question about Aguila Colibri .22LR

[JoeJ615]

ok everyone talks about using the super colibri ammo out of .22 rifles for quiet shooting so i went to my LGS to see if i could find some .. i found the identical looking box but it's just colibri not super colibri ... after looking online i found the difference here http://www.the-armor...tml/aguila.html apparently the colibri ammo is rated at 375fps and the super colibri at 500fps ... but i noticed both were labeled for pistols ONLY ... i know alot of people shoot the super's out of rifles but anyone use the 375fps normal colibri's? i dont wanna end up with a bullet stuck in my new marlin xt22tr lol ... also any comments would be appreciated on what kind of accuracy i can expect, and how much range i can expect to get before losing accuracy with either of these rounds

Edited April 14, 2012 by JoeJ615

[Dolomite_supafly]

Sticking ONE bullet in the bore is not a problem. Sticking several can be very hard to clear. A single bullet is about as hard to push out as a tight fitting patch or bore brush. And just because one or two make it out of the bore doesn't mean the third will. The supers are for rifles and the standard are for pistols.

As far as accuracy you are not going to get match grade performance. The supers will shoot minute of squirrel out to about 25 yards. The standards are good to 15-20 yards.

Dolomite

Edited April 14, 2012 by Dolomite_supafly

[JoeJ615]

ok so just to clarify, you wouldnt recommend trying the standard colibri rounds out of a 22" barrel?

[Jonnin]

I have shot the regular out of a rifle with no problems. It loses energy in a rifle, too much barrel time / friction for the energy. I could see it even sticking in some guns, but it seems ok in MINE. Its really best in a revolver or a BA rifle; autos are just annoying as it wont cycle anyway.

We were shooting at an empty plastic detergent bottle. It bounced off of that. I shot it at a 2x4 from my pistol, and it bounced off that too, but it at least made a bullet deep dent in it. It punched thru a soda can in both pistol and rifle. Its just not much, might cap a bird or a rat tops, and its a fine plinker.

Edited April 15, 2012 by Jonnin

[JoeJ615]

ok thanks for the info guys i think i'll wait and get some of the super colibris or just stick with the CCI CB shorts that i've been using they make better pest control rounds anyway with a 29grain bullet at 750fps as opposed to the super colibris with a 20grain bullet at 500fps, but im curious about the super colibris noise levels, the CB shorts sound about like a loud cap gun going off, to me anyway

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I had a brick of the ordinary colibri but gave most of em away. Didn't have a revolver and it was too much trouble to stuff 1 bullet at a time into the Mark II.

Havent tried em in years but with a Rem 541T bolt action rifle and the Mark II pistol, couldn't manually feed from the magazines. The rounds were too short to manually feed from a mag by working the bolt. Maybe you could feed em manually out of a mag on some guns, but it didn't work for me on those two guns. Manual-fed from the magazine, the short little colibri wanted to get turned sideways in the action rather than feed straight into the chamber. It was too much trouble with my fat fingers trying to poke em one at a time into the chamber.

Didn't get any bullets stuck in the 541THB rifle barrel, but maybe didn't shoot enough of em to give it a fighting chance to stick one. I think that one is a 24" barrel as best can recall. When I ordered the colibri had been hoping they would feed from a mag. If they would just feed from a mag it wouldn't be too annoying to shoot them manually working the bolt, compared to stuffing them in one at a time.

Mine are date 2002 (I have 1 box of 50 left). Maybe they won't shoot any more. Bought a brick of Aguila "Super Maximum" hyper velocity the same time in 2002 which would fire reliably but were inaccurate so I didn't use em up. Tried shooting those hypervelocity last year to use em up and get em off the shelf. They had got old and at least 8 out of 10 were duds, so they didn't age gracefully. Maybe my remaining colibri's have aged the same way and are duds. Some people have reported the "super maximum" hyper velocity performing pretty accurately, so maybe the quality control is better nowadays. Mine seemed to vary wildly in velocity.

