SmallCaliberCentral

Hello to everyone! I have ordered the Sierra Blitzking 39 grain bullets and plan to load for my new Remington 700 vtr .204. Also, I have some 40 grn. Hornady V-Max coming. I have the Hornady OAL gauge and comparator etc for finding chamber length. What I really need is some good starting powder charges with the BenchMark powder I picked up today and, the Sierra bullets as I am pretty new to re loading. I also have some Varget powder I have been using for my Savage 10fp .223. I am mainly interested in accuracy loads for target shooting from 100-200 yards. Thanks for all advice! The twist rate is 1:12 for this barrel thought I'd better mention that.

First off, welcome to the forum.

For getting started, just refer to the tab at the top of the forum page marked "204 Load Data". Also, you may want to edit your post heading, as I don't think too many guys will have any helpful info for the "69gr Sierra BK" in .204 caliber.

Rick in Oregon wrote:First off, welcome to the forum.

For getting started, just refer to the tab at the top of the forum page marked "204 Load Data". Also, you may want to edit your post heading, as I don't think too many guys will have any helpful info for the "69gr Sierra BK" in .204 caliber.

My first post on this forum, and I had to have a brain fart sorry folks!

Welcome to the forum. I use the 39 SBK's in my CZ with the Benchmark powder. My pet load is 25.2 grains to give a 5 shot group of .33. Just use the data that's published under the "load data" section and work your way from there. Benchmark has been a stable powder for me, as I use it in all 4 of my varmint rifles. Good luck and keep us posted

Beware of using loads you found on the net. I will tell you what I am shooting in my gun but be warned it is a hot load and I worked up from 10% lower.


I shoot pacnor 11 twist polygonal rifled barrels at 27". I use 205M or BR4 primers. Does not seem to affect the velocity but take note of a pierced primer mentioned below.

With the two barrels I used last year and the year below I achieved 3975 fps or there abouts with .3" five shot groups typical. I think 10 or 20 shot groups are the best way to confirm a load prior to loading up hundreds of rounds or when you travel 800 miles to where you shoot as I do. This load was 26.2 grains of Benchmark. With this years barrels, I am achieving the same velocity and the same accuracy with 27.0 grains. I used some old (more than 20 years) 205M primers. I had been told on this forum that the cups are thicker on the BR4 primers but these were on hand and I got them cheap so I used them. Out of 850 rounds fired during a PD hunt a few weeks back I got one pierced primer.

The good news was that I only missed 50 shots the whole trip. It is sometimes difficult to tell if the shot was a hit or a miss but the most that I might have missed was 75 because most were obvious dog explosions or I could hear the pop of the solid hit on the dog through my electronic muffs.