Jim62:
I'm pretty good at making rifles submit to my will. The particular rifle (a raffle win, not an actual deliberate buy) here has been properly bedded, the trigger is slicked to sneeze, the rings are lapped, on the second barrel I lapped the lugs before I sent the works to Greg.
The bottom line is the chamber on both barrels was cut WAY too fat, I cerrosafed each three times. Ruger would not trade me an unchambered pipe, either.
So, I had Greg shorten the throat and shrink the neck to .233, but wanted to keep the rollmarks. That meant he couldn't destroy the old chamber. So he didn't. We both thought "the plan" would work although he was concerned about the fat base. My mistake.
With fireformed brass, this gun will shoot 32 BKs and 39s reasonably well, leaker groups with cloverleafs and a flyer. So, when you are spotting your shots, and your shot was a leaker, darn, you miss again, and was THAT a leaker or was it the first one? The leaker is almost always a case that formed a bit off. If I gage every case, and shoot a special group with those perfect cases...THEN it will shoot. Like .3 to .5, nice and round.
With VIRGIN brass, accuracy is terrible, well north of an inch, with a cluster (straight brass) and flyers (banana brass). Completely random, and enraging. The cull rate is 35 to 50 percent depending on maker.
Factory accuracy was shotgun-class, so bad, I pulled the unfired stuff -- this was before I had any bag brass to play with, there was none to be had because of the hype and the fad.
Never mind that before I had Tannel do his expensive evil, the only thing that would shoot under about 1.5 inches were 39BKs, the only bullet that could be loaded to the throat, which in turn is way the heck and gone in the boonies -- that's the SAAMI spec, I got the drawings. I have never liked Weatherbys very much for that same reason.
As warm as the 204 is, I woulda thunk the fresh from scratch design would have a nice short throat that you could burn through for a nice long accurate life. I would also expect that such a dinky caliber doesn't lend itself well to stacked tolerances.
As things are, I have a line on another reamer and plan on one more set-back try for this barrel, with a short throat, little no-turn neck, and small base. If that fails, then I will probably turn it into a 20 Tactical.
Sorry to hijack, RD, but I'm thin-skinned and prone to leap to my own vainglorious defense. Good luck with your great wildcat adventure.
