Through the recent 22LR drought and the slow road to recovery, many folks have been happy when they can get their hands on a few boxes of bullets to feed their rimfire plinking activities. American rimfire plants have been running at full capacity, night and day, cranking out millions of rounds every day, but to help fill in the gaps made by the desires of the masses some have been looking to non-U.S. sources for product to put on the shelves.

Enter the Raptor.

    Raptor is a relatively new offering of 22LR made by CI of Mexico and imported by Raptor Manufacturing. For more information about CI (no, not CCI) and Raptor Manufacturing see the footnote, “Who is CI?” and “Who is Raptor Manufacturing?”

    To evaluate Raptor’s performance I put it up against a couple other commonly found rounds of the same ilk: Aguila (Mexico) SuperExtra High Velocity and CCI Mini Mag CPRN. The Raptor, Aguila, and CCI are all 40-grain round nose, copper washed, and high velocity.

Initial impressions

    Raptor comes in 50-round paper boxes with the rounds stacked in a paper tray in an alternating up/down fashion. If you have used Remington Thunderbolts in the 50-round box you will be familiar with the packaging style.

    I found the paper trays with no separator to be a bit less convenient than the plastic trays with individual holes used by most other 50-round box offerings, mostly for not being able to keep track of the number of rounds left in the box at a quick glance. For those that usually buy bulk boxes this won’t be an issue.

    A visual inspection shows the Raptor bullets have a rounded shape very similar to the Aguila, whereas the CCI has more of a rounded point. Ballistic coefficient for the Aguila is listed at 0.139, BC for the CCI is 0.130, and I could not find the Raptor (or any CI ammo) listed anywhere but I’m guessing it’s about the same as the Aguila.

    Looking at the bullets themselves, the Raptor has lots of dents and dings, presumably from the manufacturing process. Comparatively, the Aguila has a little less visible damage and the CCI was very smooth and nearly dent-free. The Raptor has no visible lubrication to speak of, although many other similarly copper-washed ammunition doesn’t use much lubrication (if any).

    The Raptor box states “Super Fast - 1190 fps”. Super fast? To put this into perspective, the CCI Mini Mag is listed at 1235 fps and the Aguila at 1255 fps. There are others that run into the 1300 and 1600 fps areas, and I’ve shot Aguila SuperMaximum (30 grain) listed at 1700 fps. Perhaps it’s a translation issue and what they really mean is “high velocity”?

Equipment

    I shot groups with two rifles, my Ruger 10/22 and a borrowed CZ-452. The 10/22 is mostly stock but with a floated barrel, re-chambered and re-crowned by “Que”, a three-pound trigger job by Brimstone, and a Weaver V-16 scope. The CZ is a 452 Silhouette with a 10 ounce trigger and the same V-16 scope.

    All shots were off concrete benches with Caldwell bags. Target analysis was done with OnTarget TDS software.

Procedure

    Testing was done over two weekend sessions with weather in the low to mid 80’s and very little wind. All ammo testing started with 10 to 20 shots for sighting in and barrel warm-up before shooting for groups.

    I had some complications in testing with both rifles at the same distances because of a range group event on the second weekend. I shot the 50 yard and some 100 yard targets with the 10/22, and the 75 yard and some 100 yard targets with the CZ.

Results

50 yards - 10/22 only.

    After 20 sighter/warm-up shots, one shot at each bull with 12 bulls per sheet. The first picture is the original, the second is the same with the measurements (point-of-aim to center of shot).

Raptor: average distance: 0.628”; combined group size 1.56” (2.979 MOA). Ignore the black dots 1/2” to the right of each shot.

Aguila: average distance 0.371”; combined group size 1.8” (3.4 MOA)

CCI: average distance .502” combined group size 1.442” (2.754 MOA)

75 yards - CZ-452 only.

    After 10 sighter/warm-up shots, three five-shot groups followed by a ten-shot group.

Raptor: average group size 1.39” (1.77 MOA)

Aguila: average group size 1.065” (1.357 MOA)

CCI: average group size 1.258” (1.602 MOA)

100 yards - first two targets with the 10/22, the third with the CZ.

    Ten sighter/warm-up shots then ten-shot groups.

Raptor: average group size 2.803” (2.678 MOA)

Aguila: average group size 2.313” (2.209 MOA)

CCI: average group size 2.989” (2.854 MOA)

Here are the results of all the targets combined and averaged:

                                                     Raptor: 1.918”  (2.476 MOA)

                                                      Aguila: 1.726”  (2.322 MOA)

                                                         CCI : 1.896”  (2.403 MOA)

    As you can see the Raptor was almost as good as the Mini Mags and not far behind the Aguila, however target scores don’t tell the whole story…

Reliability

    Out of 200 rounds of Raptor fired during the test I had two rounds that didn’t fire first shot, both while using the 10/22. One round fired on the second try, the other took two more tries for it to finally fire. I had no failures with either the Aguila or CCI.

Price

    Unless you are a sponsored shooter or a top performing Olympic athlete, the price-to-performance ratio of ammo is always an issue. Getting the accuracy you want at a price you are willing to pay is a tricky decision we all have to make. This is where the rubber really meets the road for many of us.

    I purchased both the Aguila and the CCI from my local Academy Sports (a large sporting goods chain commonly found down here in the south). My purchase price for the Aguila was $4.50 a box and the CCI was $8.00 per 100-round box ($4.00 per 50).

    The business that provided the Raptor for this test, Munire USA, sells Raptor for $4.73 a box, and as of the writing of this article they have a large quantity available.

Conclusions

    In the two rifles tested the Raptor shot basically as good as the Mini Mags and almost as good as the Aguila, however, it cost a little bit more than the other two and had a 1% failure rate. Is Raptor worth it? That’s for you to decide.

    Remember, every gun is different and most like some ammo better than others. It would be best to take this review as a small sample of what you might experience with the Raptor and make your own discoveries from there.

Good shooting everyone!

- Allen Corneau, Houston, TX.

- Footnote -

Who is “CI” anyway?

  

    According to my research, “CI” is Cascade Cartridge International (or “Internacional" in Spanish) which was set up by Cascade Cartridge Incorporated (CCI) in 1959 to make rimfire ammo south of the border. More recently, CI has started to supply 22LR to the American market via the high velocity camo-box, standard velocity blue-box, “American Precision” brand for Precision Ammunition, and a few others.

    When I asked a “CCI Expert” via their website to comment on their past and/or present relationship with CI of Mexico I received this one-line response:

“Allen, we have no association with this company.”

Who is RM Manufacturing?

    I could not find nearly any information on them, but it turns out “Raptor Manufacturing LLC” was registered in Wyoming in May, 2014 with the mailing address tracking back to a San Diego law firm. It’s possible this is an on-paper-only company set up simply to import the CI ammo (although I can’t say for sure).