Kalibrgun The Cricket Carbine, or There & Back Again

My favorite misfit from the land of bullpups (eastern/central EU) is the Cricket Carbine. Have spilled enough virtual ink here & elsewhere on the net explaining why, so will keep it simple here: more than any other rifle - air or powder - it just fits me. Saw a while back that @Georgia Airguns had some left in .25, at a reduced price. Life got in the way for several months, but finally settled down a bit... figured now was the time, as they probably won't be available much longer. Mr. Frear did the voodoo that he do on one & sent it my way.

Very little wind late yesterday afternoon, so pellet testing was on. The test target Charlie sent with the gun showed FX/JSB 25.4 & JSB 33.9 MKII shooting very well at 40 yards, with JSB Hades also showing perfectly acceptable hunting accuracy. Tested 5 kinds of pellets (FX & JSB 25.4 = same thing different wrappers). Apparently this barrel will shoot well with anything pellet shaped & .25 caliber. The biggest group, at a lasered 100 yards, was barely over an inch & a half. Will let the picture tell the rest; as the late, great Paul Harrell would say- you be the judge.

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Been doing this long enough to know that one five shot group is only the foreward, not the book. That said, it’s clear this one is a shooter! Two manufacturers, two lead alloys, three weights, and four shapes... dang.

Side notes:
  • This is my first rifle of ~half dozen that has shot any of the AEA/JTS offerings worth a hoot. Almost didn’t order any due to previous poor results, but glad I did. Don’t’ get me wrong, the others in .177, .22, & .30 had great weight/head size consistency, it just didn’t translate on targets. Rifle barrels being rifle barrels, no talking them into it with statistics.
  • 25.4 pellets were moving at ~950 fps, & the 33.9 at ~845. Didn't chrony the AEA 29.5.
  • All shooting done with JB3D single shot loader, clever design that works well.
For the immediate future, going with JSB KH MKII. Taking it to a UFT match this weekend, not sure I can get dope & still have enough of the AEA 33.9 to complete a 60-shot match (only bought one 150 count tin). Or that I could get more before then. After this weekend, will do a more thorough shootout among the three heavy pellets before stocking up on the winner.

Obligatory eye candy photo of the rifle below, with SFWA SS 12x scope & Warne medium rings.

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Terrific and congrats. I have one of Charlie's .22 Cricket Longs that I have written about on this forum before. It is one of the five of 22 that I kept.
Have seen your posts, & that one's a shooter too! Believe it's the same barrelled action as the carbine, just in a bullpup stock?
Charlie has mentioned to me that while all the Kalibr barrels he works with are good, the "lottery winners" tend to be the carbine/long.
 
More data now available (geez I spend too much time around engineers), and still looking good! Worked on dope out to 100 & feel pretty confident with it. Actual results match very well with Strelok when using a BC (G1) of 0.060.

Had some air in the tank, so popped some more 100 yard groups with the AEA 33.9 pellets. As expected, they didn't match that 1st group- unlikely that I'm capable of regularly producing 0.69" groups regardless of the rifle & ammo. But still, by my standards, awesome results. Wind was again a non-factor.

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