SmallCaliberCentral

I am just starting to reload and have help from a friend who has reloaded for years. He is not familer with loading the .204. I have the Ruger M77 Target Grey. I have read here that the 40gr tend to keyhole in this gun and was wonder if the 39g Sierra BK do the same? I tried to run a search, but I did not see what I was looking for. Did find some great info in the favorite load thread. Thanks for the info and help, Rich.

Your .204 will either love the 40s or despise them. It seems to be a crap shoot. Most rifles, however, seem to love the 39 gr. Sierra BKs. I would start with those.

I have a M77 Target Grey and it loves 27.7 grains of H 4895. OAL of 2.3 inches. Using 39 grain SBK's. Try it you will like it.

Jimmy

My Ruger 77 V/T shoots 40 gr VMax bullets real well. 28 gr of IMR 4895, 205 Fed primers, Hornady brass. Killed about a bagillion pds with this load last June. I may own a fluke in this Ruger, because it shoots Nosler 40 Ballistic tips and Sierra 39 BlitzKings well, also. On the other hand, my CZ 204 Varmint shoots 39 Sierras superbly, but does not like the Nosler or Hornady 40 gr bullets at all.

Thanks for the help guys, it is appreciated and I will try your recipes.

If you are having problems with accuracy, measure the distance to the lands, and then move your bullets seating depth around and see what happens.

Many of the factory rifles have long throats, and seating the bullet out from the manuals overall length, will help bullet stability and accuracy tremendously.

There was a thread a while back where one of the guys gave details on making a test case by splitting the neck on a sized case. I neck size only, and then seat a bullet just enough to keep it in the neck, and then push it into the chamber by hand. This seems to get me close.