Aguila Ammunition – the Aguila Family Firearm Collection

If you make ammunition, it stands to reason that you’d have some firearms on hand to shoot them. Like many ammunition factories around the world, Aguila Ammunition has a test firing facility to check for function and accuracy—unfortunately, the exact “firearm” they typically use is about as sexy as a rifled pipe barrel. However, there are also other firearms on site. There is an extensive family collection, as well as arms for security personnel and federal law enforcement that aren’t commonly found in an average home, in Mexico or elsewhere.

A portion of the family collection is on display at the main factory. They range from the mundane (an assortment of Remingtons, which given the history of Aguila is completely unsurprising) to the exotic (Micro Uzi) to the out of place (Raven .25ACP). There was even a Calico rifle which in true 1980s fashion sported a laser sight roughly the size of a VCR. It wouldn’t have been out of place in any movie starring Kurt Russell or Sylvester Stallone.

I had an opportunity to shoot some Aguila weapons on the private factory range, which is dubbed ‘the soccer field’ because it’s literally adjacent to a soccer field in the complex. The ones I fired were decidedly more modern. Virtually all of the rifles and subguns were select-fire since many of them are utilized for security purposes. Like the family collection of firearms on display, there was a wide array.

Subguns included the venerable MP5, the CZ Scorpion EVO 3 A1 (no, not the outdated Vz 61 in .32ACP), and the Mendoza HM-3. If you’ve never seen a Mendoza before, imagine that an Uzi and a grease gun had a weird baby while vacationing in Mexico. If you can do that you’ve got the exact image of how it looks and operates. That picture is credited to Tim of the Military Arms Channel because he turned out to have more skill with his iPhone than I did with a Nikon (no surprise there). Of these three, by far my favorite was the CZ. It was very easy to control despite the ROF, which subjectively feels about 30% less than it actually is.

Of course they had select-fire carbines as well, including the Colt M4, DSA FAL, Tavor, FS2000, and Galil ACE 21. I’ll say outright that the Colt didn’t see much love. The Galil ACE 21 is basically an upgraded Micro Galil. It wears an 8.5” barrel, an ambidextrous selector (with the right side selector severely truncated), a longer sight radius and a left side charging handle. Like the Micro Galil it suffers from a heavier recoil than its direct impingement brethren due to the large carrier mass. Also like the Micro Galil, it is absolutely fun to shoot. Practical? Well, maybe with the right ammunition.

Stayed tuned for more from the RECOIL adventure South of the border.

You can find Aguila Ammunition online at http://www.aguilaammo.com/. They're also on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/aguilaammo.