I own a .22 250z and a .22 Macavity, and I have written a lot about both, with a lot of pictures, on this website and on Hard Air Magazine's. My opinion of them is this, they are not comparable to each other. In other words, a person that wants one, would not automatically want the other one. The Barra does not come in .30, so if you want a .30 just stop reading right here, get the Macavity.
If you're still reading, I'll try to make this short. First off, the Macavity is a much more refined gun. It feels like quality. The maching is beautiful, the cocking is outstanding. You wouldn't be wrong to think that it cost twice as much as the Barra. The bad points of this gun is the stock is flimsy up front where the Picatinny rail is molded in. It is really the only cheapish thing on the gun itself. The plastic magazines are a little delicate too, but work well, although they don't have a last shot stop, which I'd like to have. They make nicer finished metal version magazines, but don't give them with the gun, which is crazy to me. The other bad thing is that the way the buffer tube goes into the stock you can not use a folding stock adapter with the gun. The trigger group is in a plastic assembly but works well. It can take aftermarket mil-spec butt stocks and AR grips but the screw for the grip is not the standard AR size it is a 10-32. The regulator is a nice unit, but you will have to take the gun apart to adjust it. This gun takes down really well, very easy to work on anyway. I think, unless you use the front Picatinny rail and a bipod a lot, the Macavity is a much nicer gun once you get it adjusted to where you want, and get some of the metal magazines. I was shooting mine with two guys that had BRK Saharas and we all agreed the cocking was smoother on the Macavity, it's that good, in that regard, certainly not the stock though, the BRK rocks with that and it's magazines, and everything else, but then again it should. I'm just saying, for the money, it feels better than anything else I have held in the sub-$500 range.
My Barra came uninspected and very messed up. Other's have come perfect so I am going to skip all of my details here. Barra customer service does try, and are getting better. The gun itself has the same problem as the Macavity in that you can not use a folding stock adapter because the threading is not mil-spec. Which is crazy not to have come with a folding stock, with a gun this long. The picatinny rail is split where the magazine goes, and is not contiguous to mil-spec spacing. So you can't swap around scopes from other guns because the spacing is different. Just plain stupid. If you use the single shot tray and the bolt is all the way back, a pellet can fall down inside of the trigger assembly so you have to be careful. The trigger actually adjusts to be very good, but the safety often won't work after. This is an easy fix if you have the problem but I don't want to get sued so I'll let you all figure it out. Now, even with all the problems I just listed, I really like this gun. The way they did the air cylinder is much simpler than the FX design, and limited (yes) as a result, but I like simple. There is a video out now where Northeastbeast (over at HAM) takes it apart completely and puts it completely back together in 25 minutes. A very nice design. The external regulator adjustment works well and has not creeped at all. It does one up the FX on it's air cylinder being 7075 aluminum instead of what they use, which is 6061. This allows for a 250bar fill for 322cc of air. FX only fills to 230bar unless you get the carbonfiber cylinder. A win for the cheap seats for once. The bolt works well, and looks good on this gun, but I do like sidelevers better. The magazines are metal and are very good, zero complaints with those, and extras are already available and cheap. I'm not big on having to take the gun out of the stock, or the buffer tube off, to adjust the hammer spring, but you don't do that all the time either. Shooting it, there is no ping at all, and yes, w/o a moderator on the end it's loud. This gun in .22 does 50fpe at the top end fairly easily with 25gr slugs. I haven't had the weather to shoot the past month to decide which slugs to run with. It is hard to explain why, with all the problems, and design issues, that I, and others, had, still like this gun so much, but I do. Weird.
Between the Macavity and the Barra, I think that someone just showing up to a range and shooting and handling finished tuned guns, 8 out of 10 would go with the Macavity. The Barra is very long, much harder to take places, and to shoot offhand. I have the short MA2 and I never turned the power all the way up, but I got to 45fpe easily by mistake, so I know the longer version would be able to turn up to the same level as the Barra. The porting on the Macavity is generous, more so, it seems to me, than the Barra. The Barra is cool in a sniper bolt action way that is appealing because it's a new (to most) design, but not as quality feeling as the MA2. A lot of people have gotten great accuracy easily out of the Barra where getting the accuracy out of the Macavity is harder. I think that despite the obvious, easily adjustable external regulator, longer, heavier guns are easier to shoot well. I did get my MA2 to shoot great, but it took a while and I'm not changing it now.
I actually tried to keep it short. I wrote plenty more on the MA2 on this website, and a whole lot more on the Barra over at the HAM website.
