Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters educate me on the .204 Ruger....

Reason numba one.....

Kinda looks like when I mix the cranberry sauce with the stuffin' on Thanksgiving.........grin

My 204 is a tad different. It was a 1-500 run and maybe the first Model 7s in 204(?).

It wears a Leupy Mark 4 PR 3-9x40 now. Complete with fluted bolt and Gre-Tan firing pin unit.......

Not with Sierra's recoil formula. Using it, the .223 shows up to 10% more recoil, whether with 40's at 3800 or 50's at 3400, as opposed to the .204 with 40's at 3700 and 32's at 4000. The difference varies slightly with which bullet was used, but no matter the loads the results show more recoil from the .223.

But that just indicates there are flaws in every recoil formula. As mentioned in my previous post, I have measured how much various rifles actually move during recoil, using a couple of different methods, and find those results usually vary somewhat from formulas as well.

Because of the subjectivity of recoil, due to varying humans bodies and rifle stocks, I also tend to believe what other people see and feel. In fact listening to other people, and observing them when shooting, also happens to be what I consider part of a gun writer's job, rather than stating only his personal experiences.

As an example, most Campfires posts are examples of one person's experiences, whether they firmly state which load shoots best in their rifle, which cartridge works best on deer, or their experiences with the .204 and .223. You post here not only related your personal experiences, but the results with one recoil formula as the ultimate "science" on the subject, even though the .223 load you chose was an underload, by the standards of any loading manual. And that, again, is a classic example of one person's experience.

Which is why the results from the previous thread on this subject hold more validity to me than the opinions of one person, whether me or you or anybody else. And in that thread 2/3 of the shooters said they could normally see bullet impacts through .204's, but not .223's.

I no longer have the Sierra program to run the recoil, would you please copy and post the calculations here. I am only interested in the 40's at max velocity, not 32's or 50's since I am would like to see the comparison on an equal footing.
Since you did not supply any real data I am skeptical.

You are choosing to misuse the fact that the original posted data was obtained with the average of all velocities listed for the 204 and 223 with 40's as a fairer way to compare rather than cherry-pick a single load.
In the second post when I compared the highest velocities of both cartridges the 204 still showed slightly more recoil.

As far as being biased - again I will point out that it is human nature to be predisposed to obtaining the results expects rather than being unbiased in their assessment, which is the reason for using a recoil program. Even your bias towards the 204 shows through in your postings concerning it.

Personally I could care less whether someone uses a 204 or a 223, my only gripe is the constant mantra of the 204 recoiling less. Yes, this is my personal experience which is what we all lean on, but I cannot tell any difference between them. I have enough acquaintances who have shot them both report the same results as I have had. That has more validity with me than someone with unknown experience posting on the internet.

drover

That is bad medicine, but I hate to disappoint all the 204 guys with what a Swift can do better...

yeah, with half again more powder....

I admit to a bias toward the .204, both because of the ballistics and because in my experience it does recoil less than the .223. I noticed that immediately on shooting my first one, and it has continued through the next three rifles.

Sierra recoil program results:

.204 Ruger--
40-grain bullet at 3700 fps
28 grains of powder
8.5 pound rifle:
4.0 foot-pounds

.223 Remington--
40-grain bullet at 3800 fps
28 grains of powder
8.5 pound rifle:
4.3 foot-pounds

Thank you for posting the Sierra recoil data although I am still skeptical.

It would have been a fairer comparison if you would have computed it using average velocity and powder charges from a published or posted load manual such as I did in my original post. And also a comparison with the max charges such as I did rather than choose to use the same powder charge for both cartridges which skews the results somewhat and makes them less relevant.

Just to clarify a bit - I was employed in the aerospace industry for 43 years and learned early on that unless comparisons are made to like items then the results are pretty much useless and misleading. GIGO - garbage in, garbage out.

drover

drover,

I would argue that using data from ONE manual is far more skewed than using an average of data from several sources, which is what I did. But let�s try some other numbers of the sort you suggest.

Loading data is complicated by the fact that the SAAMI maximum average pressure for the .204 is 57,500 PSI, and for the .223 55,000 PSI, which is no doubt why the SAAMI �suggestion� for muzzle velocity for 40-grain bullets from both cartridges is almost identical, 3775 for the .204 and 3770 for the .223. But I couldn�t find any presently listed factory loads that adhere to those numbers.

I did find two 40-grain .204 factory loads listed at 3900 fps, but have tested both in the 24� barrels (the SAAMI standard) in my own rifles and came up with an average of 3727 fps. The other two 40-grain factory .204 loads I could find are listed at 3625 and 3650 fps, for an average of 3737.5. The only two .223 factory loads I could find are both listed at 3700 fps.

There still isn�t a vast amount of .204 handloading data, especially when compared to the .223, and some I rejected for comparison purposes because the .223 pressures were CUP and the .204 PSI. Also, a few companies still pressure-test in one barrel then chronograph velocities in a commercial rifle, on the theory that this results in a �representative� velocity. I only compared pressure data derived by the same method in both rounds, with velocities from the same barrel as the pressure data.

