does .204 ruger drift less than a .223 because its going mach 4? or is .223's bullet weight (lets say around 55 grains) buck wind better?

trashcanman-- There are many pieces to this puzzle you are asking about that you left out. You need the BC of the bullets, the muzzle velocity of the bullets, and the weight of the bullet for the .204 Ruger you want to compare the .223 to, what distances you are talking about, AND what the wind speed and direction are in relation to your bullet's path. Since you left that information out, I will pick some numbers for you.

Let's take a .204 caliber 40 gr. V-Max bullet with a BC of .275 and a muzzle velocity of 3,950 fps. For the .223, we'll take your 55 gr. bullet in the Hornady V-Max variety and it has a BC of .255. Since I do not reload or shoot a .223, I'll take my muzzle velocity for the .223 load from Reloadersnest.com and use Load #6564 which shows a MV of 3,300 fps. Also, in my old 4th edition of the Hornady Handbook or Cartridge Reloading, 3,300 fps appears to be the MAX speed for the 55 gr. bullets.

Some other numbers I will provide are temperature--about 60�, relative humidity--I'll take 35%, barometric pressure, let's select 29.92", and for elevation, I'll use mine of about 1,800 ft. Wind speed will be 10 mph at a 90� angle to the path of the bullet. I think that should do it.

OK, now there will be a brief pause here while I plug these numbers into my ballistics program . . . . . . (pause) . . . .

The 40 gr. .204 Ruger bullet shows 0.8" of drift at 100 yards, 3.3" at 200 yards, 7.8" at 300 yards, 14.7" at 400 yards, and 24.4" at 500 yards.

The 55 gr. .224 bullet shows 1.1" of drift at 100 yards, 4.5" at 200 yards, 10.9" at 300 yards, 20.7" at 400 yards, and 35.8 inches at 500 yards.

So, the superior BC of the 40 gr. .204 Ruger bullet AND the superior muzzle velocity account for its superiority at bucking the wind better.

If we plug in the numbers for a 32 gr. Hornady V-Max .204 bullet, and use the 4,255 fps muzzle velocity I get with my 32 gr. reloads, we get 1.0" of drift at 100 yards, 4.1" of drift at 200 yards, 9.9" of drift at 300 yards, 18.9" of drift at 400 yards, and 32.0" of drift at 500 yards.

Again, the .204 Ruger has less wind drift with the 32 gr. V-Max bullet than the .223 does with the 55 gr. V-Max bullet. This time the lower wind drift numbers are probably more a factor of the 955 fps faster start that the .204 Ruger has over the .223 caliber. However, once both bullets get out to 950 yards, the 55 gr. bullet has 0.7" less drift than the 32 gr. .204 bullet I don't think I'll be shooting at too many things with either caliber at anything much past 350 to 400 yards though

What's the BC of the 32 grainer?

Digital Dan, The B.C. of Hornady's 32 grain VMax is .211. GHD

Thanks for that GHD. .7" at 950 yards huh? Not bad, all things considered.