feedemdirt12-- There are WAAAAY more than just two bullets available for the .204 Ruger. Besides the Hornady 32 gr. and 40 gr. V-Max you have Remington coming out with factory loads in their Premier� AccuTip� with both the 32 gr. and 40 gr. bullets. They don't list the bullets in their reloading section, but I'm pretty sure they will be available soon.

Then you have Berger bullets. They make the 30 gr., 35, gr., 40 gr. and 50 gr. .204 caliber bullets. Unmussig makes several different weight .204 bullets, someone just recently bought the .204 caliber bullet dies from Lucas, so they should be making bullets available pretty soon, and I have heard that Certech also makes the .204 caliber bullets.

I have tested the 32 and 40 gr. V-Max, and the 35 gr. FB HP Berger, and the 40 gr. Berger LTB HP. I have worked up loads for the 32 gr. V-Max, the 35 gr. Berger FB HP, and the 40 gr. LTB HP Bergers and those loads give me itty bitty groups out of my Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger. I'm still working on getting the 40 gr. V-Max bullets to shoot consistently under .600", but haven't found the magic load.

I have found that H4895 works great for me with the 32 gr. V-Max, the 35 gr. Berger, and the 40 gr. Berger LTB. I also had some promising results using Benchmark and the 40 gr. Berger LTB. More testing is in order. This time I will use Fastexed bullets instead of bare ones. Three shot groups with these three bullets and the powders listed are in the .3s and .4s, except for the Benchmark load with the 40 gr. Berger LTBs--that 5-shot group measured .654".

Silverfox,
I have been trying to get those 40gr. Vmaxs' to shoot consistently for about 3 months now and can't do it. I have tried Benchmark and H4895. I got the Berger 40gr. LTBs' to shoot consistently with H4895, but I'm about to give up on the 40gr Vmax. The 40gr. Bergers shoot 3 and 4s, so I don't know why I even bother with the Vmax, I guess it's the challenge.slygunner

Gents,

I do not yet own a .204,but find them very interesting.I keep hearing from some shooters that the 40g Vmax .20cal bullets won't shoot as well as the 34g and even conventional HP nosed 40g bullets(Bergers).

Methinks the factory twist for the .204 Rugers maybe on the ragged edge to stabilize the 40g bullets??

What is the factory twist rate in these .204 barrels?

Also has anyone shot their 40g and 32g loads out to 300-500yards??It could VERY well be that the group sizes for the heavier bullets could actually be as tight or TIGHTER at longer ranges than the shorter bullets due to the fact that at 100yards, the longer bullets may not yet be as stabil as the shorter slugs,thus printing larger groups at 100 yards than the 32 grainers...

I have seen this same thing in many rifles when shooting long,higher B.C. bullets...

sharpsman, The twist in the factory rifles is 1:12. You may be on the right track as far as stabilizing the 40's. HOWEVER!!! The 40's performed so poorly(factory and multiple loads using 5 different powders) in my SAVAGE VLP .204 that I traded the remaining 40's I had for more 32's!!! I agree with your thinking about stabilizing at longer range as I have seen rifles that were decent(not ready for the matches yet)(I've got a 6mmVLS that fits this category right now!!!) at 100 yards but were just as good at 300! I haven't shot my .204 to 500 yet but I can dial in the scope at 400 and proceed to blow those Miller Lite plastic 16 oz bottles apart with alarming regularity!! They're about the size of a prarie dog too!!! Maybe smaller!!! That's using a 32 at 4279fps! Now if I've just got to shoot a 40 grain projectile, I'll just use the 222MAG and the 40 grain BlitzKings at 3756fps.....either one will do the trick!!! GHD