Went to the range today to sight-in my brand new .204 Encore and the thing was Key-Holeing every shot.

It is a 26" heavy barrel and I was shooting Hornady 40 grain V-Max factory stuff.

Any ideas???

I plan to call TC tomorrow AM and ask them, "What's up!"

Thanks!

Mark

Generally, keyholing bullets out of proper twist barrels are either a bad crown or the blunderbuss effect. Tight bore near the chamber and looser near the muzzle.

Other than that I dunno.

Josh

The 204 was designed with the 32gr bullet in mind and has a 1-12" twist.

A 35gr bullet will still work well enough.
But a 40gr bullet is just on the edge of under stability.

Thanks for the input!

I am going to try the 32's and see what I get.

Mark

Depending on what velocity you get with the 40gr you may try to the 40gr to max velocity.

Higher speed will improve the stability.

I've not had good luck with the 40 gr bullets either. What I found is they will work if you load them up with a max charge, but the gun is just too darn unpleasantly noisy when you do that.

So I stay with the 32 gr Vmax's too.

What I haven't tried is berger makes a flat base 35 gr bullet, I'll order a box of those next time I need to stock up on components and see how they work.