Aguila sniper subsonic 60 grain: field testing

I watched the video and my results shooting the 60 grain SSB ammo was the same as yours. Keyholes at 25 yards out of my 1885 Winchester low wall. My S&W .22 revolver stabilized them though. Maybe that revolver has a faster twist than my rifle.
I haven't actually measured the twist in my .22 rifle but I assume it's 1 turn in 16 inches, kind of standard for .22 rimfire.
 
i believe its been established from good sources these bullets like a very fast twist, i believe its between 1:7 and 1:8. short range fun YES.
 
Where on earth do you get .22 rimfire rifles with 1-7 or 1-9 twists?

The rifle that would not stabilize these bullets appears to have a 1-16 inch twist based on a cleaning rod with a tight cleaning patch making one complete revolution when pulled out of the barrel 16 inches.

My S&W model 17 which did stabilize these bullets appears to have a 1-14.4 twist based on a cleaning rod needing to move 3.6 inches to make a quarter revolution, the barrel isn't long enough for a full revolution or even a half turn and I judged a quarter turn by eye so it may be anywhere between 14 and 15 inches.
Anyone know the S&W model 17's factory specs on this?

sharpie443, you might take a cleaning rod with a tight fitting cleaning patch and compare the inches needed for the cleaning rod to make a complete revolution between that rifle that did and did not stabilize those bullets.
 
I watched the video and my results shooting the 60 grain SSB ammo was the same as yours. Keyholes at 25 yards out of my 1885 Winchester low wall. My S&W .22 revolver stabilized them though.
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They don't stabilize reliably out of my .22 rifles, but they do much better out of my 5" Buckmark. Same twist rate in all of them, and the velocity change shouldn't account for that scenario... :confused:
 
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And here I've been pronouncing it a-GEE-la co-LEE-bree all this time. :D

Interesting video. My CZ has shot just about every subsonic round I've tried very well, but I have not tried Aguila in it yet. Now I'll have to get a box and try it out. Thanks for posting that. Informative and well planned and presented. It's nice not to have the "Um, ah, well, what I'm doing is, uh..." stuff a lot of folks put up these days.

The Federal is clearly the superior round, as it can take out two cans at once. ;)
 
I found the Aguila SSS will stabilize in my Romanian M69 pretty well, and a few older .22 rifles.
When I got my well-used Whitney Wolverine semiauto pistol, it wouldn't feed anything BUT the Aguila SSS! Weird. But a little work on the breech facce soon had it feeding other .22 loads. It's still fun shooting the heavy bullets through it. Much quieter than high vel loads, and cycles the Whitney action fine.
 
B.L.E. said:
Where on earth do you get .22 rimfire rifles with 1-7 or 1-9 twists?
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Green Mountain sells a drop in 10/22 Sub-Sniper bull barrel with a 1 in 9" twist for $139.95:

http://www.gmriflebarrel.com/productdetail.aspx?id=901603

Many AR barrels have a fast twist which can be used with a .22 conversion kit to fire .22LR rounds accurately. For example, a standard 1 in 9" AR barrel with a conversion bolt is capable of placing all shots into a smaller diameter than a paper plate at 100 yards with open sights using inexpensive high velocity ammo. And 1 in 7" twist AR barrels are also very common.
 
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Articap is correct about the easiest way to get a rifle that will shoot these well; take an inexpensive AR-15 and toss in a chamber insert for .22LR. I built up a spare lower for this; I used an inexpensive DPMS barrel and then chopped down a gas tube (installing it in the FSB upside down) to keep it from blowing gunk everywhere. It is accurate, nearly silent when suppressed, and the rifle itself can be swapped back to a 5.56 rifle in a few minutes- change out the gas tube and toss in a regular BCG and it's ready to go.

Fun toy.
 
Would it be OK to just plug the port when the .22 conversion is in place?
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I'm not sure how you'd plug it.

I know that one can gunk up the gas tube when shooting a lot of .22 through a conversion kit; CMMG recommends that every couple of magazines you fire a full power .223 round or two to blow out the carbon. Since that rifle is pretty much dedicates to the SSS ammo, I decided to go ahead and fit a flipped tube to prevent the junk from being blown back at me. Spike's makes a product designed for this purpose, but it's about as expensive as just chopping down a regular gas tube.
 
Technosavant said:
I'm not sure how you'd plug it.
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I figure just crimp or plug the tube that you cut down, but be sure that nothing protrudes into the port. Just wondered if the slight increase in pressure might effect the cycling of the .22 conversion. I wouldn't expect it to, but I'm not a gunsmith.
 
I figure just crimp or plug the tube that you cut down, but be sure that nothing protrudes into the port. Just wondered if the slight increase in pressure might effect the cycling of the .22 conversion.
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I get it; that's basically what I did by installing that cut-down tube upside down.

It doesn't hurt function... I will say that one needs to keep that conversion kit clean and lubed. Those shorty cases just don't like to extract well if there's the slightest grit in there.

It isn't a reliable rifle, but it IS a fun one.
 
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