SmallCaliberCentral

My good varmint shooting buddy as well as my son in law have new 204 rifles. They are going to try factory ammo by Hornady and Fiochi (both V max) to compare accuracy of the two brands. While accuracy is the primary consideration another important factor is brass quality. We would like to hear from anyone that has experience with reloading either brand of 204 brass.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, good or bad.

Phil

I have loaded norma and hornady and have loaded the norma about 7 times, paired with the 39gr sbk devastating on varmints, i am only on the first loading of the hornady but they are loaded with 32gr varmageddons and seem real good

Have had no issues with Hornady brass in the 204R. Some complain about it. As for Fiochi, no experience in 204R, but in 223R erratic signs of pressure. Bill K

You don't mention what brand of rifles they are, but I've got a Savage FV12 in 204, and had some issues with Fiochhi ammo, see this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11619

I had the same idea of reloading the Fiochhi brass but I'm going to think about it alot 1st, and see what the primer pockets look like when de-primed.

Stay away from Winchester brass--I can hardly believe they still try to make it. the last two bags of that brand I bought there were several that had cracked or useless brass new out of the box. I just used some .300 wsm brass with oversize case rims that would not eject from the bolt face. then I bought a bag of 50 .25-06 brass--5 of them, that is 10 percent were cracked and unusable. I will never use Winchester brass again.
I have used fiocchi ammo and reloaded it and find them to be extremely accurate both .223 and .204. I love my .204's!!!

Thanks to those that have shared their experiences. My son-in-law tried 32 and 40's in both brands without issue. The fiocchi was slightly more accurate.

My friend's Criterion barrel has not arrived yet but he is also going to try both brands in 32 and 40. I will post if anything out of the ordinary occurs

When I bought my rifle, I also bought a little short of 400 rounds of 40-grain Hornady factory ammo from the same lot, simply because it wasn't any more expensive than buying brass. I've put all of them through at least four firings, and they still shoot fine.

The first time I tried reloaded them, I found that the Hornady cases were all shorter than the trim-to length. As I've only neck-sized them, none of them have grown to trim length, so... I've never even trimmed the cases.

The factory loads were MOA-ish for me, about 1.2 MOA if I recall correctly. But reloading the brass with RE-10X and 39-grain Sierra Blitzkings, that's the combo that gets things nice and interesting.