early Christmas present to myself!

[gareth]

Well I've come home tonight with a brand new Remington SPS Varmint in .204, been mulling over what to buy for a while now and decided on the Remmy after looking at a few other rifles (the 26" tube swung it for me) and the possibility of price increases as the £ falls against the $.

 

First impressions are pretty good (stocks a bit flimsy, has an X mark trigger which seems a lot better than previous Rem units still about 2 lb too heavy) although it's a far cry from what a lot of you guys are shooting with, I think it'll make a good base to build something on. I'll look at improving it over the next few months (change of stock - any suggestions?, single shot follower, recrown etc).

 

Just need to take the scope off my .243 as I think it'll be more suited to this rifle (VX3 6.5-20) and I can get out and see how she shhots.

 

ATB Gareth.

[foxwhistler]

Good luck with the new rifle Gareth. I really like the 204 round personally. What are you planning on using it for, foxing or long range rabbits and crows.

[gareth]

Hi, I think I'll mainly use it for corvids and rabbits although will be interesting to see how it performs on foxes (I do like my .243 for that though). I bought some Hornady 40gn factory rounds as thats all he had in the shop (would have preferred the 32's), still it gives me some brass to do some reloading with. Cheers, Gareth.

[foxwhistler]

My rifle seems to like 39g Sierra B/Kings and 35g bergers for accuracy. I dont know yet what the Bergers will do on foxes, but the B/Kings really put them down!

[gareth]

I'll have a try with the blitz kings, have you tried Vmax's? Out of interest, what powders and primers are you using and have you managed to get near factory velocity? Thanks for your help.

[foxwhistler]

Up until now I`ve been using 32g V-MAX, and there a good round through my 204. Thats with BL( C )-2 and cci br4`s. I was getting about 3900fps.

With the B/Kings using benchmark and br4`s i`m getting about 3750fps.

These figures are with a 22 inch barrel though and at the moment i`m more concerned with accuracy than velocity.

[gareth]

Up until now I`ve been using 32g V-MAX, and there a good round through my 204. Thats with BL( C )-2 and cci br4`s. I was getting about 3900fps.

With the B/Kings using benchmark and br4`s i`m getting about 3750fps.

These figures are with a 22 inch barrel though and at the moment i`m more concerned with accuracy than velocity.

 

Thanks for this, all useful info. Yes as you rightly say, accuracy is more important than out and out velocity, your still getting some impressive MV from a 22" barrel. Have you tried altering OAL at all? I don't suppose it's possible to get near the lands with a factory Rem but I'm interested to see if you have experimented with this.

[foxwhistler]

I have experimented with OAL on the 204,but at the moment the only figures i can remember is that the 32g V-MAX seemed to shoot best at 1.940, While the 39g sierra`s seem to do best at 1.955. These mesurements were taken with a compactor, and i`m not sure what they would be without.

As you can probably guess, these reloads are well off the lands. If i tried to reach them i think the bullet would be out the end of the case.