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I fancy a 204 but....

I see posts with people going back to 223 from 204?

Anyone tried both?

I know its all about bullet placement ,and You can read all day about ballistics ,but in the field does 204 clean kill foxes ?

 

 

 

 

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I have just bought a used Howa 1500 in .204 and I am very pleased with it. I have had .223 and .17 Remington in the past and they are both great. I enjoyed the lack of recoil with the .17 Rem and the flat trajectories , I also shot many foxes with  the .17 and they dropped on the spot .

The .204 is the same kind of velocity and lack of recoil as the .17 Rem but with bullets that buck the wind and drop better . I have only shot 40g factory rounds so far and went out today and ranged a crow at 358 yards and Strelok said the drop was .7 mil dots , lead down, bipod out ,took the shot and almost immediately its dead and flapping with nerves.. Then spotted two Magpies at a ranged 260 yards and .3 mil dot allowance and shot it off shooting sticks, I have only seen two other times when something has blown apart with such magnitude, once when I shot a magpie with the .17 Rem from 20 yards and once when I chest shot a wood pigeon that had a crop full of acorns with a 58g ballistic tip from a .243.

I recently had a 22/250 and I find the .204 sweeter to shoot , so little recoil and very accurate. Unless anyone wanted to shoot small deer I think the .204 is the best vermin round available. The downside is none of my local dealers have factory ammo  and I had to order them at 1967 Spud which came today, great service from them thank you. So if you don't reload then maybe a .223 would be a better option.

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Quite honestly it is very hard to regularly hit such small targets beyond 300 yards because of wind drift and maybe not ranging the distance exactly, also the quarry does move. I have not owned my rifle long enough to know. But it is pretty academic as most people will miss more after 400 yards than hit I would guess. Maybe 500 to 600y  in still conditions

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I've got a custom 204 Howa action Roger barel and stock fitted by RPA 

I simply won't recommend it over my pair of 223 

the 233 has more off the shelf Ammo  available is dead easy to reload for and in my personal experience kills foxes a lot better than the 204 I know there's going to be people on here that's going to argue with this but I'm just putting forward my personal experience.

I really like the 204 as a go to for the long-range rabbit rifle 32 g bullets easy for 300 yards Bunnys.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, I have a 223 that has been sat in the gun safe since my CZ527 204 Varmint arrived 18 months ago. 

Zipping 39gr Blitzkings at 3,800fps. I drop crows out to 400 yards on a regular basis, the furthest so far being 580 yards. Fast, explosive, great BC and whallops foxes, too. 

I chest shot a fox at 230 yards a few months back and it reacted like it'd been hit with a lightning bolt! 

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sounds great. I am hoping to up my velocity to those, but with my 22" barrel I am going to try some RL10X and see if that helps. So far the best safe load I have is 3500fps with 28g RL15 with the 39g Blitzkings. Slightly over the book max, but no pressure signs or hard extraction. I was shooting at rocks at 250y yesterday and the 32 vmax I had made up some test loads with was doing 3760 fps and that was hitting the rocks and making a small puff of dust and a small impact noise, then with the first 39g Blitzking it hit with hugely more noise and destroyed to dust the rock it hit. It sounded massively more impact power.

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On 10/28/2019 at 5:01 PM, steve123 said:

sounds great. I am hoping to up my velocity to those, but with my 22" barrel I am going to try some RL10X and see if that helps. So far the best safe load I have is 3500fps with 28g RL15 with the 39g Blitzkings. Slightly over the book max, but no pressure signs or hard extraction. I was shooting at rocks at 250y yesterday and the 32 vmax I had made up some test loads with was doing 3760 fps and that was hitting the rocks and making a small puff of dust and a small impact noise, then with the first 39g Blitzking it hit with hugely more noise and destroyed to dust the rock it hit. It sounded massively more impact power.

I haven't tried the 32gr Blitzkings to be fair. As soon as I git the rifle I knew the 39gr Blitz were the way to go. Great BC and the 25" barrel handles them really well. 

Powder wise, I'm using 25.6 gr of Vhit N530. Max recommended charge is 26gr, but mine groups really well at 25.6.

