Andrew, be lucky it wasn't me doing that to you...
someone gave me a 204 barrel off a Ruger, a light weight one...I put it on one of my Rugers...
Being Mr Practical, I took it off the action, and ordered a 20 Practical Barrel in a heavy magnum contour, 22 inches long...
Since I had plenty of 223 brass, all I had to pick up was a 20 caliber neck sizer from Hornady, the rest of my 223 dies work just fine on it..
its not really that far behind the 204... in fact, all I have to do is go up two clicks on the scope adjustment and could zero it for the same point of impact, at 150, 200 , 250 and 300 yds....
My favorite bullet on that, is the small one... the 24 grain NTX from Hornady.. you can run it at about 4400 fps +....
it hangs a job on sage rats, prairie dogs, and also did the same on a couple of badgers and rock chucks...
