204 Ruger AR15 18" Barrel

One day I was over at a friend's house helping him out with some handloads and we got to talking about varmint cartages. He asked if you ever played with a 204 Ruger. I had not, We started talking about the fast little explodes cartages and I was intrigued. So, I started doing my research, and oh was Impressed. Not only could you run it in a bolt gun but in an AR15 platform as well. This was in the 2018 time period; I decided I wanted to build one in an AR15 because the barrel life on these can be quite short if you are running light bullets and letting the barrel get hot. So, I ordered a barrel, and it was as easy as that. All I needed to do was take one of my 5.56 Nato barrels off and put the new 204 Ruger one in and I was off. The first barrel I used was a Shilen Match barrel 24" with a 1-9" twist. I wanted to make sure I could shoot heavy bullets like 40 grain bullets and that was no problem. I saw a great performance out of this barrel, but it was just too long and heavy for getting out there after coyotes. So here we are now in 2023 and I did some research and found a Wilson Combat baller in 204 Ruger 18" with a 1:12" twist for a great deal. I was wondering if it would stabilize the 40-grain bullets but the main bullet, I wanted to shoot in this rifle was the Hornady 32-grain Vmax and the Nosler 32-grain ballistic tips. These have been my favorite varmint bullets for a few years now. With a shorter barrel, I did give up velocity, but I gained mobility and the rifle is lighter and threaded for a break if I choose to put a silencer on it down the road. This has turned out to be a great build for getting after groundhogs and coyotes out to 300 yards.

The 204 Ruger was developed by Hornady and Ruger together and designed from its parent case of .222 Remington Magnum. This made this little 20-caliber bullet a little flat shooter with high velocity. The one down to this bullet is its ability to fight the wind with its low B.C. (Ballistic Coefficient) but it makes up for it with speed. The .222 Remington Magnum provides about 5% more usable case capacity than the most popular member of the family, the 223 Remington. To make the .204 Ruger, the .222 Remington Magnum case was necked down to fit a 20-caliber projectile and its shoulder moved forward and angle increased to 30 degrees. This made the 204 Ruger a success right away in the varmint-hunting world. Ruger-making poplar rifles like the bolt action Model 77 MKII, and the single-shot Ruger No. 1 gave the hunter a good choice to start with. Also, Hornady offers factory ammo offerings like Superformance Varmint Ammunition 32 Grain V-Max makes for a great coyote round. There now are also a lot of factory offerings from Remington, Winchester, Nosler, Fiocchi, and HSM all offering great varmint-quality hunting rounds.

It compares well with the 220 Swift and the ever-so-popular 22-250 Remington. With its being very capable and efficient. The advantage of the .204 Ruger is that it achieves these velocities with less powder, less recoil, and less heat than larger cartridges like the ones above. There are of course the .172 caliber rounds such as the 17 Fireball, 17 Remington, and my favorite the 17 HMR that are great for keeping those ground hogs at bay inside 150-200 yards. But they are all far short of the 204 Ruger with it comes to velocity and cenemic energy and give the hunter more range and ability to hunt larger varmints.

I will probably always be a 22-250 Remington guy for coyotes and game size around that at 300 yards and out but the 204 Ruger fills a gap when you want to go with something a little smaller a little cheaper to shoot a little more efficient and with being able to run it in an AR15 platform for when the barrel is shot out you can just swap barrels which makes the 204 Ruger appealing to me.

Let's talk about the rifle itself. As talked about above I went with a Wilson Combat 18-inch with rifle gas tube length and 1:12 twist, Spikes Tactical bolt carrier group-phosphate with a 5.56 bolt face, Aero Precision Gen 2 Stripped Lower Receiver and upper, Aero Precision MOE Lower Parts Kit, Geissele 2 Stagge (G2S) Trigger set at 4.5 pounds nonadjustable, Spikes Tactical adjustable low pro gas block and rifle length gas tube, Odin Works R2 17.5 inch Handguard, Magpul MOE Rifle Stock, Trybe Defense Ambidextrous charging handle topped off with a one-piece Monstrum scope mount and some awesome glass from Meopta Optika6 4.5-27x50 RD SFP. By far my favorite part of this build must be the glass. The 4.5 zoom on it is clear and easy to find targets but if you need to reach out there on a small little rock chuck or squill just crank that baby up to full zoom and ready to rock. The perlax is nice and easy to adjust but not so easy that if you bump it will move on you, Also with top locking adjust turrets this was the perfect choice for the build. This was my first scope by Meopta but will not be my last as I need two more scopes for two upcoming builds.

Alright now that we have covered some history and the rifle build let's get into how she shoots.

