruger didn't free float the barrel ? That seems to be a given accuracy booster on most production rifles these days. Hmmmm. Any more ideas ?

I have a Ruger M77 in the V/T model and the barrel is free floated. Both of my 77/17's, one in Hornet and one in HMR have the end of stock pressure point. I've heard of mixed reviews from removing it. The Hornet is plenty accurate so i won't mess with it.

The weather has been so poor for sighting in anything this winter that I haven't had a chance to get out and try anything. But I did get about an 1/2 hour day before last to do some. I had a few Hornady 45 gr. SP's loaded up to test, but I can't get any other kind of bullet right now so that's the only bullet I can test. The best I could get was with 27.5 gr of AA# 2520 and Rem brass. It was marginally accurate at 3/4" groups @ 100yrd. That was the best load with that bullet out of about 10 different ones. But it was a consistant load, it stayed right at 3/4" for 5 different groups. When I get some 35 & 40 gr Berger's I'll retest and see. The 45 Hornady's aren't very accurate in any of my other 204's either so I'm not too worried. But they will work for now. I do need to see how this load groups at 200 yrd, but the wind has to drop down below 20 mph for that.

I had just a few Remington brass (35) I found in a bag among my stuff, they were new so I used them. And I can't find those Nosler's. The Sierra BK's I mentioned earlier got loaded up last spring - I forgot. I may resize some of those Winchester brass, but it looks like we may have Rem brass available before Win. Besides I haven't found much difference between the two other than the position of the groups when the all other components are the same. I sure am getting tired of this shortage of reloading stuff.................

Darkker and I both have Ruger Predators in 204R. I generally run 748 in mine, and darkker runs 748 or CFE 223 in his. We both run MidSouth's Varmint Nightmares. They're great rifles!
The 2-stage triggers are the best factory triggers I have ever operated, and as good as or better than most aftermarket ones I've run, too.

P.S. I have a Predator in 6.5 Creedmoor now, too. I really like this platform.

What grains are you guys using of 748 and how do those midsouth bullets hold up ? I like shooting a tougher bullet because I've had several splashes at the closer ranges with the prairie dog type bullets. And I finally got out to try that AA#2520, I'm getting fairly consistant 1" groups @ 100 yrds. I may do alittle tweeking, but for shooting coyote size n bigger game out to 200 yrd, they'll do the job. The load is 45 gr Hornady SP, 27.5 gr AA#2520, Rem brass, CCI Br4 primers, seated at a C.O.L of 2.945 measured at the ogive of the bullet. I wish Winchester n Remington would start putting out brass again other than their loaded ammo. That Hornady stuff just isn't consistant. The same load with Hornady brass is all over the place. Also the trigger on my gun has three adjustment screws on the front of it, do you guys know which one would take out the creep ? I haven't messed with it any as it is a very good trigger with the right pull for me, but mine has a little too much creep at the second stage. They look like they are factory set with locktite and I didn't want to start messing around with it. I can't find anything on how exactly to adjust it.

I'll look for some info/data for you when I get home. Until then-- The Predator uses the same 2-stage trigger as the Varmint/Target model. The 'creep' you're feeling may be that take-up stage, which is there by design. Or, it could be a touch of creep in the second stage. If so, take heart: I've never owned nor even fired one of Ruger's 2-stage triggers where that couldn't be easily adjusted out. Stand by while I get home...

This is pretty much what I do to adjust Ruger's outstanding 2-stage triggers:
http://www.varminthunters.com/tech/rugervt.html

For load data, I load by volume, but the VMD of my particular lot is such that I was loading in the high 28s in terms of grains (weight). Make sure you work up according to your manual's instructions; this load is at or near some data sources' listed max.

I'm not really a coyote hunter at this point, and other than big game I rarely do quasi-autopsies. Maybe message Darkker for his thoughts on the bullet on coyotes. He's always seemed very happy with it for 'yotes when I've talked to him about it.