.204 Ruger....Let's start a discussion!

[Warg]

Maybe if you and some friends set up outside of a prairie dog town measured in acres there would be a compelling case for this .204 AR but otherwise, what's the point?

This is exaclty the case where I hunt:






Prarie dogs are abundant in the high desert of Eastern Idaho and many farmers in the area will grant you free access to their land to hunt. After a day of hunting these little dudes with a bolt gun last summer I had blisters on my fingers. A semi-auto varmint gun would be ideal.

[v3n0m]

The .204 is a very overlooked round where im from. No1 hardly even knows what it is. I bought one a couple of years back as a backup so to speak for my savage 22-250 to bust coyotes with. To be quite honest, I prefer to use the .204 over the 22-250 myself...dont know just quite what it is about it, but man is that hornady v-max mean out of the .204. Anyone who doesnt have one or curious about it, h&r makes a very cheap one thats quite a shooter.

[ALCOAR]

......

[Warg]

F**K me running that is beautiful, seeing landscapes like that makes you want to own rifles

Indeed, the scenery is wonderful! You don't need large objectives to hunt in the morning or evening either due to the abundance of ambient light, but distances can be very deceiving with the wide open expanses. If on foot, the biggest challenges are the elevation and terrain (about 4,500'-12,000').

[John_Burns]

For the AR shooter the handloaded 5.56/.223 is a better choice, even for high volume Prairie Dog shooting.

While interesting the .204 brings some real limitation as a practical varmint hunting round compared to the 5.56/.223.

• The 5.56 NATO pressure handloads with 40gr bullets will run right with the .204 in comparable barrels and the 5.56/.223 has better bullets in the 40 gr weight. The Nosler Ballistic tip is quite a bit better design for coyotes than the VMAX as it has much less of a tendency to explode on the entrance.

• The .204 is more sensitive to keeping the barrel clean and guess what, the cleaning rods you already own for your .223 are too big.

• All of the Chrome Lined 5.56 barrels (1/9 and 1/7) I have ever worked with have given varmint level accuracy with the lighter weight (40s,50s, and 55gr Nosler BTs) bullets. I don’t even think you have an option for a Chrome barrel in .204. You can really get a barrel hot in a good Prairie Dog town in the middle of Aug.

• Everything is more expensive in the .204. Barrels, ammo, maintenance items like cleaning rods, brass is way more expensive and you will be losing a lot of it hunting.

None of this will be a huge problem, but unless you just want to have a .204, I think the good ol 5.56/.223 will actually work better for varmint hunting with the AR.

I have never used the .204 in the AR so keep that in mind, but I have used it in bolt guns and was involved in the Article in Guns and Ammo that the OP references.

I would also wonder about AR reliability with the .204. The .204 case has the shoulder moved forward with less body taper and this would seem to cause issues in magazines. Anybody know what types of mags are dead reliable in feeding the .204?

The issue of the gas system might be another area of concern. Port size and location combined with springs and buffers. Everything might be all worked out but I don’t know and would not be inclined to spend money unless I was sure the gun would actually run.

[kartoffel]

There are a truly mind boggling number of varmint rounds out there. If one were building an AR-15 based varminter and had to have something different than 5.56, then .204 Ruger is absolutely a good choice.

If on the other hand one were shopping with a bolt gun in mind, there would be a lot more to pick from.

[Warg]

John_Burns & kartoffel-

Thank you for the information. As I typically shoot non-varmint 55+ ammo in .223/5.56 I've paid little attention to the lighter varmint rounds that are readily available. I guess I was so enamoured with the .204 bolt rifles and their effects on prarie dog's that I never even considered .223.

Since I currently do not have the time to handload, I'm pretty sure I could make do with the following mass produced ammo:

Hornady 40gr - 55gr VMAX
Hornady 35gr NTX (4,000 FPS using a 24" BBL!)
Federal V-Shock Nosler Ballistic Tip in 40 and 55 gr

[Ring]

204 beats the wind better the 223, even well past 500y, the big problem i see is a lack of penetration... im talking 2 to 4" at a distance... think 17hmr...

[usmc1371]

I did a longish write up on the LBC .204 super varmint over in the precision simi area but I will recap a few points I have picked up shooting this gun since 2005.
To date I have well over 1k rounds through my Les Baer and it will still shoot 5 shots into a ragged hole. To be honest its probably alot closer to 2K than 1K.
.204 in my experince is a better varmint round than .223, I have a sako .223 that is a tack driver and it hasn't seen more than a hand full of rounds since I got the .204. I like that I can spot my own hits with the .204. I have never had a problem finding ammo and now it seems to be in every shop I stop in.
The down side. The .204 does not put down coyotes at ranges past 400 yds like the 22-250, it lacks the energy. I have not seen that the .204 bucks wind better than the 22-250, but I think its better in the wind than my .223.
AR .204 is unbeatable when you are in an area with lots of targets spread out over a wide range. The ability to shoot a sage rat, spot your hit, move on the the next one with out ever taking your eye away form the scope is out standing. The down side to MY AR .204 is the dam thing weighs a ton. I am sure its over 11 pounds with the scope and feels like 20. I don't think you need a barrel the size of a high lift jack handle to take advantage of the .204. The retard heavy tube on my Les Baer does not seem to be efected by heat in "normal" varmint shooting situations but I think it could weigh about 5 pounds less and be fine.

[usmc1371]

gfelber, the land scape you shoot in looks almost exactly like where I shoot rats and coyotes in Burns OR. Nothing like some high desert varminting.

The 17hmr IMHO aint even in the same ball park as the .204 I have shot them side by side and now the .17 belonging to my little bro has been sold and a .204 handi rifle fills its place.

Reliability (sp?) in the AR platform in my experince has been every bit as good or better than the .223/5.56 AR's/M4's/M16's I have shot.

The problem I have had with shots on coyotes beyond 400 is lack of expansion with the 32 grain Vmax, usuly fixed with a mag dump into a wounded and moving coyote. Inside of that range the little pill blows up and hammers dogs proper results.

You can't beat the AR for fallow up shots. I grew up shooting bolt guns and still hunt with them and they aint even close in the second and third shot department.