Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles .204 upper.........help

I want to get 24" 204 upper. There're some for sale online in 5-800 range but wanted to get some other opinions. I've never put an upper together but not outta my realm of skill I'm sure. How would some of you do this?

What I did was buy a fast twist .204 Ruger Shilen barrel and bolt assembly. Brownell's and Midway have been selling these with occasional bargains. I watched for a while and bought at a low point. The combo avoids head space issues. I've seen lots of shorter barrels in many different cartridges but few full length rifle barrels in .204 Ruger.

Then I bought a Franken Colt .223 so called target rifle - all Colt but looks like Colt was dealing with their money problems by putting one together from whatever was around - as a donor rifle and before I had that one torn down CDNN started clearancing Colt made builder kits so I bought one of those and will keep the franken rifle intact. Important to go with flat top float tube and know pin size and buffer. Be silly to start with one of the currently popular retro Vietnam war configurations. Was happy to get a more or less complete parts kit. For an accuracy rig I want more than an upper. For a plinking/range toy I might go with just an upper but that doesn't appeal to me nearly so much as a dedicated complete rig.

If you want a 24" barreled gun, just get a bolt gun.................sorta defeats the attraction of the AR platform to build a 24" version, IMO, YMMV.

MM

Yup....I built a .204 using an 18" Wilson Combat barrel. Stainless, match grade, 1:12.....shoots like a laser beam! Other than a little more velocity, I can't imagine hanging another 6" on the end of that and making it any better.

IF as the OP wrote, folks want a 24" barrel in .204 Ruger for an AR then there are few choices compared to widely available shorter barrels in all price ranges.

I particularly wanted a fast twist combined with accuracy and velocity - a 21st century replacement for the .220 Swift. In carbines I have a couple 5.56 and a good .223 chamber with float tube on a flat side AR so I felt a short barreled .204 didn't do enough different to be worth the effort.

(I have a 26" Hart barreled Swift on a worked over Remington 700 with the traditional 1/14 twist and so can't shoot high ballistic coefficient bullets. Even when a longer plastic nosed boat tailed bullet is more or less stabilized by max speed on a hot day at elevation the ballistic coefficient is so degraded by marginal stability that all I'm doing is wasting money on the fancy bullet with a degraded ballistic coefficient - the appeal of the Swift has been not having to laser the range for drop calculations and so to take a shot while my social companions were still looking at their rangefinder/Kestrel/smartphone but they can outrange me with the bullet limiting my effective range)

By buying an expensive barrel/bolt set I can put one together relatively cheaply overall cost, rebarrel relatively easily when I choose, spot my shots and keep cheek weld and repeat with the semi-auto action. Fun in a social setting. Both Brownell's and Midway sell this barrel at about the same price. User reports and reviews are all very enthusiastic as I am. I'd encourage anybody with any interest in the combination to read the reviews. More at Midway than at Brownell's but all highly enthusiastic. The upper is just too long to fit the ultrasonic cleaner I can use for M4geries and such so once again there is no Utopia. I did buy mine at a discount from posted prices.

Howa actions and rifles in .204 have been available at attractive prices as have others. I've been tempted. As it is I have a premium barrel and the ability to fiddle with my stock equivalent to buying a space gun/precision rifle stock and bolt gun barreled action for what turns out to be rather less money and a fine fine barrel and accuracy.

That's what I was lookin for, your opinions. Had no idea the 24" would have a an accuracy issue and I'm not against a 20" but I wanna stay with the AR platform. I'm finding that an upper in 20 is even harder to find

My experience with the .204 is mostly with the 40 grain rounds and the drop in speed from 24" to 20" was barely noticeable with the Hornady vmax ammo. And I actually found the groups to be slightly smaller. If you want an AR in .204, I wouldn't go longer than 20". If you want to hand load and insist on squeezing out that little extra speed, as others have said, go with a bolt. But even then, I saw no real gain over 24". If you have a high quality barrel, I found a custom twist of 1:11 works great. But 1:10 would safely stabilize the 40 grain rounds in nearly any barrel imo. I have a bolt action rifle with a custom 22" barrel with 1:11 twist and it shoots 1/4" groups all day with factory 40 grain ammo.

Take care,
Rob