Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Lack of Recoil

Since the .204 came out I've been reading these posts about "how they can see the hit" because of the low recoil. If you take the same weight of gun and scope and shoot the same weight of bullet with the same amount of powder, in any caliber, would not the results be the same as to recoil? I would think that the "hit" will be seen in all and that the power of the scope would be the deciding factor. A 12 power scope will not have the same field of view as a 6 power of course. It would seem to me that you could see things better with the 6 concerning the "air time". Am I all wet on this?

Dew, we have vias muzzle breaks on all our varmint rifles, they kick like a 17 Remington. With no recoil it is easy to use a 6-24x and a 8-32x. It is real nice to see your exact same hit so you know how much the wind is blowing your bullet and bullet drop.

The real bonus is to see the impact on the p. dog, rock chuck, or crow.

Dew, we might get flamed, but I for one agree with you. I too have read this many times. I have a pard who has two of the 204's in heavy weight Savage varmint guns. One is the old wood stock and the new one is the even heavier barrel and synthetic stock. Yes, you can see some of the hits, but it is for sure you can't simply watch them all. I don't see it being any better than my 223 vamrint guns.

I also agree with Keith. When I rebarrel mine, they will have brakes on them for the reasons he stated.

I always see the hit with my .223 never shot a .204 but I don't envision that much greater recoil.

Dew,

You are correct in your thinking. All you need to do to verify this is to go to the JBM ballistics recoil table and enter the bullet weight, powder charge weight, velocity and rifle weight and compute the recoil. There are many folks out there who truly want to believe that there are some cartridges with special qualities that enable them to have less recoil. Physics does not lie - no matter how much some folks want to believe that their cartridge has some special attribute.

Given identical guns using identical charges of powder and driving the same weight bullet any difference is negligable. In varmint calibers there may be a small difference in felt recoil due to stock design.

I owned two identical Cooper varminters, one in 204 and one in 223, both were fitted with 6.5x20x40 Leupolds which I usually shoot on 12 or 14 power for varminting. Depending on the powder used both cases hold virtually the same amount of powder, in the 204 I used 32, 35 and 39 gr bullets, in the 223 I used 40 gr bullets. If there was a difference in recoil it was not perceivable to me, nor could I tell a difference in the number of hits I could see.

As far as seeomg more hits with the 6 power vs. the 12 power I would think that the answer would be yes, but with the caveat that it will also be somewhat dependant on scope and lens quality. Then there is also the issue that you will not see the hits quite as dramatically with the 6 as with the 12.

There are many varmint calibers that will allow you to see your hits among them are the 17 Rem, 222 Rem, 223 Rem, 22/250 and a host of others that I have neglected to mention. Seeing your hits is not a special attribute of the 204, rather the 204 on its introduction was hyped as "able to see your hits" and "less recoil" and to this day it is still being touted that way. Why? - because gun writers have to have something to write about and if they don't they are unemployed. Another reason - lots of folks bought them because of the hype and now they have to spout the same hype or admit they were taken in by it.

drover

I run a tipple deuce in an old Remington BDL Varmint rifle with a B&L 6 x 24 scope. I see every bullet impact. I can also shoot it without worry of excessive barrel heat.

I thought I was right. I've only been shooting about 60 years now.
Have a .17 Remington sporter and .222 sporter and a .223 sporter and a 22-250 sporter. I just bought a .204 sporter Ruger Hawkeye but not because of not being able to see the hits but because after many years Ruger has come out with a left handed bolt action. That is what I was/am after.
Won't group well though and has the 6 pound LC6 trigger so I am have those two things worked on. I really have my best shots in the scope on my .218 Bee and .22 Hornet and I almost forgot... the .17 HMR. Now there is a snake rifle deluxe.

HARD to beat the ol 222 with 50gr TNT's. Long live the triple deuce!

First time I ever saw the impact on a ground squirrel was with a .204 Ruger in a 14 pound varmint rifle with a 6-24x scope set on 14x. Really cool shock wave propagates off them from the dust and fur going airborne, just a flash before the red-mist and carcass lift-off. Yes, it's just too ghoulish! Much more fun than hitting them with a .22-250 or .257 A.I. where you sometimes gotta wait for the feathered clean-up crew to know they were nailed.

I see some of my hits with .204, not others. Depends a lot on my shooting position. Could say the same with .22-250. I'm sure I see more with .204, but I saw some with .22-250. Heck, I saw SOME with .25-'06.

The only thing I've ever had that I could see hits essentially all the time, other than rimfires, is the .17 Rem Fireball. (I suppose that's true of .22 hornet, just haven't had one in a long time so I won't make a claim I'm not first-hand sure of.)

Tom

Increase the rifle weight and decrease the X's you are using on your scope. Reduce bullet weight. As simple as that.

I see my hits with a 22-250AI, but the rifle and scope come in at 13 lbs and I use the 36gr Varmint Grenade. I Keep the scope down most of the time to 14 or less, often 8-10 or so. Only use 24X to do load development and for really long shots where it is useful.

I have no problem seeing my hits in a 223, or 22.250...

because I load the 223 to 22 Hornet specs and the 22.250 to 223 specs...

90% of all my varmint shooting takes place under 250 to 300 yds...

so I don't need 4000 fps and I don't need an 8 x 32 scope on 32 power...

This is comparing apples to oranges to pineapples to watermelons. Powder Charge weight, projectile weight, rifle weight, and muzzle velocity are the variables used to figure recoil, change any of the the four either up or down, and the amount of recoil will change up or down with it. To compare a 204 with a 22.250 is no contest, unless of course you can get a 204 to shoot 52gr pills at 3700fps using 38 grs of powder out of a 10 lb rifle, which you cant, but if you could, the recoil would be exactly the same.

Swifty

A little judicious reloading (in the downward direction) quite easily lets any 22 centerfire duplicate the 204.

You can see hits with a .223. I could see rockchuck hits with a sporter 22-250. But seeing hits is one thing, seeing hits with the scope cranked up to 24x or 32x is something else. That's why you put a muzzle brake on varmint guns. All my varmint guns that are shot off bags have one. A #7 barrelled 223 works fine as is. Mine is braked and the thing just barely quivers, muzzle rise is about like a 22lr. That's all there is to it......at a couple hundred yds. don't even worry about scope power, crank it way up and see the whole show. It makes shooting a lot more fun.

One thing that some guys never think of is to have a muzzle break set up for say a 25 caliber, and interchange the muzzle break from everything from 25 caliber to 22 caliber.

I have been using muzzle breaks like this for 20+ years. Some gunsmiths will try and tell you that they won't work if the hole is too big...trust me...they do work. You may loose 6% of the efficiency, but your shoulder will never be able to tell it. I have 7 different kinds of muzzle breaks. Some of them have a 30 caliber exit hole and they still turn a 223 into a pellet rifle's recoil.

As barrel diameters vary, you will have a step in the muzzle break and barrel.