[For the boring, humor-impaired people: skip to the divider line]

Once, long ago in a forgotten era when Bubbas walked the Earth, there was Calico.

And Calico did bequeath to the world their helical magazine designs. They were not the first to forge such a wonder, but were by far the best known, and their designs didst provide many a futuristic prop for Hollywood. And Calico looked upon it, and it was good.

And the Bubbas did see that which Calico offered them and they said; "that's weird". Yet Bubbas fear not that which is weird -- just look at their SKSes! -- so they experimented with that which Calico had given.

But the Bubbas declared: "It is unreliable garbage!". And they sent messengers far and wide to every gun shop, so that The People would know that the promised capacity was an illusion. But in these times a darkness was soon to fall upon the land.....

For even as Calico struggled mightily with its reputation, a grinning Buffoon came from the South with his wife, a Demon in the form of a Lizard. And they did cast a spell upon the land: preventing any magazine holding more than ten cartridges from being constructed. Under this cloud Calico sunk into obscurity, remembered as only a footnote of a forgotten era.

Attached File


But in the course of time after many years the spell lifted, for even the greatest evils are not forever. And the Bubbas of the previous age became a memory as a new generation known as the Tacticools walked the Earth. While Calico had lived through the dark times, no one remembered this; they only remembered what the messengers from the Bubbas had said. So it continued for a time.

And lo; a Great Prophet came to The People. And with many signs and wonders he taught The People the ancient weapon arts of their forbears, and seeing this The People hailed him as a True Prophet, though a few insisted that he was in league with Evil forces.

And after a season The Prophet showed a greater sign than any other he had given. For he showed The People a vision in the desert of a Calico that was reliable.



The Prophet showed that while the Bubbas had meant well, they were lacking in the magical arts that were needed to use a Calico, namely the ability to read and count.

And after the vision The Prophet told The People of another wonder: for Calico yet lived.

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Early last year I bought a Calico M105 (.22lr rifle model, see the picture upthread) off of gunbroker. The rifle came with two magazines, one of which worked, the other had severe feeding issues due to changes in the feeding geometry over the last 30 years. Additionally the front sight block / muzzle device was loose, not exactly the best attribute for a sight.

Some time before I purchased the rifle I had emailed Calico, partially just to find out if they still existed or if the website was just an abandoned zombie. Turned out that they still exist. More importantly; they were still doing R&D. Listed on the site were .40sw and several other calibers under development. The woman who responded confirmed that .357sig was on the list for after .40sw was complete.

Recently I finally sent in the rifle to get the flaws repaired / updated. Also I ordered another 3 magazines. The rifle got back to me last week, and I got back from the range testing it a few hours ago.

First off; Calico repaired more than I had asked, and without charging for it. The scope rail was replaced and actually works properly now. The handguard was tightened up as well as the sight block. There is a bolt hold open which I'm 80% sure wasn't there before.

The rifle doesn't feed *perfectly* yet. But this is almost certainly due to needing a thorough cleaning: I ran 4 mags today, before the last one I ran a bore snake and it had only a single FTF after that. But even with the few FTFs I got it is now reliable enough to be *fun*. And remember that this is a .22lr; perfect reliability isn't the caliber's forte.

One of the original magazines that came with the rifle came back apparently jammed up. Probably was disassembled and then put back together a little too tight, not a big deal; I just need to talk to Calico.

Also I had to poke them once or twice for updates, but I wouldn't hold that against them at all: 1. they are a tiny company, and 2. I run on Internet Time, which is several times faster than Gunsmith Time.

All in all Calico was very good to deal with. The only real complaint I could raise is that they did not accidentally convert the rifle to select-fire. But sadly there aren't any companies of such enlightened moral standing.

After you have your 10th or 20th AR, maybe try a Calico? They are doing good work, and I want that .357sig Calico rifle which will happen faster if more people buy from them.

To top off the post I have a question for the hivemind: I currently have a cheap red dot on this. I'd like to put a magnified optic on it, probably a prism scope. But it needs to mount as low as possible because of how high the rail is, and it needs to have short eye relief / mount as far forward as possible because when using an optic your cheek weld is on top of the magazine.

Recommendations?

https://calicolightweaponsystems.com/

ps: Calico did not ask me to write this, but I will be sending the links to the threads (also posted on reddit) when I contact them.

Thank you op for an entertaining post on the much maligned calico, bravo

Who can afford to fill one of their magazines nowadays?