Maybe I was getting a little more velocity from the 2002 colibri than Jonnin reports. Maybe that is variable with different batches too. I didn't chrono the velocity, but was shooting at a 3/8" piece of plywood from maybe 10 feet, and about half of the colibri went all the way thru and the other half got well-buried in the 3/8" plywood. Not much bouncing off. Maybe its about the same thing as Jonnin reported, but going all the way tru 3/8 plywood sounds a little stronger than bouncing off a plastic jug, but maybe its about the same. Definitely am not claiming that Jonnin is wrong. When I gave Dad most of the brick we shot a bunch of them at a paper target on an oak tree out of his old pot-metal .22 revolver. A couple of em bounced back at us but most were strong enough to stick in the tree bark.

Edited April 15, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Jonnin]

wonder if they changed something? They fed fine in my mark 2 from the mag, and in an antique tube fed rifle, from the tube.

[JoeJ615]

im using a new tube fed Marlin XT22TR that's chambered for shorts longs and long rifles so i dont anticipate any feeding issues, i was more concerned with the squib loads ... thought they would be more serious than just pushing it out with a cleaning rod, i had picked up 2 boxes to try out so i might just try em anyway a lil later today or just throw em in a drawer and wait till i get a .22 revolver ..been looking looking for an excuse to get a heritage rough rider anyway lol

[Sidinman]

I have shot both the regular and supers out of my Henry H100, and a Romanian Trainer with no problems. The regular Aquilas weren't very accurate, now the supers on the other hand. I shoot drink cans full of water, and they will penatrate and exit at 25 yds. So they should be deadly on those unwanted pests.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

wonder if they changed something? They fed fine in my mark 2 from the mag, and in an antique tube fed rifle, from the tube.

Thanks Jonnin, maybe I ought to try it again with newer ones. Maybe the length is different now, or maybe just difference in the guns. These 2002 era colibri are dang short and just didn't want to feed straight.

I gave most of the old ones to dad, but a couple of boxes to a friend who had a colony of rats move in under his brainerd studio. He said they worked pretty good on rats.

Edited April 15, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[LI0NSFAN]

Joe, Magic has a heritage for sale. It is price fair and he is a good guy to deal with.

[Sidinman]

Hey Lester, the cases are the same length as the lr, the projectile is about half though.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hey Lester, the cases are the same length as the lr, the projectile is about half though.

Thanks Sidinman

I'll have to re-check, but IIRC my old ones were 22 short cases (or maybe even shorter). With the tiny stubby bullet adding hardly any length. Pretty sure they were not 22 LR length cases. Will edit this response later if I'm remembering wrong.

That would definitely explain the difference in results.

[Guest Broomhead]

I've had luck manually feeding the supers from a mag in my 10/22. You have to let the bolt carry itself forward and can't ride it at all. Maybe that would help in a pistol too?

[Guest Lester Weevils]

OK I remembered wrong. My "ordinary" old colibri actually are in typical .22 lr cases. Sometime ought to re-try manual mag-loading them and see if there is a trick getting it to work if its working for some of ya'll. Thanks for the good feedback..

These old colibri have an OAL of 0.805". Never had bothered to measure .22 lr ammo so while had the calipers out here are some random measurements. Didn't take an average of a large sample or whatever, so there's no reason to expect any of these would be near the mean of the distribution. Just a single random-selected measurement from boxes on the shelf without bothering to dig thru ammo boxes.

2002 era "ordinary" colibri -- 0.805"

CCI MiniMag 36gn hp -- 0.962"

Aguila Super Max Hyper Vel 30gn hp -- 0.963"

Fed Champion Value Pak 36gn hp High Vel -- 0.969"

Fed Premium Gold Medal Target 40gn LRN -- 0.981"

Win T22 Target 40gn LRN -- 0.981"

Lately the MiniMag SEEM to have fewer misfeeds than any other. Maybe if I was to go thru a big sample and keep notes that wouldn't really be true, but rarely have misfeeds with the CCI and there are always at least a few misfeeds with the other brands. Unless it is a false impression that would be disproved by carefully counting misfeeds in a fair trial with a big sample.

But OAL would only be one of many factors if the CCI really is "better" for reliable feeding.