Tuning Barrel holding device for Daystate Aplha & Delta Wolf PICS

[mubhaur]

After a lot of work on shroud, silencer, barrel polishing etc. I concluded that the barrel is not holding point of Impact.

Just like FX Impact, this Daystate's barrel is also locked by one grub screw at the rear end. While only the O rings are providing support to the rest of the barrel which is not enough to hold the POI.

Finally made the following device to hold the barrel firmly at the point from where the barrel comes out of the action.

Such solution might help others too but it's a costly work.

Umair Bhaur

 

[SpiralGroove]

- Looks like a very time consuming modification .

Given your experience with RAW's, to what degree do they have the same POI issue?

 

[mubhaur]

- Looks like a very time consuming modification .

Given your experience with RAW's, to what degree do they have the same POI issue?

I never faced POI shift issues with RAW except with the change of weather which is logical.

This specific Alpha Wolf .22 HP is crazy in changing POI.

That is why so detailed holder has been made otherwise this extremely costly gun is useless.

Daystate must provide some such parts which could address this issue.

They should just need to know the serial number and send the part all over the world.

FX has helped many times if their products misbehaves.

This is one of the reasons I always keep FX guns alongwith my RAW guns.

Bhaur

 

[SpiralGroove]

Does the Alpha Wolf share this similarity with any other Daystate designs?

 

[mubhaur]

Got the parts arrangement fitted. It holds the barrel very effectively.

But the shifting of POI is still there.

Looks like a bad barrel.

Now before installing a new barrel, I shall try removing a few mm from the barrel muzzle and then re crown it.

A bit less choke or no choke might fix the issue if the main culprit is barrel.

 

[ctshooter]

One would expect the BRK Ghost would have the same issues too, no? It's the same single set screw and barrel support as few as I can see.

 

[Centercut]

Scott Hull @Scotchmo did something similar late last year and also worked with Daystate engineers a bit. He can chime in with more info if he desires.

https://www.airgunnation.com/threads/daystate-delta-wolf-22-hp-poi-shift.1292788/#post-1524620

 

[Franklink]

One would expect the BRK Ghost would have the same issues too, no? It's the same single set screw and barrel support as few as I can see.

Ghost has the same system of a single set screw. The set screw isn't what's maintaining (or not) the point of impact though, but rather the three frame orings. The set screw is just keeping the barrel from sliding out of the frame (and to a lesser extent, keeping the barrel from rotating). And on that thought, those orings hold it securely enough that the barrel has to be pulled out of the frame, ie even gravity isn't strong enough to dislodge it if tipped muzzle-downward with set screw removed.

A little story here from my Ghost experience.....
I collected dope for the 19.9fpe .20 Ghost in the week leading up to April 26th and then printed that dope sheet and taped it to the bottle on the 26th. Since then I've used that dope to shoot a 49/52 @ the Duncan AZ FT match in May, a 50/52 at the FT match near Luna, NM in June, a 45/48 at a FT match near Flagstaff, AZ also in June, and just yesterday, a 58/60 back over in NM at another field target match. I've used the dope data from April 26th in all of those mathes. And I've not changed my scope zero since April 26th.

In fact, last week I pulled the barrel from the gun and removed the shroud so that I could give the barrel a thorough cleaning after all the .20 slug testing. Put it back together and scope zero was right where it has been prior.

So, I've seen a couple guys comment about wandering poi with the Alpha/Delta/Ghost barrel fixing method, and I can believe that theyve experienced that with their guns, BUT, the Ghost that I've taken nearly 10,000 shots from at this point, has not demonstrated any issues of a wandering poi, and that's across three different barrels (.177, .20, and .22).

I was told that the Ghost has a high durometer specification for those three barrel locating orings. A # wasn't given but I'd guess it's 90d. Perhaps the review Ghost I've been working with has the harder D orings than the guns being reported as problematic.

I'm also not seeing the recommended gap (in OPs photos) between end of shroud and frame of gun that was recommended to me. And so maybe there's some temp shift issues he's seeing that I'm not.

Any further guesses as to what's causing the shifting issues for the OP would just be additional conjecture. However, it is a cold hard fact that the review Ghost I've been shooting for nearly a year now does not suffer from that problem.