IMG_20191020_134626.jpg

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At the op , iv had a std 223 & 223Ackley , have had a 20p for some years and honestly for varmints its the dogs . I prefer it to the std 223 & 223Ackley . The ackley was 8 twist shooting 75 Amax . But i replaced that with 6br so have a 400 yard 20p and 6br does alot futher . Id like a small 17 for 200 yard quiet gun but haven't done much about it yet a few years on . The 20s are less likely to ricochet than a 75 Amax too so in that respect , similar to say 17 rem - seem safer. 20s are devastating on crows etc 

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Dear Op

  Think Iv butted in on conversations regarding 204R before but I’ll mention my findings again. I had a lovely Sako 85 in 204R with a 20 inch barrel and shot hundreds of foxes over a couple of years but could never get the velocity I wanted and after failing to get it rebarreled to a sensible 26 inch sold it. ( I only say sensible as I can’t see the point in running a high velocity round out of a short barrel if your chasing “laser tragectories” ). I got a bit pissed off with the 204R because I missed the odd one due to the small bullets 32-39 gn not bucking the wind all that well at 2-350m. Also the only foxes I had run shot with it were ones shoulder shot, which happened a few times. I came to the conclusion it didn’t penetrate all that well on say a big dog fox. 

If you want to cleanly kill foxes every time I’d recommend a .223 caliber pushing a 50-55gn bullet as fast as you can get it. Or better still a 6mm. 

If your only going to shoot the occasional fox and not go out in all weather get the 204R. But if your serious about it maybe get something other than what a lot of other people recommend as good for “rabbits and crows”. 

Ill say it again you can never over gun a fox! 

Ben

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1 hour ago, BuckhurstBen said:

Dear Op

  Think Iv butted in on conversations regarding 204R before but I’ll mention my findings again. I had a lovely Sako 85 in 204R with a 20 inch barrel and shot hundreds of foxes over a couple of years but could never get the velocity I wanted and after failing to get it rebarreled to a sensible 26 inch sold it. ( I only say sensible as I can’t see the point in running a high velocity round out of a short barrel if your chasing “laser tragectories” ). I got a bit pissed off with the 204R because I missed the odd one due to the small bullets 32-39 gn not bucking the wind all that well at 2-350m. Also the only foxes I had run shot with it were ones shoulder shot, which happened a few times. I came to the conclusion it didn’t penetrate all that well on say a big dog fox. 

If you want to cleanly kill foxes every time I’d recommend a .223 caliber pushing a 50-55gn bullet as fast as you can get it. Or better still a 6mm. 

If your only going to shoot the occasional fox and not go out in all weather get the 204R. But if your serious about it maybe get something other than what a lot of other people recommend as good for “rabbits and crows”. 

Ill say it again you can never over gun a fox! 

Ben

I  totally agree Ben 

 Group shown for the 204 100 yards with 8  shots speaks for itself in my opinion for the size of the group that bad at a hundred yards I wouldn't think of trying to hit anything at 300 or 400 or 500  

 Both my 233  shoot a near-perfect group with factory Ammo  five shots one ragged whole 100 yards  both built  buy Mick at Dolphins 

 On my old bate site I was away shooting foxes 100 210 yards with a 204 and I had the same problem with the shoulder shot 

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1 minute ago, Orka Akinse said:

I use a .223 and my foxing partner uses a 204.  It's a cracking round and if anything happened to the 223 it would be a 204 I'd choose every time.  

 you could accidently run your 223 over one night, be a good excuse to get a lovely 26" barreled .204 and load 39grn s/b/ks to around 3900 fps for a cracking accurate fox rifle👍.

I've said it before, .204 is a great fox round😀 

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2 minutes ago, Bob57 said:

 you could accidently run your 223 over one night, be a good excuse to get a lovely 26" barreled .204 and load 39grn s/b/ks to around 3900 fps for a cracking accurate fox rifle👍.

I've said it before, .204 is a great fox round😀 

😂😂 For the love of God and all that's holly, surely I could just re-barrel it and not need to go to those lengths🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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1 minute ago, Orka Akinse said:

😂😂 For the love of God and all that's holly, surely I could just re-barrel it and not need to go to those lengths🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

😂😂😂

Ok just a rebarrell then, but 26", not one of those short💩 things😀

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15 minutes ago, Montey said:

I was using 32g rounds not 39g or 40g 

still wont convert me though !!

 Montey, 

nobody's trying to convert you, use what you want for foxing, but if you've only ever used 32 grainers in your 204 you shouldn't be saying it's a crap round for fox without trying  39 or 40 grainers 😯

 

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