Aguila 60gr .22LR ammunition

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Re: Aguila 60gr .22LR ammunition

Post by bigpete » 08 Jul 2022, 4:42 am

bladeracer wrote:
bigpete wrote:If all that worked as you say,then wouldn't there be rifles fitted with squeeze bore barrels with stuffed actions or blown cases ? Arthur Langford squeezed them down to .17 with apparently no ill effects even with high velocity 22 ammo. As for if it would stabilise....probably not but you never know unless you try.


I've never seen one of Langford's rifles. Were they standard .22LR actions? Could you use the highest velocity .22LR ammo in them? What barrel lengths did he use? Any idea what twist rate he used? I'd love to see a recovered bullet. The 40gn bullet would come out the muzzle about .690" long - almost 50% longer than it started.

Easy enough to make your own, especially with the CZ455, just put a .22LR reamer into the .172" barrel, and taper the throat to suit.

Actually, I found an article. 1248fp ammo made 1337fps in .204" and 1445fps in .172". That might have been worth messing with back then, but now we have standard .22LR ammo making 1435fps, and it shoots very well in most rifles I've tried it in.

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Langsford%27s+squeeze-bore+rimfires%3A+is+this+near-forgotten+idea+too...-a0268869254

"Taper-bores are the stuff dreams are made of. Imagine firing a bullet that begins life as one caliber down a bore that progressively gets smaller and smaller in diameter. What emerges is a bullet of smaller caliber with an improved ballistic coefficient at a relatively high velocity. The late Australian gunsmith and cartridge designer, Arthur Langsford, had a better idea. Why not just dispense with the taper-bore design and simply fire a conventional .22 Long Rifle cartridge down a 17- or 20-caliber barrel and see what you get? What he got is one of the most intriguing stories in rimfire history.

Langsford's earliest rimfire experiments centered around the development of sub-caliber wildcats using unloaded ICI .22 LR shot cases, no less, necking them down to. 17 as his "Minor-Mite" and "Vixen" cartridges as well as his "Tini-Mite" series in .08, .11, .14 and. 17 calibers. The. 17 TiniMite was actually produced and sold in some quantity through his Myra's Sports Store in Broken Hill, Australia. None was quite the commercial success he had hoped for, but Langsford was 20 years or so ahead of the commercial appearance of the 5mm Remington Rimfire Magnum, .17 HMR and .17 on to pursue a better idea.

He reckoned if using a soft lead bullet he might be able to squeeze it down in caliber and still achieve reasonable accuracy as well as higher velocity and an improved bullet form. Jacketed bullets had always proved a problem in taper-bore guns. Some of the better known experiments included the German Gerlich gun using a flanged bullet that gradually collapsed as it progressed down a tapered-bore barrel.

While taper-bore barrels proved expensive and a pain to make and were subsequently abandoned, during bore, anti-tank cannons like the 42mm PAK 41 that fired a 42mm Gerlichtype projectile that left the muzzle as a 30mm shell after having been squeezed down in a smaller diameter, smoothbore portion of the barrel.

In the US, there was also some early work in 1942-43 at the Frankfort Arsenal Laboratory, which focused on the .50 BMG cartridge loaded with sub-caliber 30- and 35-caliber bullets encased in either ventilated, collapsing jackets or disintegrating sabots. While the experiments were terminated in 1943 for more pressing war time priorities, the sabot design did reemerge later as the current .50 BMG Saboted Light Armor Penetrator "SLAP" round.

Extruders

But back to Mr. Langsford and his "Extruders." That's what he called his new cartridge series--the Extruders--actually the "Myra Extruders--"Myra being his wife. Langsford's solution to the squeeze-bore challenge called for the use of a standard diameter 17- caliber or 20-caliber barrel with 1:6.5" to 1:8" twist. While the barrel was chambered for the conventional .22 Long Rifle cartridge, the secret lay in the form of the throat or lead. Langsford designed a forcing cone in the throat that eased the bullet into the smaller bore without damaging it. The picture (sorry, but these were Langsford's original photographs) illustrating the gradual transformation of a .22 bullet into. 17 projectile clearly shows the angle and structure of the forcing cone. He called his squeeze-bore design the "Myra Extruder" and indeed that's just what the process did, it extruded a bullet into a completely new form. Because the extruding process elongated the bullet, the faster twist barrels he used were essential.

In fact, he got a bit carried away with the idea that a faster twist imbued the bullet with greater hydraulic shock, penetration and lethality. It was good marketing, although he seemed to be right about penetration if the photo he sent me showing the comparative impacts of a conventional .22 LR Mini-Mag, .20 and .17 "extruded" Mini-Mags on a 6" steel post is accurate. The .22 LR just splashes against the post while the "Extruders" penetrate fully. Unbiased, third-party tests later did confirm Langsford's claim for improved penetration with the Extruders.

