Second Custom Rifle
Load Testing
Marlin Action
Green Mountain Barrel
Caliber 204 Ruger

Monday March 27th, 2017

Yesterday I did some load testing. Basically putting some miles on the new rifle. The load I was using was one that I settled on last year for a Howa 204 Ruger Lightweight. That gun has a super thin barrel that is 20 inches long. I took it on the prairie dog trip last year but my brother said it was way too loud being that we were sitting in close proximity on the ladder rack. So I stopped shooting it and had ammo left over.

Coincidently the chamber on the Howa is very tight as is the new rifle so it's a good fit. The initial shooting of the new rifle using this ammo showed good results. The box contained 80 rounds with 32gr Zombie max Hornady bullets and the balance were Vmax 32gr Hornady bullets. For what ever reason, the Vmax bullets were a little shy of the lands and seemed to perform better on the initial shooting. While the Zmax bullets were touching the lands.

In prepairing to shoot yesterday, I increased the bullet depth on the Zmax bullets. 5 were set to 2 k off lands and 5 were set to 5 k off lands. Couldn't see much difference on the target.

There were 3 Vmax rounds remaining in the box so I shot them also. At first glance the Vmax bullets appear to shoot better but I'm not convinced. I was playing with the focus, power and reticle adjustment after shooting the 10 adjusted depth rounds.

Not bored with shooting yet, I burned up more of the Zmax rounds that were original and touching the lands. The rifle seemed to be shooting better the more I shot. So I tweaked the scope a little more and the cluster (in yellow) had me pretty pleased with my rifle.

One reason that I want to make certain the Zmax bullets are going to shoot well for me is that I have one new box of 500 of them left. They were much cheaper than Vmax and seem to work well enough for prairie dogs.

Back at my cleaning bench in the basement, I wasn't sure what to expect of the barrel. I had fired a total of 20 rounds without cleaning which is not the way I normally do things with a new barrel. I usually fire 10 rounds and clean for 30 or 40 rounds.

I ran a couple of wet patches of Butches bore cleaner through the barrel and then brushed with a nylon brush. Got lots of black on the following patches but no sign of copper. I ran some more soaked patches and brushed again. Still nothing but black on the patches.

Content that there was no copper, I finished up with oil and set the gun in the rack.

I also shot my 17 Hornet yesterday but that's a whole different story.

Bill

Last Modified: Thursday, March 30, 2017 11:26 AM