Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JB: you were right about the .204!

J B does this mean that 17 caliber Noslers are coming soon?

Yeah, that's what I've heard through the gun-writer channels.

Ingwe! How's that wind today?

Ingwe, what and where is the Hi-line?

Does the 204 work good on woodchucks?

I don't have any PD's back here...

The hi-line is basically the plains of NE Montana, above the Missouri River to Canada and E of Great Falls. Generally it follows the highway from Havre, to Malta, to Glasgow to Wolf Point and on to the North Dakota Border.

I might also add that the High-Line is the coldest, windiest place this side of the Arctic Circle .

Yea, the hi line makes the high desert winter at 7,000 feet seem like a Hawaiian August. I don't know how people live in Scobey all year long.

Actually it is the BNSF rail line and/or HWY 2 and stretches from Culbertson to Whitefish. Or at least that's what I always understood. As far as BNSF is concerned the Hi-Line is Minneapolis to Seattle.

Billy,

Per usual, I got curious about wind in Montana, and decided to look it up--partly because people in almost any town east of the divide tend to complain about how windy it is!

Turns out Broadus is just about as windy as Havre. East of the divide the average wind tends to peak sometime in winter or early spring, and be "calmest" in summer. Havre averages about 13 mph at the winter peak, and 10 in summer. Broadus averages 12.5 winter and 10 summer.

Big Timber and Roundup average about the same, and Glendive is up there too, at 12 winter and 10 summer. The windiest part of the state is, of course, the Rocky Mountain Front, with most towns about like Great Falls, 15 winter and 10 summer.

When we moved to Townsend 22 years ago, everybody told us how windy it was. Turns out it's one of the calmer towns east of the divide, 9 winter and 7 summer. Dillon is the same.

The only really calm towns in Montana are west of the divide. Kalispell is 8 and 5, while Missoula (not surprisingly) is the only town I've found so far that's windier in summer (7.5) than winter (5).

Didn't look up any towns in Wyoming yet, but might have to, as it gets pretty breezy there too!

Is barrel quality a big issue here?

One powder that I've found to really do well in three .204's (Savage 12, Remington 700 x2) is IMR 8208 XBR. 32-grain, or 40-grain doesn't seem to matter, I get my tightest repeatable groups, and top end velocity with that powder.

In one of the 700's I've got paper targets saved where the five-shot group is impossible to measure - just looks like a teeny-tiny little egg.

And yeah, it does a number on furry targets.

John,

That is some very neat info! Is this data available on the National Weather Service site?

I got it off www.city-data.com--a very interesting site.

mathman,

Do you mean the barrel has to be top-notch to shoot the 26-grain VG's?

My present .204 is a Remington 700, and while it doesn't shoot the VG's quite as well as some other bullets, it shoots them accurately enough to kill prairie dogs out to 300+ yards.

I was just thinking any little roughness or irregularity could be really tough on a bullet scooting along that fast.

Well, I did treat the bore with Dyna Bore Coat, which probably helps.

Just shot some 20-grain V-Maxes out of an untreated .17 Remington barrel, on a 700 BDL made in 1973, and the average velocity of the top load was 4450 fps. They shot fine.

I'm kicking myself for passing on a 204 a while back.

Those averages cant be right for the Rocky Mtn Front! Im only 50 miles from Great Falls about 20 miles from the Front...

Those are the AVERAGE wind velocities, year in and year out, not the maximums. I've spend considerable time on the Front and know how hard the wind can blow sometimes!

Of course part of the deal is that many people over-estimate wind speeds. Many will estimate 10 mph as 15+, and 25 mph as 30-40.