 

[elh0102]

Sometimes we seek problems where they don't exist. Most air rifles are relatively fragile things when compared to their firearm counterparts. So many things can contribute to a changing POI that it almost defies analysis. If one is hunting with an air rifle in varying conditions, then a changing POI can be a problem, and not always easily cured. If target shooting, shoot your sighters and make any required changes, no big deal. As I see it, air rifles are not rock-solid instruments that can be relied upon to be totally consistent day to day. O rings, springs, air pressure, valves, etc., it is a system that begs for problems. Enjoy or curse it a day at the time, it ain't perfect, but it's fun.

 

[mubhaur]

A bit of success. Removed the barrel and looked into it minutely. The grooves start from a distance from the entry point of barrel.

Further the grooves do not start gradually. Grooves start suddenly and the pellet faces a hit at the start of grooves.

Not acceptable to me.

Previously I had pushed .22 25 grain redesigned pellet through the barrel and I felt no issues.

Today I thought that pushing the slug will give better insight.

I pushed .216 light weight slug. It was very tight all the way and extremely tight at the choke.

When the slug came out it was scratched and a bit of lead removed.

This reinforced my feeling about the barrel.

I started work on the barrel. From the breach end polished to the extent that sudden Edge of starting the grooves smoothed out. It was still visible but not aggressive at all after some hard work.

Then further polished the barrel all the way.

After all this cleaned the barrel and pushed the similar .216 slug.

This time very nice soft grooves appeared on the slug.

Then I pushed .217 slug and it also came out nice without any symptoms of scratching of lead.

Then pushed .22 25 grain redesigned pellet. It was easy all the way until choke.

Came out in nice shape.

Then installed the barrel and barrel holding clamp.

Shot some groups at 24 yards. After 5 shots it got settled.

Accuracy has been improved very noticeably. Flyers reduced to great extent.

One thing is strange that at the same settings where .22 25 grain redesigned were previously giving 950fps, now they are giving 925fps.

To me it looks like that now as the barrel is comfortable for the pellet, and not that tight, the pellet exits the barrel before achieving full fps.

May be longer barrel or heavier pellets would squeeze out full power potential.

Please discuss all this and opine on what I did and its after effects.

Regards,

Bhaur

 

[Tricky-Dicky]

A bit of success. Removed the barrel and looked into it minutely. The grooves start from a distance from the entry point of barrel.

Further the grooves do not start gradually. Grooves start suddenly and the pellet faces a hit at the start of grooves.

Not acceptable to me.

Previously I had pushed .22 25 grain redesigned pellet through the barrel and I felt no issues.

Today I thought that pushing the slug will give better insight.

I pushed .216 light weight slug. It was very tight all the way and extremely tight at the choke.

When the slug came out it was scratched and a bit of lead removed.

This reinforced my feeling about the barrel.

I started work on the barrel. From the breach end polished to the extent that sudden Edge of starting the grooves smoothed out. It was still visible but not aggressive at all after some hard work.

Then further polished the barrel all the way.

After all this cleaned the barrel and pushed the similar .216 slug.

This time very nice soft grooves appeared on the slug.

Then I pushed .217 slug and it also came out nice without any symptoms of scratching of lead.

Then pushed .22 25 grain redesigned pellet. It was easy all the way until choke.

Came out in nice shape.

Then installed the barrel and barrel holding clamp.

Shot some groups at 24 yards. After 5 shots it got settled.

Accuracy has been improved very noticeably. Flyers reduced to great extent.

One thing is strange that at the same settings where .22 25 grain redesigned were previously giving 950fps, now they are giving 925fps.

To me it looks like that now as the barrel is comfortable for the pellet, and not that tight, the pellet exits the barrel before achieving full fps.

May be longer barrel or heavier pellets would squeeze out full power potential.

Please discuss all this and opine on what I did and its after effects.

Regards,

Bhaur

I have followed you YouTube video about the Alpha Wolf barrel clamp idea, as I have had a bad time with my AW the first of which went back, but I have persevered with this one which also has accuracy problems, and I have just found this post and agree about the barrel, I did some careful measurement after pushing a few pellets down the Barrell and also found that the rifling starts too far down the barrel and I found that with the std .177 probe which is a hollow design it only pushes the head of the pellet into the rifling leaving the skirt un - engaged which to me says it's going to expand before engaging the rifling which IMO is not ideal and thought this might be a contributing factor in my accuracy problems.

