My young bloke just put a deposit on a tikka in 204,he wants to use it for sniping rabbits and foxes etc.I dont know much about them so any info would be appreciated,he is using his 300 win at the moment (a lot of fun he says)but a bit noisy for the neighbours (and me)plus its my powder he is using.

I have one in a Ruger #1. Excellent round, should work nicely for him. There's a lot of info at this link:

http://www.204ruger.com/

Don't know if you have the same components we have in the States but if I were starting from scratch with a .204 I'd start with the following: Winchester cases, Reloader 10X powder, Sierra 39 grain BlitzKing bullets and Remington 7 1/2BR primers. Very accurate combo in not only my rifle but several others I know of.
My experience with 2 different Tikka's is that they shoot extremely well and I'd be very surprised were it not to shoot accurately.
One guarantee I can give you is that to a certainty I know it'll hurt both his shoulder and your powder supply significantly less than a .300 Win.
Hope he doesn't plan to keep the fur on the foxes as it will do considerable damage to small, light skinned animals like fox and hare. It is however a very effective killer.

quote:

for sniping rabbits and foxes etc.

the .204 does this quite nicely.....I built one before the official .204 Ruger came out.....wow a great round!

However it's not much different than a 40 grain loading in the .223 and the .223 can be loaded to be a reasonable round for smaller big game where the .204 maybe not quite as good for that purpose.....but again.....a great fox and varmint to 50 pounds gun!

Thank you for the info,it is much appreciated .He has informed me that he has got dies and brass for it already he wants to use 40 grn projectiles so i told him to start buying his own powder for it lol ( and for his others to.)I have some pics somewhere of some foxes he head shot a year or 2 back using his 375H&H.(Strange that kid loves recoil)when i figure out how to i will post them.

He will appreciate the difference between shooting a .375 H&H and a .204!

The .204 Ruger has the trajectory of a .220 Swift and the barrel life a .223 Remington. The best of all worlds!

If the Tikka has a 1-12 twist then there might be an issue with the 40 grainers. I'm on my 3rd 204. The first one shot the Hornady 40's horribly and my second one shot them so-so. I don't know what my present gun will do with them because I don't use them anymore. Some guns will shoot them excellently while others won't