I have a .204 that will shoot even better--and it's "built" on a bone-stock (not even blueprinted) 700 action, with a Tupperware Remington factory stock, and a Remington factory barrel that somebody took off an action they wanted to turn into a custom rifle.
I unscrewed the original barrel from the rifle (which I'd fried shooting at rodents), then screwed on the "take-off." The headspace checked out OK so I shot it with the same load that shot well in the fried barrel.
I also have a bone-stock Ruger American .308 that will put 10 into less than 1-1/2"--with factory ammo. (Three-shot groups with the same ammo go under 1/2".) Have other factory rifles that will do similar things. The truth is that today benchrest accuracy is cheaply obtained--but none of this proves anything one way or another about what level of accuracy is required for shooting big game at conventional ranges.
Personally, I've center-punched the lungs of a bull caribou at 350 yards with a pre-'64 .270 Winchester that wouldn't average much better than 2" at 100 yards--because the sights were the factory bead and a Lyman 48 aperture. It was relatively easy, since I'd shot the rifle considerably, and the lungs of a bull caribou are pretty large. Which is one of the points of my first post on this thread.
I was just trying to point out that there are lots of good rifles out there and other than sentimental value there is no real reason to [bleep] with something that doesn't shoot well.
And I do not believe the .204 has been accepted by the AKC so that dog doesn't count as an entry. There is a competition being held in the Predator/Varmint forum if you would like to see a fair and unbiased evaluation of centerfire varmint rifles.