The reason I used the same powder charge weight when calculating recoil with the Sierra formula is that in my own .204�s and .223�s I�ve used charges of around 28 for 40�s. In my .204�s I use 27.0 grains of Ramshot TAC (their maximum listed charge), partly because TAC is one of the faster powders in the .204. In three different rifles with 24� barrels, and with three different 40-grain bullets, this charge produced an average of 3752 fps.

In the .223 I used both 28.0 grains of TAC and 27.0 Benchmark with 40�s. Both are the maximum listed or very close to it. In this instance neither of the .223�s used had a 24� barrel. Instead one had a 26� and the other 22�, so I adjusted the velocities by adding or subtracting 25 fps for each inch of barrel length. They averaged 3809 fps.

I used the same barrel-length velocity adjustment for published handloading data, because a couple of the .204 rifles used for data have 26� barrels. The average for top velocities with 40-grain bullets in the .204 came out to 3730 fps, and for the .223 3799 fps.

Averaging all of this data result in a 72 fps velocity difference in favor of the .223. This is a little more than the 100 fps difference I used in calculating the recoil numbers, probably due to the small difference in SAAMI pressure between the rounds. (The formulas used were a couple I came up with empirically from loading data, but afterward they were confirmed as valid by the late Don Miller, the same guy who came up with the Miller bullet-stability formula, now pretty much considered the industry standard.)

On the other hand, the powder charge I used could reasonably be dropped a grain in the .204. Using a velocity of 3728 fps and a powder charge of 27 grains in the fps for the .204, Sierra�s recoil program resulted in 3.9 foot-pounds or recoil, a .1 reduction from the first number quoted.

My understanding was that all things equal, pressure against the base of a smaller diameter bullet will result in less felt recoil than it's larger counterpart...

So John, in conclusion, are you saying that said .3 lbs or 4.8 oz. makes a difference in seeing or not seeing hits?

Plus, we have to keep in mind that this is not felt or perceived recoil. In which many other factors come into play.

Again, I've not crunched numbers, nor do I care to. Or to dispute yours.

I can only speak from experience and I just don't notice much if any difference in recoil or in seeing hits. The recoil energy is so close that , as stated earlier, I think other factors have a greater effect. JMO.....

Dunno about that. Do know that higher velocity is possible at the same pressure in a larger bore with the same weight bullet, which why the .223 can push 40's faster than the .204, despite having slightly less powder capacity.

Are you actually reading all this gack?

2muchgun,

I've already stated before that the difference in recoil is slight, but appears to be there. Rather than discussing, say .3 foot-pound of recoil, it might be more useful to look at a 10% difference in recoil--which is what Sierra's program calculates is the average difference between the .204 and .223 with 40's.

And with 32's the .204 recoils even less. I mostly shoot 32's in milder winds because they shoots just as flat to 500+ yards but recoil slightly less.

This is why I never could figure out why some people claim there's no difference in the recoil between the rounds. The major factors in cartridge recoil are powder weight, bullet weight and muzzle velocity. Since the powder charges are so similar, the .204 would have to kick a little less, because it generates less velocity with the same bullet weights, and mostly uses lighter bullets. So if a program claims the .204 kicks more, then there's something screwy somewhere. (And it was, in drover's example, because the velocity he used was much slower than the .223 is capable of with 40-grain bullets.)

Whether this makes any difference in an individual shooter's ability to see hits is another question, because that would depend on how firmly they hold a rifle, stock shape, and the field of view of the scope. I normally use somewhat less magnification than many prairie dog shooters for typical shooting ranges, usually around 10x out to around 300-350 yards, and maybe 15x at 400-500.

I'll also state, once again, that in this discussion, average results are more important than individual results. And in the previous thread twice as many people said they could see hits better with .204's as those who said they couldn't. More "samples" (meaning more shooters) tends to average out differences in shooting style, stock shape and scope field-of-view.

All I'm saying is that the .204 has to recoil slightly less than the .223, even when using 40-grain bullets in both rifles, and that slight difference appears to allow a majority of shooters to spot their shots more easily with a .204 than a .223.

Are you kidding? He slipped the swift into the mix, and now he's just waiting for a chance to plug the 222maggy.....

He always does!

I've got identical rifles in .223 and .204, and recoil is a fuzz less in the .204, but I use 32s in it, and 50s in the .223, although I don't hotrod the 50s much (3380fps or thereabouts). My .204 loads run just under 4100fps, so they're not maxxed out, but getting close.

Granting there's not much difference, but it sure is fun to see a rat lift off the ground with those little 32s. Then again, I also used a .22/250 with identical stocks and scopes, and I COULD see the hits with it, too.
I shoot them all off a bipod with a bag at the buttstock. And I hang onto it, like it kicked or something.

That'll work too!

In fact I have been able to see hits through the scope with at least a couple 6.5 Creedmoors, as long as the hits were at 600+ yards and the scope wasn't set on too high a magnification....

Long live the CB & BD combo.



Travis