.204Ruger with BLC2

[Bindernut]

Anyone loading the .204 with BLC2?

Had a lb of BLC2 on the shelf so I thought I'd give it a try.
Howa 1500 22" sporter-weight
34gr Dogtown HPs out of Winchester brass.
Loaded a few at 28.5gr as a starting load, but I didn't have the chrony set up that day. 1" to 1.75" groups...erratic as heck but I blame the original synthetic "Lightning" model stock that the rifle came with. The forearm is all over the barrel when shooting off of a sandbag so I wasn't expecting anything consistent for groups.
28.5gr = Mild report, no signs of primer flattening at all and lightly smoked case necks so the case wasn't quite sealing. Perfectly understandable for a starting load.

So after picking up a used Howa/Hogue "take-off" from one of our local smiths, I made another range trip last week.
Loaded up a few more Dogtowns with 29.0gr of BLC2 to test since I had the chrony with too.
I'm only getting 3300fps with this mid-range load, but I'm starting to see slight primer flattening so I'm not sure if I'll be able to get much closer to the 30.7gr max load.
Accuracy is good but I'm not impressed with the velocity.

Now, with Hornady 32gr VMax factory loads I am geting very consistent 3850fps so I know I'm losing about 150-200fps over a friends 24" tubed .204.
But even minus 200fps for the shorter barrel, I should still be able to hit 3600-3650fps with the 34gr Dogtowns.


Any other suggestions on powder choice?
I'm still just burning ammo to break the barrel in so I've not done any serious load development yet, but compared to the factory Hornady load performance I'm thinking I need to find a different powder.