The chronograph and ballistic data Lansford furnished me is interesting. The test gun was a Model 2 Brno fitted with a standard factory barrel and subsequently with .20 and .17 Extruder barrels. The test cartridge was Winchester's Super-X PowerPoint with its 40-grain HP clocking 1,248 fps at the muzzle from the Brno barrel. When "extruded" from the 20-caliber barrel, the muzzle velocity was 1,337 fps and from the 17-caliber barrel, 1,445 fps. Retained energy at 100 yards for the three bullets was 84, 99 and 124 ft-lbs respectfully. Drop at 100 yards, 13.6", 11.6" and 9.6" and with a 10 mph crosswind; deflections at 100 yards for the three bullets were 6.3", 5.4" and 4". Langsford claimed, when compared to the standard Power-Point, the .17 Extruder from the muzzle to 150 yards averaged 20 percent more velocity, 47 percent more energy and 47 percent less wind deflection.

The first question many raised to his Extruders was what about pressure? Squeezing a .22 caliber bullet down to .20 or .17 had to raise pressures. Langsford addressed concerns about excessive pressures in two different ways.

First, he took standard .22 LRHV cartridges and, through a small hole in the case walls, drained out all the powder. He then began trickling powder back into the case and firing the rounds until the bullets were completely extruded through the chamber throat and seated fully in the breech of the 20-caliber barrel. He found it took only 2.5 percent of the original charge to complete the short extrusion. The second was an ad he ran in the April, 1994 issue of the Australian Shooters Journal illustrating a simple, but rather unconventional, pressure gun fixture he invented and presumably was using as a control instrument. The ad copy he sent me had his handwritten note on it, reading "Our latest pressure deflating ad! Regards, Arthur."

Third party testers, experienced no pressure signs when working with the .20 Extruder, but Langsford admitted the .17 Extruder was not consistent when it came to pressures and that possibly an 18-caliber barrel might be optimum; however, he never indicated he had actually built an .18 Extruder. Langsford sent me a very professional and balanced article on the Myra Extruders, written by Warwick Mitchell, and published in Australia's Guns & Game magazine. Mitchell had an opportunity to really wring out the .20 Extruder. He found that depending on the type of .22 LR round being fired, velocities did increase in the Extruder from 25 to 60 fps; penetration in wet newspaper increased from 3-4 cm; trajectories were flatter by about 1" at 100 yards; accuracy ranged from excellent to fair depending upon the parent brand of .22 LR being fired, and the .20 Extruder did deliver more impact energy on the distant rams at the silhouette range.

Mitchell's conclusions were the real potential of Langsford's squeeze bore Extruders lay in developing the smaller, more effective, . 17 or. 18 bore sizes, but that the $475 cost of a new Myra barrel hardly justified the slight improvement offered by the .20 Extruder over a conventional .22 Long Rifle.

While the appearance of the .17 HMR and the .17 Mach 2 made the further development of the Extruder concept unnecessary, the late Arthur Langsford with his remarkable "Extruders" deserves a prominent place in the archives of rimfire history.
COPYRIGHT 2011 Publishers' Development Corporation
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2011 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved."


Actually a mate of dads had one on a brno model 2 action,I know he reckoned it worked extremely well,but aside from that and what I've read ( like you posted ) I know not much else. I do know where to get an extruder barrel and have been tossing up whether to do so and put it on my model 2. Even if only to do something different
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Re: Aguila 60gr .22LR ammunition

Post by bladeracer » 08 Jul 2022, 11:17 am

bigpete wrote:Actually a mate of dads had one on a brno model 2 action,I know he reckoned it worked extremely well,but aside from that and what I've read ( like you posted ) I know not much else. I do know where to get an extruder barrel and have been tossing up whether to do so and put it on my model 2. Even if only to do something different


It would certainly be different :-)
I don't think you want to look at 60gn bullets though, I would stick with the lightest bullets, in the 21gn to 29gn region.

Making the barrel is the only real issue in owning one of these, so if you can get one I would just grab it. Even if you never get around to using it you've at least got the option to.

I made a call and can get some Aguila SSS for testing.
Going to be a trip so probably won't get out there until next week.
He also happens to have two bricks of the old Winchester Long-Z if anybody desperately needs it - in Victoria.
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Re: Aguila 60gr .22LR ammunition

Post by bigpete » 08 Jul 2022, 11:35 am

I'd try the 60gn stuff just coz I can lol. I've had people tell me a lot that certain things just can't be done and yet when I've tried them myself the results have been more than acceptable ( like a mate who told me there's absolutely no way I could shoot 64gn .223 ammo in my Remington 788,yet it printed an inch 5 shot group at 100m lol ). Of course,the opposite also happens lol.
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Re: Aguila 60gr .22LR ammunition

Post by bladeracer » 08 Jul 2022, 11:44 am

bigpete wrote:I'd try the 60gn stuff just coz I can lol. I've had people tell me a lot that certain things just can't be done and yet when I've tried them myself the results have been more than acceptable ( like a mate who told me there's absolutely no way I could shoot 64gn .223 ammo in my Remington 788,yet it printed an inch 5 shot group at 100m lol ). Of course,the opposite also happens lol.


