The Rimfire Report: The Franklin Armory Binary Equipped F22 Pistol

Two weeks ago, on The Rimfire Report, we took a pre-range look at the new Binary-Equipped Franklin Armory F-22 pistol. From the list of specifications and features, I concluded that this particular entry into the firearms market was meant specifically for those who are frustrated with 10/22 builds that aren’t capitalizing on the fun you can have with the  Franklin BFS III 22-C1 Binary Trigger. Over the last two weeks, I’ve had a couple of range trips with the new binary-equipped pistol, and today we’ll be going over what I’ve observed through about 1,500 rounds of mixed .22LR ammunition.

More Rimfire Report @ TFB :

• The Rimfire Report: Franklin’s Binary-Equipped F22 Pistol - First Look
• The Rimfire Report: Federal Champion 22WMR 40gr FMJ - Tested
• The Rimfire Report: Hornady 17 gr VMAX 17 HMR by the Numbers

The Rimfire Report: The Binary Equipped Franklin F22 Pistol - 1500 Rounds Later

For testing, I used a very limited set of magazines, including one included Ruger BX-1 magazine, and three of my own Ruger BX-15 magazines. While I used to have a healthy supply of BX-25 magazines, I eventually broke or sold all of them due to their general lack of reliability compared to BX-15’s and BX-1 magazines. If I knew of a good, reliable 50-round drum, I would probably buy one in advance of receiving the F22, but alas, the BX-15s are what we’ll mostly be working with to test out the pistol. Other than the magazines and optic, the only other “modification” to the firearm is the inclusion of a Fletcher Rifle Works Taquito suppressor.

Operating the Binary Trigger

Part of the draw of the Binary system for some people is its neat fire selector system that can safely transition between safe, semi, and binary modes even after a binary cycle has already been started. Unlike Super Safeties and Forced Reset Devices, the BFS III 22-C1 is extremely controllable, allowing you to let off a single round upon either stroke of the trigger. The “speed” at which the system operates is largely dependent on how fast you and your semi-automatic trigger finger can pull and release the trigger, provided you don’t outrun the gun itself and its working. The Semi-Auto function, while it does exist, isn’t anything to write home about and is both spongy and heavy compared to any other 10/22 rimfire trigger - still useable though.

Shooting in Binary Mode

The fun begins with the binary mode - if you can get it to work. Part of my original frustration with installing one of these myself, and putting it in my own 10/22, was that the performance was largely inconsistent and typically required a completely clean gun and a large amount of luck and would only function with the hottest rimfire ammo available (typically CCI mini mags) and only with specific magazines. This problem seems to at least be mostly solved by the dedication assemblage of parts that is the Binary-Equipped F22.

Rounds 0 - 500, Near Flawless With the Right Ammo

The first magazine from the gun, using some cheap bulk-priced Aguila Super Extra 40-grain, went perfectly. All 15 rounds from the pistol fired off one after the other with a nice arc of brass that followed. If you’ve tried a binary trigger, I think you’ll agree that both the operation of the trigger and its recoil impulse are sort of confusing at first. However, I’ve shot the BFS III plenty of times, and in my experience, you really shouldn’t overthink it. If you want the gun to go fast, just pull and let the trigger go fast. It does somewhat help if you have a “loose” grip on the gun that allows your trigger finger to more easily release the trigger for the binary shot, but it’s not required, and you can get some pretty insane rates of fire by just pulling and releasing the trigger quickly.

Sadly, our success with the Aguila bulk ammo only lasted so long. After about 6 magazines of the Aguila Super Extra (90 rounds), the gun started to develop some feeding issues, leading to failures to fire and a dead trigger. I tried fighting through the remainder of my tin of ammo, but it eventually just got too frustrating, and so I chose to switch to the one other bulk rimfire ammunition I had brought - Federal Automatch. I ran the remainder of my 325-round Automatch bulk pack and then finished off the first day with two sleeves of 40-grain CCI Mini-Mags just to make sure my favorite rimfire ammo still worked in the binary system.

Rounds 500 - ~1,100

Federal Automatch has been one of the best bulk 22LR ammos I’ve reviewed on TFB, and it didn’t disappoint when paired with the Binary F22 Pistol. With Federal Automatch, the pistol instantly started to fully function in Binary mode like normal, and as a result, I was able to keep a steady pace of fire for a higher round count test. Aside from the time it took loading the magazines, the test went so quickly that I ran out of Automatch (325 rounds) and chose to call it a day there.

Over the next few range trips, I brought a broader selection of ammunition and had pretty mixed results with everything but CCI Mini Mags and Federal Champion. I did notice that the binary equipped pistol tended to fare a little better with 36-grain high velocity ammo types like Remington Golden Hunter, over the heavier 40-grain stuff like CCI Standard, the exception to this observation was, of course, Mini-Mags, which did great in both forms. I typically only have 50 rounds or so of some of the weirder types of 22LR, but each 50-round box quickly added up to bring our round count to slightly over 1,000 rounds with a few magazines of Automatch here and there when we started running into issues.

The Last 400

Your mileage with all of these different types of ammo may vary, but at least for me, the savior of the day was Federal Automatch/Champion, which delivered near flawless performance until about the 1,100 round mark when the entire system started to run into cycling problems of all types - not just chambering rounds. I was able to eek out another 400 rounds of Automatch after quickly wiping down the bolt and breech face, but the original reliability just wasn’t there anymore - a deep cleaning was in order.

The F22 has demonstrated to me that while it still is quite picky when it comes to the type of ammo it’ll reliably run with, it did seem to eliminate the need to use only one specific magazine that it played nice with, or only one ammo even. While 1,500 rounds down the pipe without a proper cleaning is a disaster for any rimfire gun, I think this specific test proved that the gun is capable of running even when fouled, which is a huge improvement over my last test with the 22-C1. With all that being said, I think a typical range session with the binary F-22 would consist of one bulk 500-round box of ammo, and after that, you should probably give the gun a good scrub down if you want to have the same experience next time.