20 Vartarg

[HillbillyLongRifle]

I have enjoyed the 20 Vartarg for the last four years and it has become my favorite rifle. Its always the one I reach for to snipe a few Groundhogs. Just got my 4th groundhog today with the 39 sierra. 20 Vartargs are so great to shoot watching the bullet impact a groundhogs head thur the scope. Also I loaded up some new lapua 221 fireball brass formed to 20 Vartarg this evening. .229 formed .2305 with a sierra 39 bullet seated. My .232 chamber fired the 17.5gr of h4198 just fine. I would recommend neck turning just abit to make alittle more clearance plus so that once you have fired the case the necks want be to tight trying to put a bullet in the case neck after firing. All in all I think this Lapua Fireball brass will really make the 20 Vartarg stay on Top of Its Accuracy Potential.

 

[pacificman]

For some strange reason all I have been thinking about is the 20VT. I am waiting on a barrel and probably won't see it till August. I have been playing with brass and my 20VT dies. I also have made a few test rounds and come up with the same .229 neck with bullet as the chamber in my new barrel will be .232 also. Hillbilly ...tell me more about yer rifle etc. and would like to hear about what you other guys are using.
Such as rifles, scope, barrels, bullets, and load set-ups.
Mine will be: Savage action
26 inch Pac-Nor barrel
Boyds Thumb-hole stock
.232 neck with zero freebore
Vortex 6.5x20x50 Viper scope Or V-3 6.5x20x50...haven't made mind up yet.
32 grain z-max
I have H4198 and RL-7 witch I'll start with.
I bought 20vt FL bushing die and wilson seater
I have learned a ton from all you 20VT guys and is very much appreciated. I don't think I could have got this far without all you guys knowledge on this cool little round. I have been forming .221 and 20VT cases out of .223 brass with great results so far.

 

[HillbillyLongRifle]

This is my second Vartarg. It is a Rem 700 with a Lilja 12 Twist Rem varmint contour stainless barrel. I have it pillar and devcon bedded in an old real nice BDL Varmint stock. Tuned 2 Lb. Factory trigger. It sports a newer Leupold FX 3 12x40mm Target fine duplex scope with long range leupold base and rings. Rifle will shoot any 32 to 40 gr bullet under 1/2 moa. My favorite loads shoot .3 to 1/4 inch. This is a wonderful little round.
My first had a Douglas tube that shoot very well. Hart and pac nor make good 20 barrels also. Several friends have them and they all shoot well.

 

[fredjake]

I have all the parts(finally) for my 20 vartarg. Any smiths you guys would recommend ?

 

[HillbillyLongRifle]

I do my own smith work but I am down right now gettn my shop fixed up. Mike Fisher in Maryland is a good friend of mine I highly recommend Mike. He has a 20 Vartarg Reamer and a website Fishers Custom Rifles. He even makes his own Barrels. They shoot very nice to hear some of the 30BR score shooters say. Mike is a wonderful smith he has sure taught me alot.

 

[SS427]

Cooper .20 VarTarg here. Other than the less than beautiful Phoenix stock, I couldn't be happier with the choice. Already have a mark on the stock...no idea how that happened. Probably would have cried if I had a high end walnut stock, so the Phoenix was probably the better choice. This gun is going to see a lot of action in the field.

Still wringing it out for accuracy, so right now it has an 8-32x Sightron III scope on it with the 1/8 inch target dot. It was a sage rat killing machine this spring. Pretty much nothing but hits out to 300 yards, but I have to admit all my days of hunting had calm winds. I plan to put an 5-20x Nikon Monarch on it, but it may get upgraded to the Sightron on a permanent basis.

All I've shot so far are the Hornady Z-max 32 grain bullets. They shoot so well I ordered another 500 the other day when I ordered the Lapua brass for it. I hear the Berger 35 grain bullets are about the most accurate and will be trying them soon. Problem is, for about the price of 200 of them I can buy 500 of the Z-max...that makes them a hard sell.

Tomorrow will be the first time I shoot five groups of five rounds to see how it aggs. Will post a report if I do make it to the range.