I started with some factory ammo to get the new barrel broken just playing with some steal. After getting forty rounds down the tube and a great cleaning went into test mode. I was limited on factory ammo as this stuff is still hard to come buy but what I was able to find to test was Hornady Varmint Express 40 grain V-Max and Winchester Super Varmints CXP1 34 Grain Jacketed Hollow Point. I shot four groups of 5 of the Hornady loading and got great SD (standard deviations) and ES (extreme spreads) but could not get the gun to shoot the under 1.75-inch group, I saw an average velocity of 3780 fps (Feet per second) which is slower than what Hornady says should be shooting but I am sure they used a 20 plus inch barrel in there testing. But if they had shot well that would have been more than enough on a coyote. So that told me that the 40 Grain V-Max was just not going to shoot well in this 1:12 twist which I was bombed but I didn't plan to shoot that heavy of a bullet. The four groups averaged out to be 1.96 inches. Now the Winchester ammo shot well averaging just over a 1-inch group while also shooting four groups of five with the best group of .856-inch, the SD and ES were also well. I saw an average velocity of 3890 fps which I was very happy to see, Winchester says on their site they got 4025 fps so just trailing them with a shorter barrel more than happy.

So handloading options open up the 204 Ruger to a lot of potentials you can load from a Barnes 26 gain solid copper bullet up to a 55-grain VMAX or equivalent if your barrel can stabilize that, so if you went with a 1:9 twist like my previous barrel that would stabilize but for instance, in this case, I knew I was going to be shooting lighter bullets 24 to grain 34-grain range and I knew that 1:12 twist do those and I'd be more than happy with because the main goal of this was to get out there shoot rock chucks with a 24-grain bullet or 34-grain bullet and be able to take a coyote within 300 yards too as well.

So, let's get into some of the handloads, which is my favorite part of getting a new rifle is to see what I can get to shoot well and have fun and get time behind the rifle with practice so I can become efficient with those new custom loadings. Order in fifty new Nosler brass for these and pulled out some CCI number 41 small rifle primers for the testing. To start testing I went with one of my favorite bullets, the Branes Varmint Grenade 26-grain Hollow Point Flat Base. I have found these to be very devastating for squirrels and groundhogs. I decided to try two different powder types for this loading. IMR4198 and the second one was Ramshot X-Terminator which I was hoping to see good speed in. The best group for each loading was a five-shot group. For the IMR4198 powder charge of 22.0 grains was a .614-inch group with an average velocity of 3804 and SD of 14 and ES 30. The Ramshot X-Terminator powder charge of 27.0 grains was a .708-inch group with an average velocity of 3863 SD of 26 and ES 33.

For the second test, I chose a new bullet me, the Hornady NTX 24gr but heard great stuff about it so I wanted to get some testing in with it. The two powders I tried were Ramshot X-Terminator and Shooters World Match Rifles, I am slowly becoming a big fan of Shooters World powder. The best group for each loading was a five-shot group. For the Ramshot X-Terminator I was only able to test two of my groups as I saw pressure signs on the second group, but that second group shot well with 28.0 grains and a group size of .644-inch with an average velocity of 4050 SD of 18 and ES 36. The Shooters World Match Rifles powder charge of 30.5 grains and group of .611 inches with an average velocity of 3990 and SD of 10 and ES 18. I was very happy with both these results as they showed great speed and potential to be devastating on groundhogs.

Now the third and final bullet to be tested was the Nosler Ballistic Tip Boat Tail with Hodgdon Varget and Hodgdon CFE223 powders. Varget is pretty much my go-to powder if I just need something to shoot as it has never let me down, Now for CFE223 I have found this powder to act up due to its not being temperature stable powder. So was excited to see what I was going to get. For the Hodgdon Varget, I got great groups throughout my testing, but my best five-shot group was with 28.5 grains, and group of .365-inch and an average velocity of 3583 fps SD of 9, and ES of 15. That is amazing in my opinion as you do not see that kind of number very often on a gas gun platform. For the Hodgdon CFE223 powder, these were quite different results All my groups were over one inch with my best group being 28.5 grains a group size of 1.038 inches, an average velocity of 3450, an SD of 48, and an ES of 89. This was by far the worst result I got when testing but all the groups were still under the 1.50-inch group but just not up to my varmint hunting standards.

So, in the conclusion of all my testing, I decided to load up the Nosler 32-grain ballistic tips with the Varget loading and the 24-grain Hornady NTX with shooters' world match powder and those will be my varmint loads for this rifle for the future until barrel replacement is needed. So if you want a fun varmint rifle on the AR15 platform you really can't go wrong with the 204 Ruger with its low recoil great accuracy potential and the need for speed.

Photo Captions:

1.204 Ruger Ar15 Aero Precision Gen 2 lower and upper receiver with a Wilson Combat 18" Barrel and Odin Works R2 17.5 inch Handguard In a BOG Deathgrip Clamping Shooting Tripod

2. 204 Ruger Ar15 Aero Precision Gen 2 lower and upper receiver with a Wilson Combat 18" Barrel and Odin Works R2 17.5 inch Handguard