.22 Cricket – Standard

After dragging my feet for 6 months I finally got a Standard .22 Cricket from Dima. I liked his prices – $1600 vs the $1850 charged by the two shops in Arizona. I found Dima quick to respond to my e-mails and he shipped the gun the day after I wired the money. He even triple boxed the gun! The only downside is that my gun is one with the colored pressure gage, S/N 246.

I put a Hawke 6-24X50 scope on it using some really great rings that Fast & Dangerous pointed me to (SWFA SS-Tac 30mm) and got to shoot it a bit this weekend, putting 200 pellets through it. Holy smokes the Cricket is accurate! Crazy accurate at 115′, and I was shooting a dime sized pattern at 50 yards without trying too hard. I sold a FX Royale 400 to get it and I already know I won’t miss the Royale a bit.

Likes – Size, weight (until I put a honking big scope on it), accuracy, and its pretty darn quiet.
Dislikes – Colored pressure gage, funky fill system (it’s Ok but should be a foster fitting), and loading the magazine into the gun takes some getting use to.

I also noticed that when I’m shooting with my cheek on the cheek weld there is a bit of a metallic buzz sound that you don’t hear if you just hold the gun at the hip and shoot it. I assume it’s coming from the hammer spring. It sounds more like a staple gun than a air gun when your ear is next to it. Maybe that will die down a bit as it breaks in. Anyone anyone else notice that?

The numbers – My Cricket seems to be a little under powered compared to some of the other numbers posted, but I’ll wait until I get a bunch of pellets through it before tinkering with it. And it is so accurate now I might just leave it. Here are the numbers for five 14 shot strings using JSB 18’s and starting at a 220 bar fill:

#1 – High – 848, Low – 837, ES – 11, Average 844
#2 – High – 846, Low – 837, ES – 9, Average 814
#3 – High – 845, Low – 839, ES – 6, Average 841
#4 – High – 844, Low – 836, ES – 8, Average 840
#5 – High – 841, Low – 826, ES – 15, Average 836

#1-837, 39, 43, 44, 42, 46, 48, 45, 43, 46, 45, 44, 46, 48. #2- 837, 41, 28, 43, 46, 42, 43, 45, 42, 40, (4 shots didn’t record from the 2nd mag and one shot from the 3rd) #3- 840, 39, 39, 41, 42, 42, 41, 42, 43, 40, 40, 42, 43. #4- 840, 41, 39, 37, 41, 43, 42, 41, 44, 40, 43, 40, 39, 36. #5- 826, 30, 33, 35, 36, 38, 36, 41, 36, 40, 40, 37, 38, 36.

I might add a bipod soon but I need to go back through previous posts to see what people are using on the Cricket… does anyone have one to recommend? I’m also curious if JSB 15.9’s shoot as well as the 18’s. If so I might get some.

Cheers,

dwm