Aguila Ammunition? Is it any good?

[brvirell]

I've been looking for some good inexpensive ammunition and saw some Aguila Super SE Extra at the gun show for around $15 a brick with 40grain lead tip at 1025 fps. Is it any good for 50m competition?
Thanks

[Josed]

The only accurate reply would be to test some of the aguila in your rifle.
Smalbore rifles tend to be on the picky side when it comes to ammo.
I tried some of the Aguila SE subsonic on my target pistol and it was very accurate.

[randy8745]

I tired the ammo for about a year in my sport and free pistol and although I liked the accuracy I had to quit using it because the lub on the bullet kept fouling my pistol chamber to the point that the bullet wouldn't have a hard time seating in the sport pistol chamber and the free pistol with tighter chamber specs made extracting the cartridge difficult. I had to use a screw driver blade to extract the cartridge from the chamber. I talked to the reps at the Shot Show about the problem, but nothing ever happed. Several other people in our club tried the ammo and they all had the same problems.

[Fred Mannis]

I've been looking for some good inexpensive ammunition and saw some Aguila Super SE Extra at the gun show for around $15 a brick with 40grain lead tip at 1025 fps. Is it any good for 50m competition?
Thanks

At 50 yd in my accurized Ruger 10/22 I get 0.6" groups with Aguila Golden Eagle Target and 0.5" with Eley Target Rifle. I've shot about a brick of Aguila through the Ruger now without any problems. It is excellent ammo for silhouettes.

[brvirell]

Thanks all. I think I wont try it since i am starting to have issues with remmington target making the rounds stick in the chamber, it sounds like the Agulia would be even worse.

[deleted1]

I wouldn't use Aquila in anything but my plinkers. It has had a horrible record around these parts for a while now. Most pistol shooters avoid it like the plague. The terms good but inexpensive are oxy-morons IMHO---they don't exist any more. Remington Target has long proved itself to very unreliable with at least 3-5 failures to fire per 50. We used to keep an ammo can at the Academy for the unfired Rem "practise" rounds---when it weighed around 150 lbs---we would ship it back to Remington for replacement. I use RWS Target Rifle for FP, SP, Bullseye for practise and competition. Lately I have been getting failures to fire with the RWS and am saving them to send to RWS---I have disassembled a couple of these rounds and found the primer to be scattered around the rim rather than where it belonged---so even RWS has problems. Look for either RWS or Jagd Pistol Match and perhaps some Eley practise ammo---but they aren't as inexpensive as one would think. I used CCI standard velocity---(plastic 100's boxing not cardboard 50's) and I had found them to very reliable for many years in S&W 41 and Hi-Standards., and worthy of being shot in many of the finer guns. The "better" ammo is not a status symbol---but more reliable for competition.

[dnovo]

The CCI plastic 100 boxes is good practice ammo, and fairly reliable. I have had no bad luck with RWS 25 which I use in my Pardini GPE which is set up to digest low power 22 shorts, while my older Hi Standard Olympics love the CCI Target 22 Shorts in the 100 round plastic box. Again, as noted by someone above, different guns like different loads, so try a bunch but don't buy just by price. Dave

[azuaro]

I am going to have to disagree with the people who say AGUILA is not good…

Aguila factory started its operations in Cuernavaca, México….They initiated their operations from scratch, meaning that they started a factory with the state of the art equipment and technology...Non of our REMINGTON, WINCHESTER, etc. ammo factories have the technology or equipment AGUILA does...I have been in this factory.

Actually, Aguila got everything from ELEY who transferred the technology to AGUILA and supervised their production for some time; there were no difference in between AGUILA and ELEY ammo at one time…Only the price….

I tried LAPUA MIDAS M and LAPUA MIDAS L, FEDERAL GOLD MEDAL Ultra Match UM18 and UM1, RWS R-50 and RWS TARGET RIFLE, CCI GREEN TAG and of course AGUILA and REMINGTON subsonic ammo.

The best groups were obtained with the ULTRA MATCH UM18 and the second best with the AGUILA, RWS R-50 came in 3rd then GREEN TAG, RWS RIFLE and last REMINGTON...