 

[L.Sherm]

I have one built on a 700 action that i just shoot single shot so i don't worry about the timing issues with this type of action. Sports a pac-nor barrel, Boyd's thumbhole stock and I also make 20 VT. brass from LC 09 223 brass use a redding full length bushing die for my final sizing and has a .232 neck so I turn my brass down to .228 great cartridge and very accurate you will like it

 

[L.Sherm]

Bob Green does pretty good work in your area if you don't want to ship your rifle very far.

 

[SS427]

Here are six groups with my Cooper VT. Each time out it takes about three shots for it to settle down, so the first group is never great. The next five groups are very consistent. This is off a three inch benchrest front bag, so the stability isn't the greatest. I had some wind but I don't think it affected the groups much at all. This sure is a fun caliber to shoot.

With the attachment size limitation it is a little hard to read the group size. Groups 2-6 measure:
.321
.302
.358
.312
.353

Measurements are done with calibers, so they could be a little larger or smaller.

 

[pacificman]

Wow! very nice groups there Otter! I know what you mean by rifle taking a few shots to settle in. My .204 would do that till I had about 150 or so rounds through it ...now seems to shoot more consistent. Seems the 20VT is very accurate cartridge and never heard of a Cooper not being accurate. Looks like you have a good one for sure! Sure hope I will be able to come close to the kind of accuracy your getting when I get my 20VT. What powder are you using? Would be nice to know roughly the FPS too. Looks good man... thanks for posting.

 

[Tzed250]

Those are some nice groups!

 

[SS427]

All the info about the load plus conditions are recorded on the target, but I see now it is hard to read.

Powder is H4198, 18 grains. Tried 18.5 and accuracy wasn't as good. I first tested loads starting at jam, and found the best seating depth about half way between jam and touching. Have not run the load over a chrony, but I expect it to be between 3,500 and 3,800 fps.

 

[rich44]

fredjake
I second Bob Green he built my 20VT along with half dozen other rifles for me, he does excellent work with a very good turnaround time.

 

[ab_bentley]

I'll third Bob Green,

Here is a 20VT with about 3000rds on it.

Adam

 

[tdoyka]

my 20 vartarg usually comes in at .3" at 100 yards. quite a few times it came into .2". i really luv this gun. with h4198 at 18.5gr and a nosler varmageddon, theres no chance that a 'hawg will make it out! i got some 32 hornady vmax and 500 midsouth 34gr hp to try out, if i can get away for the noslers!

20 vartarg with a 32gr 'ageddons
guess about 3300 fps(i really got to get a chrono!!!)

 

[pacificman]

ab-bentely... 3000 rounds...wow that is encouraging looks good to me! tdoyka I would really be interested in how the 34 grainers shoot too as they are way better priced than the others. I have tried the Varmint nightmare from Mid-south and the dog town from Midway USA and can't seem to get them to shoot in my other calibers. V-max, Sierra, and Berger always seem to shoot well in my other rifles but when burning a bunch of ammo it's always nice to be able to save a bit on reloading bullets.

 

[L.Sherm]

Pacificman I shoot nothing but the 34gr. V-nitemares from midsouth in all my 20 and 17 cal stuff, I've had the best luck at least touching the lands to jammed with them.

 

[pacificman]

Pacificman I shoot nothing but the 34gr. V-nitemares from midsouth in all my 20 and 17 cal stuff, I've had the best luck at least touching the lands to jammed with them.

Well I'll give em another try and mess with the seating this time as I did not play with seating depth before. I guess I just expected them to shoot well without checking depth. I kick myself sometimes for not being patient enough. Thanks for the info man!

 

[HillbillyLongRifle]

I have another 20 Vartarg to mess with now too. It is an 11 twist mullerworks rem varmint barrel rem 700.

 

[ab_bentley]

Pacificman I shoot nothing but the 34gr. V-nitemares from midsouth in all my 20 and 17 cal stuff, I've had the best luck at least touching the lands to jammed with them.

Yup. Those bullets were almost .070" off the lands too. It had .050" freebore and another .020" set back in the OAL of the case.

ADam