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Backyard Marksmanship
| Aguila Colibri, first look, part 1 |
fluzwup (M/oklahoma) |
4/18/00 9:58 am |
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Aguila is a Mexican ammunition company (some
rumors claim it was set up by Remington) that has
recently introduced quite a number of interesting new
rimfire rounds, including a 60 grain subsonic hollow
point, and some new hypervelocity rounds. The one that
BYM'ers should find interesting is the Colibri. The local
gun and pawn has them for $1.85 per box of
50. The Colibri features a stubby 20 grain conical head bullet with a hollow base in an Eley primed .22 Long case (note Long, not Long Rifle). The overall length is close to that of a .22 Short. Since there is no powder, the bullet has a published velocity of 375 fps, for a muzzle energy of 6 ft. lbs, about the same as the Crosman 2250 pellet pistol. I bought a box of 50 rounds, and ran a few through all of my .22's. The rounds are very quiet in a rifle, probably quieter than many airguns, and out of a pistol the report is similar in tone and volume to a cap gun--higher in pitch than an air pistol, but not much louder. The smoke produced is also similar to a cap gun--however, it does contain a small amount of lead, so I'd reccommend good ventilation, or maybe a small air filter located near the muzzle to catch the soot. Since the ammo relys only on the priming compound for power, the combustion temp is very low, so there is a lot of soot left in the barrel that you don't see in full power rounds, but this is true of all of the primer only powered ammo I've fired, including plastic bullets and Convert-A-Pells. The first gun tried was my Savage/Anshutz bolt action. Being a single shot, the length of the cartridge did not matter, and it functioned perfectly. The scope, however, was a problem, since I could not get it to focus down to 10 meters...I'll have to try it out at 50 feet when I get more ammo. The next gun was a Ruger 10/22 with a Midway bull barrel. This barrel has a very tight chamber, and the 10/22 extractor is not powerful enough to extract a case from the chamber (being a blowback, full power loads extract themselves...). This meant that I had to lock the bolt back every shot, and use my pocket knife to manually extract the case. I fired just enough rounds to verify that it would consistently not extract, and gave up on that gun. The next in the testing was a stock Ruger 10/22. I put five rounds in the magazine, and started shooting. The gun functioned perfectly for the first four, acting just like a straight pull bolt action, but the last round nosedived, denting the bullet. It took some finesse to get the dented bullet out of the magazine, so it might be best to just leave the last round in place until you're done shooting (or use an empty to take up space). |
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| Aguila Colibri, first look part 2 |
fluzwup (M/oklahoma) |
4/18/00 9:58 am |
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And on to the last one, a Ruger MKII Target model
with a 5.25" barrel (and yes, I do own things other
than Rugers, but Ruger just makes really good
.22s...). The MKII magazine would reliably feed if you
limited the number of rounds in the magazine to 2 or 3,
and extraction was flawless. Like the 10/22, it
worked just like a straight pull bolt action, with the
added plus of locking open on an empty magazine, which
made single feeding quick and easy. Since the MKII
liked the Colibri, I did some accuracy testing with it.
Off a bench, 10m groups were about 3/4", centered and
about 3" low. Low? That does make sense--handguns tend to shoot higher with heavier bullets, since the recoil is greater, and the gun rolls back more before the bullet leaves the barrel, and so leaves at a higher angle. Given that the Colibri is firing half the mass of a normal .22 LR at a third the velocity, it has 1/6 the recoil. After my first round of testing, I think that the Colibri is a fairly nice way to practice at short ranges with your .22 firearms with little noise. Since it is fired in firearms, the legal restrictions are greater than those on airguns, but if you live in a rural area, or have a place to shoot indoors, then it's quite a lot of fun. My only regret is that I don't have a double action .22 revolver... |
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