I tried 3 competition rifles: Anschutz (Factory), Custom Rifle with Lilja barrel and a factory Feinwerkbau...

The most accurate rifle is the one with the Lilja barrel and 36X BR – D Leopold. The results are taken from this gun…

The other 2 rifles shot about the same with both FEDERAL Ultra Match cartridges at the top and then AGUILA and GREEN TAG with similar grouping.

For the price and quality, AGUILA has no competition out there….Of course that if I were going to compete I would probably use the ULTRA MATCH UM18 that gave me a little advantage over the AGUILA (But not much)…The UM 18 costs $11.99 a box and the AGUILA $1.99!....I think that I can live with a .10 - .15 larger group for practicing while putting $10.00 in my pocket!

Best Regards for all of you….

azuaro

[metermatch]

While the equipment may be the same, it is the labor operating the equipment that can make a difference. And if I had a choice between something made in Germany as opposed to made in Mexico, than it is no contest. Sure, Germany will cost more.

That said, the determining factor is YOUR gun. I bought about 30,000 rounds of Aquils standard and subsonic that I was using in my Pardini SP1 Electronic Rapid Fire gun and Walther GSP's. It was giving me a failure to feed every 20 rounds in the SP1, and every 40 rounds in the GSP. I tried some SK Standard, and it functioned flawlessly in both guns. I noticed the Aquila was kind of dry, and the SK a bit greasy. In fact, If I shot a magazine of SK and then shot the Aquila, it would extend the number of rounds until the Aquila rould give me a failure. Never did any accuracy testing, because who cares on a 100mm ten ring at 25 meters. Crap ammo would probably do 50mm at that distance.

Single shot rifle should be no problem. If it shoots well in your rifle, then use it!

Jeff

[azuaro]

Dear Metermatch,

With all respect, I have to disagree with you about the Mexican labor...

The .22 rim fire line of production in AGUILA is FULLY AUTOMATIC and the only labor involved is for loading the containers of powder, lead alloy, etc. no human hand touches anything involved in the actual manufacturing.

All of the .22 rim fire manufacturing companies in the world buy components namely powder, primmer compounds, brass, etc. from the same suppliers DuPont, BASF, NORMA, etc. Mexico doesn’t produce any component included in any AGUILA ammo….

About your statement:
"If I had a choice between something made in Germany as opposed to made in Mexico, than it is no contest. Sure, Germany will cost more"..

While this was probably true in the past, it is no longer applicable and let me explain why: Mercedes Benz, Audi, VW, GM, Toyota (Including Lexus), Ford, Chrysler, Nissan, Renault and other major auto manufacturers (3 are GERMAN) are producing more than 1/3 of their engines in MEXICO (Fully assembled). The companies that are casting the aluminum engine blocks and heads for these companies are ALPEK and NEMAK (Part of the 100% Mexican Alfa group) and next year, PORSCHE will follow....

The FORD pick-up that has been named "Truck of the year" is produced and assembled in Canada, the US and in MEXICO and sold in all of Northamerica.
The US has over 4,000 US factories inside the border with Mexico and over 2,000 inside the country; 100% of the labor is Mexican.

Labor is a matter of quality in the human resources and training no matter where it comes from.

Nowadays with globalization it is very hard to sustain your claim....Remember when Japan products were considered inferior? Japan has copied and improved many products from around the world; Lexus is an improved Mercedes even though I don't like Lexus.

You are absolutely right, it all comes to your gun when talking about ammo, and in my particular case I have had more failures with Remington sub sonic ammo than with anything else, but it could be that my rifles are not striking the rim hard enough and probably like the velocity from FEDERAL, CCI and AGUILA better.

Who knows…What is good for me could be bad for somebody else, but the key thing is to be receptive and open to other shooters experiences without being absolute. I tried AGUILA because I visited the factory while doing consulting, I met ELEY’s technicians who explained to me everything in the process, and what I stated about the quality of this ammo is what I learned from these English technicians added to my shooting testing of several top brands from all over the world.

I will not use Aguila for serious competition because FEDERAL GOLD happens to shoot tighter groups but I will neither use ELEY, RWS, LAPUA, Fiocci or any other USA made ammo either.


Best regards,

azuaro