Very simple delayed roller-lock blowback gun.  The magazine is not novel.  That was first introduced by the Evans rifle in the 1880s (we had one in our collection in San Franciscograd) or so and then adapted for jet fighters (saw that in one  of the George Chinn The Machine Gun books).  It finally returned to the consumer in the Calico 22 LR rifle.  My only complaint is that the magazine can fall apart if dropped.  Of course, making a metal body one would be cost prohibited.

I visited the factory when it was down in Bakersfield, CA.

That's too many words.

Is the calico back?

What are you doing on a forum if you don't want to read?

The white salamander spoke of these things to come...........

I had a .22 Calico pistol.

Total piece of shit, very glad I got all my money back when I sold it.

I used to own one a long time ago. It was an absolute blast to shoot. Should've never sold it.

Not the original Calico. Same name, different company, though I believe they are supporting the original product designs.

This gun was so cool that I thought it was a fake movie prop until I was like 16.





It's definitely in the "future I was promised but never got." category.

Calico.....Calico.......

Now that's the name that I have not heard in a long time. A long time.

Good story OP.

I think "new" or rather different mag designs (like helical and coffin/quad-stack) are interesting. I would like to see helical mags used in a more practical design like the Bizon though. No interest in the weird ass Calico design.

The P90 has a similar mag placement (yes I know it's not helical) to the Calico, but it's a niche gun and at least it doesn't increase the vertical height of the sights by 5 inches. Of course I have no interest in the P90 unless they re-engineer it to work with 9mm. FN really missed the boat with that one.

I wish someone would bring out a P 80 style kit for the tec 22 scorpion and unfuck the problems they had. Imagine if you will a 10/22  sheetmetal 80% receiver and a P80 80% pistol frame and a 2-4 inch barrel.  It would be like 160% awesome.

Attached File

3d printed tec-9 schematics exist (and part of the reason tecs and tec parts spiked in price)

Has nobody done a tec-22 design yet?

I’ve always wanted one. I remember a gun show around 93 with my dad and he came super close to getting one but didn’t, and I was sad about it.

Would be great if they came back.

If ever a gun desperately needed to be a bull pup it’s Calico.

Flip the magazine feed lips around backwards so the rounds feed from the back of the magazine, move the pistol grip forward and revel in all the glory of what Calico could be.

A 9mm sub gun with 100-150 round capacity with a legal 16” barrel that’s still incredibly compact.  

Make it happen Calico!!!

I always liked the Calico. It is obscure like my Feather AT-22. Sig promised a MPX in 357 Sig, Kriss had literature about a 357 Sig. No one delivers.

THIS IS WHY I COME TO GD.  Bravo Zulu.

Have you considered clamping a longer rail to your rifle, put the red dot further forward & trying a flip off magnifier?



Isn't the TEC-22 just an early 10/22 pistol?

I've thought about buying a calico rifle numerous times, but holy shit were they expensive any time I looked; $100 mags didn't help.

cool.  I shot a buddy’s calico in .22 over twenty years ago.   It ran well.  I don’t rember what quality of ammo it was but it ran like a raped ape.  

We were working on a Tec-22 clone, but other projects have come first.

Luckily we have mine to model it on.

It has a few parts in common with the 10/22, but it's not that close a design.

I regret selling my Calico M100 back in 2002. Bought it new in 1987 for $200 and sold it for $600.
Was a dam good shooter.
I had to disassemble the magazine after every outing and cleaned it with a hard plastic brush to get the wax and grime out keep it feeding reliably.
I never could find a scope that would keep zero for that gun. Open sights were good enough.
I would love to buy another one someday.

I always thought these were cool, but didn't realize they still made them.

Thank you OP

In for pics and more info!

I had a Liberty-100. It was a fun gun. I'd probably buy one again. An SBR with a can would stupid fun.

I thought they had been in production?

They would be a lot more fun if the sights didn't suck so bad and they just have a general feeling of cheapness about them.

That was worth the read for this alone.

"The Prophet showed that while the Bubbas had meant well, they were lacking in the magical arts that were needed to use a Calico, namely the ability to read and count."

I had one of the 9mm pistols for a while. One of my coworkers was having some problems and I bought it just to help him out. I had never heard of or seen one before buying it. It was sort of cool in a way and reasonably accurate but loading the mags was a bit of a pain and it was really heavy with a loaded mag. Sold it pretty quickly.