John the 204 is a great gun and you will love it! I too almost bought a .17, but was hearing to much about wind drift and it does not do much past 200 yards. I was wanting a flat shooting medium range gun. The .204 is a half inch high at 100, zero at 200, only 3 to 4 inches low at 300 and 13 inches low at 400!, that is all easy ground hog guessing to me! I first bought a H&R to decide if centerfire was something I wanted to try and after liking it, but not getting any more consistent then .75 MOA @100 somehow became addicting, which Don did warn me about. So I bought a savage 12 and have been having a blast. Mine has never had factory ammo down it, only reloads. So far it is liking 39 grain SBK's and 30 grain Berger's. Here is a few pics of the addiction Don warned me about. Both of these are three shot groups at 100 yards.