One of the more successful rifle cartridges
of 2004 has been the new .204 Ruger. I was introduced to
this new little varmint cartridge back in February at the SHOT
Show, and later did a full test of a Ruger
Number One single shot rifle so chambered. The .204
has proven to be a hot little number, with factory Hornady
ammunition exceeding 4000 feet per second with the
thirty-two grain bullet, and exceeding 3800 feet per second
with a forty grain bullet. The .204 is rapidly gaining in
popularity. It offers high velocity, low recoil, and
excellent accuracy, without excessive pressure and
barrel erosion.
In my earlier evaluation of the cartridge, I had no forty
grain factory ammunition available to me, but I did handload
some of the Hornady forty grain V-Max bullets. Since
then, I have received and tested the forty grain factory
load. It offers a better ballistic coefficient than the
thirty-two grain load, but at a lower velocity. There
was very little load data available to me back in March, but
now good pressure tested data is available online at www.hodgdon.com.
As noted in my earlier article on the .204
Ruger, a smaller powder funnel is needed than what is
normally used. I also found the need to acquire smaller
cleaning equipment than what I had on hand. Otis
Technology makes an excellent small bore cleaning kit
that features their flexible rod and smaller brushes. It
comes with everything needed to thoroughly clean a .204
rifle bore, and fits into its own compact carry case for
easy use in the field. It works extremely well for seventeen
and twenty caliber rifles, and I highly recommend it to
anyone with a smaller than twenty-two caliber rifle.
I have recently been testing a new Savage
Low Profile Varminter bolt action rifle chambered for the
.204 Ruger. The Low Profile is a new stock design for
Savage. It has a flat fore end to better shoot from a bench
or improvised rest, and is a bit sleeker than the stock of
the BVSS. While both are made of laminated wood and weigh
about the same, I prefer this new stock design to that of my
.22-250 BVSS.
The Savage Low Profile action is built of
stainless steel, and has a fluted stainless free-floated
heavy profile barrel. The barrel is twenty-six inches long,
and is finished with a recessed target crown. The barrel
measures .820 inch at the muzzle. The Low Profile has
stainless sling swivel studs front and rear. For easier
operation, the safety button is right on top as it should
be, and the bolt handle has an oversized knob for a better
grip.
One of the best features of this rifle is
the excellent trigger. Regular readers of Gunblast already
know that I am in love with Savage’s
AccuTrigger. It is easy to adjust and easy to shoot.
It is also safe. I have other triggers that have been
reworked to a very light trigger pull, but if dropped, they
will go off. The AccuTrigger can be adjusted to a light,
crisp pull for better practical accuracy, but it will not go
off if dropped, and can be adjusted between one and one-half
to six pounds easily with the tool provided. There is no
better trigger in a production bolt action rifle, and helps
to make the Savage the best out-of-the-box production bolt
action varmint rifle on the market.
For testing the new Savage, I mounted a Mueller
8.5 to 25x50mm Eraticator target scope in B-Square
rings using Weaver bases. The Eraticator has a fine
crosshair glass reticle with a one-sixteenth minute
illuminated dot. It also has an adjustable objective lens
and one-eighth minute target turrets for easy windage and
elevation adjustments, and is fitted with an optional
sunshade. The illuminated dot reticle has eleven levels of
intensity for any low-light condition, and the dot appears
black when not illuminated. The quality of this scope is
excellent, especially considering the low price.
Shooting factory Hornady ammunition, the
Savage exhibited exceptional accuracy. The factory
thirty-two grain load chronographed faster from the Savage
than it did from the Ruger, although both guns have
twenty-six inch barrels. The air temperature was higher when
testing the Savage than it was back in March when I tested
the Ruger, and might have been a contributing factor. The
thirty-two grain load averaged 4120 feet per second across
the PACT chronograph, with a low of 4033 and a high
of 4184, which is a pretty wide spread, but it still
exhibited excellent accuracy, grouping three shots into just
three-eighths of an inch at one hundred yards. The forty
grain load clocked in at an average of 3865 feet per second,
and grouped into nine-sixteenths of an inch. Further load
development, working toward a lower velocity spread, should
tighten these groups a bit. All cases extracted easily, and
were not even warm to the touch. The recoil was, as
expected, very mild. Cleaning the bore after shooting in
excess of forty rounds, there was almost no bullet jacket
fouling, and very little powder fouling. This speaks very
well of the efficiency of the cartridge and the smoothness
of the bore.
The new Savage .204 is an accurate,
reliable, and beautiful varmint gun that is easy on the
shoulder and the budget. You can spend a lot more on a
varmint rifle, but it would be hard to beat the Savage
Varminter. The .204 is developing into a fine little
cartridge for small vermin and pests, and I look forward to
further load development in this rifle and others.
Check out the full line of Savage rifles at:
www.savagearms.com
and the excellent Mueller scopes at: www.muelleroptics.com.
Order the Otis cleaning kit at: www.otisgun.com.
