sharpsman, I hope you can find a load that your rifle will shoot up to 4000fps and stay together with some decent accurracy! After testing 5 different powders behind the 40's in my VLP, I decided to stick with the 32's or 33's(if you can find any and whatever else I may find to try!......but no 40's!!!! Velocitys were 3600-3700 and accuracy SUCKED!!!!!!!! GHD

sharpsman-- I have a Savage 12VLP with the AccuTrigger and the barrel is 26" long. So far it appears there will be several powders that will push that 40 gr. V-Max in excess of 4,000 fps. I just wonder how fur friendly that bullet will be??? I have heard excellent reports about the 35 gr. Berger FB HP on knocking coyotes down and keeping them down, yet the bullet is reported to be very fur friendly. I don't think the BC is anywhere near that of the 40 gr. V-Max though.

I am interested in the 40 gr. V-Max mainly for prairie dogs and other varmints. My quest in testing various powders with the 40 gr. V-Max was to find an accurate powder/bullet combination that would give me at least 4,000 fps MV. I'll post some of the 3-shot groups I did with all three bullets--the 32 & 40 gr. V-Max and the 35 gr. Berger some time tomorrow. I am concentrating on using H4895 for for all three bullets because it is "supposed" to be insensitive to temperature changes and we sure get those up here in NW North Dakota.

I still haven't done any testing with H322 or Benchmark and I think they may prove to be very good powders with the 3 bullets I am testing. Too many bullet/powder combinations and not enough time

My main interest in the .204 is the 40g Vmax bullets.

If one can get enough velocity with them,the downrange ballistics are prety awesome..



It looks like the 40g Vmaxes with either BL-C2 or H4895 will do around 4,000+++ with no problem.



It it just me or does that H4895/40g Vmax load look VERY promising with the top end loads??



The 'yotes at 3-400 yards should HATE it!!





BTW,Is your barrel 26" long?? Your loads with the Hodgdon powders(with equal charges) are about 200FPS faster than Hodgdon's test barrel..

SilverFox: Do you remember the wind speed at your range on the day you shot the Berger 35 gr. loads (with the 10X and etc). Those groups appear to have only horizontal (wind caused?) dispersion! I have several friends that simply discount ALL horizontal dispersion when load testing. They (and I to a certain degree) feel that the only thing that causes horizontal dispersion is wind or to a lesser extent trigger pull. Thus the loads that have the least vertical dispersion are then the chosen loadings or loadings picked for further testing!
Anyway I would be interested in knowing if you had any wind on that day in the 4 to 7 MPH range.
I also use the 35 gr. Bergers in both my 204's!
More later
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

VarmintGuy-- The wind direction and velocity for the 4-shot group using Reloder 10X powder was from right to left at about a 45� angle to my shots, between 8 and 10 mph (my best guess). The 4-shot group with BL-C(2) found the wind had shifted and was blowing at about a 15� from left to right at about 5 to 8 mph (my best guess). The 4-shot group with H4895 had the wind calming down to probably 5 mph and coming almost head on at me.

I do find that once in awhile I "KNOW" I have "jerked" the trigger and get those flyers that usually go wide of the mark, but sometimes go right and sometimes left. Maybe I'm using the "jerk" as an excuse

Mike-- Quite a few .204 Ruger shooters have found loads that push that 40 gr. bullet at 4,000 fps and more.

Yes, my chronograph is a Beta Master Chrony.

4000 f/s seems very high with 40 grains as that would equate to just under 3600 with 55 grainers in a 224 bore with the same case capacity as the 204. Was the chronograph a Chrony.

Mike

Yep,I would stick with the Hodgdon H4895 if it is one of their Extreme powders.I like to use Varget in my .22-250 loads for the same reason..

I recently designed a very comfortable Varminter stock for .17HMR Marlin,Savage and CZ HB rimfire rifles.The stock is very stable but still scaled smaller to fit the rimfire guns.Charles Daly has unvieled the little .223 lenght Mini Mauser actions(the old Mini Mark X)which are about the size of the SAKO Vixen action.My plan is to built a medium to light weight "Walkabout" Varmint rig in .204 with those components,adapting my Varminter stock to that action..

In my World,Varmints also means 3-400 yard shots a Coyotes and I think the little 40g Vmax may have just enough weight and sectional density for it's diameter to do the trick..

My main concern was whether 4,000FPS was doable with that slug.

Your data shows that it is..