Bmac313

I've been hearing alot about the 204 ruger, anyone know the effective range for it. Good coyote cartridge or not?

ColoradoElk

It is a great round for prairie dogs, not good for yotes.

bigcountry

Well, here is what happened to a hog at 40 yards with 32gr Hornady. It didn't penetrate at all, it exploded. My buddy Mossyoak and I was worried, it would do damage to the old shed, but no penetration, just nasty big ole hole from a 204.

I tried the heavier loaders with bad accuracy. I havn't reloaded for it yet. The 32gr gets 0.7MOA accuracy. 40gr get 2MOA.

I would shoot a yote if I could use a heavier bullet.

DANTHEHUNTER

I dont have one but my brother-in-law has it in a ruger m77 and its a sweet shooter. He haskilled many coyotes with his out to 200 yards.I would rather have my .220 swift or a 22-250 just feel more comfortable with them. It is fun to shoot , no really felt recoil but alot of bang at the other end. I love seeing all the new rounds coming out but if on a gun bugetthere are better choices.

KBacon

We have several people use them for coyotes here in IN. It's the hottest factory round out there if I remember right 4250fps...

chaselton

KBacon is right 4250.fps I looked at one today actually. The ballistics are incredible for this cartridge as well. It looked to me like a necked down 223.

hardcorehunter

I know of guys on another forum that watched a guy shoot a pdog at 700 yds with a .204. They are a great coyote gun too. It is a very accurate round...now if you want something a little better the 22.250 gets my vote.

RedAllison

In 2004 I was sent (by my brothers sporting goods stores) too Cody, WY for a weekend of "playing" by several manufacturers (Kimber, Knight, Bushnell, Remington, Swarovski, Smith & Wesson and Hornady). It was given for the top dealersby a buying group we belonged too. But anyway, if you have ever been too Cody's municipal range center you know it is EXCELLENT. Their rifle section has 100yd increments out too 500yds. BUT after we started drilling the 500yd targets the rangemaster came over and pointed out various targets on the hill behind the range. The targets were mostly small trees but there were also two steel rams placed on the hillside under trees at between 900 and 1000 yds.

At the time the .204 was essentially brand new and ammo was in very short supply (For the 204 Hornady would only give each of usone box each, for anything else it was all we desired.). Kimber and Hornady both had 204s there as well as other guns. Kimber had a heavy barreled varmint gun that had a Swarovski with TDS plex in it. They also had a 22/250 rigged identically sitting right beside it. Some of the dealers were more shotgun and handgun nuts so I talked them into giving me their 204 ammo so I probably had about 3-4 boxes of the stuff. I can't remember the exact windage and elevation holdings we ended up using but I remember that with either of the two small calibers it was ALOT! (lol those little bullets really loose alot of velocity and get blown around easily past 500yds.) I remember the sight picture as having the target at about "7oclock" and that was with a high power 18x and 24X scope!

After two days of playing I reached the conclusion that the 204 has nothing on the 22/250 and obviously there is alot more ammo choices (including some deer rounds like the 55grn Trophy Bonded from Federal Prem) available in the 22/250. I am not saying the 204 is useless, it's a GREAT gun and alot of fun to shoot. But unless you are just a small caliber nut and want alot of rifles (I prefer bigger cals like .25+) the 204 doesn't bring much too the plate that wasn't already there. Alotof its hoopla is because it breaks the 4kfps barrier.(I get that "fix" with my Warbird, but being a4k fps 30 cal it's an ENTIRELY differentsituation! )

They certainly are nail drivers tho,
RA

Vapodog

I think there is a bit of a correlation in range and case size.....just about all the cartridges based on the 222, 223, 222 mag case have about the same range.....that's about 250 yards.

This also seems to be true of the .243, .260, 7-08, .308 rounds.....all have about the same range

Also the 6.5-06, .270, 280, .30-06, 338-06 and 35 Whelen all seem to have similar ranges.

These correlations certainly aren't exact but are surprisingly similar.

What we gain in speed of the smaller calibers we loose in down range energy and the trade offs seem to even much of it out in the end.

There's only so much energy that one can pack in the case.....and that's all we can get out of it.....

In other words the range of the 204 is about the same as the 223 and the 17 Remington.....about 250 yards......maybe a bit more.

ShatoDavis

I have shot/owned both. I love both cartridges. If I was forced to pick one I would choose the 204. I love the little bugger. I don't care what anyone tells you the 250 is nothing more than a varmint cartridge. Under no circumstances would I consider it a deer or antelope rifle.

Any round and I mean any round gets sick after 500 yards. Its a whole other ball game out past 500.

I can tell you that the 204 will kill any coyote you want to shoot out to 400 yds, if you can hit him that far.