I'm the same, saying something doesn't work is basically challenging me to try it myself :-)
I grabbed some boxes of the 70gn .224" Speer a while back just in case I ever do manage to end up with a 788 in .222Rem again :-)

A guy was telling me that he and his brother bought the same rifles on the same day. His brother's loves the Winchester Long-Z, his hates it. My brother's .243 Ruger Predator shoots the 58gn VMax consistently better than mine does with the same ammunition. But my three Ruger rimfires are very, very similar across the board with the their likes and dislikes.

I mainly want to play with the 60gn so I can trim the bullet nose until I discover exactly what length it starts to stabilise.
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Re: Aguila 60gr .22LR ammunition

Post by solarpak » 09 Jul 2022, 6:49 pm

No1_49er wrote:It may well be that a Norinco with its slightly faster twist will stabilise out at 50 mtr. 5 shots around 30mm? What about at 100 mtr, after the velocity has dropped off a bit. Then what?
As for 30mm at 50 mtr, well, my Anschutz chugs along with 1/2 inch groups at 100 mtr.
60gn would certainly be a consideration for silhouettes if stability could be assured.


100 metres .....crikey i have never shot any 22 LR at 100 metres - sight it in at 50 m and shoot any game to around 70 metres - maybe a but more - but none of this ELR stuff for my 22LR........

If your Annie chugs 1/2 inch groups at100m - then its a keeper!!
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Re: Aguila 60gr .22LR ammunition

Post by bladeracer » 15 Jul 2022, 7:32 pm

I managed to fit in a two-hour drive today and collected four boxes of Aguila SSS.
Had big plans to come home and do some testing but Rose is in Bendigo, so I'm on my own - too buggered just now :-)
Possibly tomorrow.

$88/200, plus $23 worth of fuel makes this stuff 55-cents apiece - pretty expensive for just messing about with, hopefully it won't shoot so great that I want more of it :-)
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Re: Aguila 60gr .22LR ammunition

Post by bladeracer » 04 Aug 2022, 3:38 pm

I finally managed to find an hour to test this ammo. No wind, but very overcast with light drizzle so I didn't bother to confirm velocity with the chronograph. I put an AR Optics 4.5-18x40 on the JW25A the other day so I started by zeroing it at 50m with Eley Standard.

My rough boresight was 200mm low, so I made an adjustment then fired (aiming at the bottom corners of the diamonds) ten rounds to settle in at 1.9", then a 5rd group but pulled one badly - the four that were on target made .78". Then a .85", .93", .90", and 1.70". The final two groups both dropped a very low-powered round about 3" low. Two early groups I experimented with wearing my reading glasses, very uncomfortable so I gave that up :-)
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Fifty rounds down the tube and I was ready to try the 60gn stuff. I didn't expect it to drop as low as CCI Quiet does, but I was surprised that they only dropped a little over two-inches. The group was also looking excellent, until I dropped the fifth round a little low, making a 1.68" group, but less than a quarter-inch wide. Group two was looking good as well until I dropped another one low, making it 2.15", although the four good ones were right on an inch. Then a 2", .90" and 1.05" group. It certainly shows some promise and is worth testing more rigorously I think. My zero was about one-inch low at 50m as I was aiming at the tops of the diamonds.

Then I moved to 100m. I built a standing bench last year so I could see over the grass but the cows got into it a few weeks ago and kicked out all the bracing. It wobbles like crazy now, oh well. After shooting the 100m groups I leaned a couple of large branches against it to try to stabilise it a bit. I estimated there'd be about 13-minutes drop but it was actually about eleven. A light breeze from three-o'clock also drifted the groups a couple inches to the left, but a 10rd group of 5.27" followed by a 16rd group of 5.58" weren't awful in the circumstances.
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I patched the holes and moved the target out to 154m (leaned it against a handy star picket), wound in another 10-minutes elevation and fired a 5rd group, keeping to the right for the breeze. There was grass in the way of the right side of the target but I could mostly make out where the top aiming mark was. Between the grass and the poor light I couldn't make out any bullet holes, but I could hear the bullets hitting the MDF and then the steel trap at 200m behind the target, so I knew they weren't far off. I walked up for a look and found them on the A3 paper, about four-inches left and six-inches low, in a 6.65" group.
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I dialled it up to 28-minutes and fired another twenty-rounds to get a decent idea of the drop to work out the BC. I walked up again and was pleased to find a fairly neat 7.20" group, but three inches high. Total 150m drop is about 24MoA from a 50m zero, making the BC around .135.
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The wind and rain were increasing at this point. I put four rounds onto a plow disc at 204m holding on top of the duplex post, for a total of 43.4MoA. Wasn't really expecting to get hits but figured I might recover a bullet from the dirt bank if I missed. I should've calculated the trajectory as this was far too high and they all went over the top. I did recover some from the steel trap though, and they make hefty chunks of shrapnel. The biggest ones are 52-55gn each.
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Overall, not bad. No tumbling even at range as all the holes are circular. I wanted to try them in the Ruger as well just to confirm that they won't stabilise in it but couldn't be bothered going back out in the rain and wind, I'll do it sometime soon though.
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