Savage 204 load work up.

Had some fun with my savage yesterday. I have only shot factory Hornady from it so far and decided it was time to work up some hand loads. This rifle shoots factory loads at .15" groups and .170 off the lands!!

My hand loads are at .075 off the lands and Hornady V-max bullets. It likes everything I throw at it so far. I will go out to 200 yards for groups next and work on seating depth as well as fine tune for accuracy. Based on current drop the 4064 is right around 3600 fps, about 100 fps faster than the factory ammo.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...204testing.jpg

those are some nice holes

I'd hate to see that thing after you "fine tune for accuracy". Nice shooting!

Tried to tune a little on Sunday but the wind was not kind to the little bullets at 200. 32gs of super had least amount of drop, 4064 was next, and then 4895. Each test load, shot in groups of two, horizontally strung out, indicated too much wind to do anything more. Each test load fired less thatn 1 moa, but since the rifle is capable of considerably better than that I had to give up and not waste ammo and barrel life.

If wind is kind next outing I will shoot same loads again, concentrating on super and 4064 likely, and then play with seating depth. I found my 6.5-284 calmed down at .105 off the lands and went from .5MOA to .25MOA at 200. I know for a fact the 204 shoots factory awesome at .170!!!!! crazy deep seating depth. So who know's what it will do with .100 or so. It may shoot bug holes. that would be sweet. Hope to have some results soon.

measured drop for the last session out and it shows Super is 3950 fps, 4064 is 3650 fps, and 4895 is 3450 fps.

If weather holds I will shoot Saturday at 200 yards for tuning with super and 4064 and play with seating depths. I think I am close to having a couple of solid loads.

did you ever find anything that would shoot in your .204? :rolleyes:

Brent
Those are nice groups. You should be proud of them.
I'm new to the .204, bought a used Savage 12FV two weeks ago.
I'm staying tuned to watch your results. :biggrin-new:
I don't have any IMR4064, been playing with CFE223 & the Sierra 32gr HP.

Well, Sunday was windy and unpredictable but I made the best of it. This is the best I could do with the day, my abilities, and scope. Both of these loads seem to work well enough with 4064 being the most consistently accurate so far. I have heard Remington 7.5 primers are the bomb for the 204 so I may try those. Right now I have 1000 Federal 205M's and they seem to work well enough.

If I correctly calculate the drop on this the FPS is right at 3950 for the 4064 and close to 4000 with the super. I should, and probably will, fine tune the super and see if 31.5 - 32 produce better results etc. It would be great to have two powders that produced great results all year long and that way I have options if I run low or out.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...90ac7e281a.jpg