So I set about trying to rectify this and came up with making a longer pin probe that actually used the full pellet into the rifling, however this did not cure my accuracy issues, the barrel has a tight spot just after the breech and the choke is also quite tight, the odd thing is some pellets seem to like this and others not,
Anyway I have polished the barrel several times now and also re crowned, and it's slowly starting to group the pellets it's not good with somewhat better, I am in the UK so it's sub 12, and I have also reduced the volume of the plenum which is way too big for sub 12 along with reducing the reg pressure to 80bar which seems to work well, I still have some accuracy issues but its getting better.

One thing I have done after seeing your YouTube video is to make a close-fitting delrin sleeve that grips the barrel and is a tight fit in the front picattiny rail with a view to adding grub screws later if needed, so far so good I will keep you posted, I would send you a PM, but it appears you don't have this option available.


Probes!

 

[mubhaur]

I have followed you YouTube video about the Alpha Wolf barrel clamp idea, as I have had a bad time with my AW the first of which went back, but I have persevered with this one which also has accuracy problems, and I have just found this post and agree about the barrel, I did some careful measurement after pushing a few pellets down the Barrell and also found that the rifling starts too far down the barrel and I found that with the std .177 probe which is a hollow design it only pushes the head of the pellet into the rifling leaving the skirt un - engaged which to me says it's going to expand before engaging the rifling which IMO is not ideal and thought this might be a contributing factor in my accuracy problems.

So I set about trying to rectify this and came up with making a longer pin probe that actually used the full pellet into the rifling, however this did not cure my accuracy issues, the barrel has a tight spot just after the breech and the choke is also quite tight, the odd thing is some pellets seem to like this and others not,
Anyway I have polished the barrel several times now and also re crowned, and it's slowly starting to group the pellets it's not good with somewhat better, I am in the UK so it's sub 12, and I have also reduced the volume of the plenum which is way too big for sub 12 along with reducing the reg pressure to 80bar which seems to work well, I still have some accuracy issues but its getting better.

One thing I have done after seeing your YouTube video is to make a close-fitting delrin sleeve that grips the barrel and is a tight fit in the front picattiny rail with a view to adding grub screws later if needed, so far so good I will keep you posted, I would send you a PM, but it appears you don't have this option available.


Probes!

Thank you for liking my video. I am happy that through this forum we can help each other.

I have found that some of the barrels of AW and DW are not good.

Sometimes not curable.

I can suggest you to try to remove the tight spot at just after the breach. Arrange some polishing paste and tools and give the barrel a nice tappered polish. I hope it will improve the accuracy.

If all else fails, install an FX liner properly glued with some 15mm out dia shell.

FX makes great liners and can be converted into great barrels, once converted into solid barrel.

I hope it will be helpful.

 

[Tricky-Dicky]

I have just found that Daystate themselves make a barrel stay for the A/D Wolf, so obviously they kind of admit a problem exists.

Alpha Wolf / Delta Wolf Barrel Clamp - Daystate

Provides additional anti-vibration support for High Power models. Can also be fitted to 17” barrel models.

daystate.com

 

[Corvid_hunter]

They're becoming more like FX every day.

 

[NRPy]

That’s pretty cool. I wonder if it makes any difference?

 

[mubhaur]

I had made a barrel holder for Delta Wolf and it made day and night difference

 

[NRPy]

When you say “day and night” difference, was it just minimized POI shift, or did it tighten groups (or both)?

 

[spinj]

A method I employ when trying to determine if barrel position/movement might be the physical cause of a POI shift is mounting a laser on the barrel then adjusting the laser dot so that it superimposes the crosshairs of the scope, then I torque, twist, bump, carress (), or even stare hard at the barrel and see if the position of the dot changes.

The BRK Ghost and Daystate Alpha and Delta Wolves do not need the barrel clamp. If there is any POI shift from any of these rifles, if all else have been ruled out, change the front-end barrel-retaining O-ring for a tighter one.

 

[Stone02]

@spinj
So, from 14.5x3 to 14x3.5 ?

 

[spinj]

@spinj
So, from 14.5x3 to 14x3.5 ?

I’m not sure of the size, but as long as the outer diameter is the same but that the O-ring has a very slightly thicker body (thus, a slighly smaller internal diameter). Or, you could change it for one with the same dimensions but of a harder compound such as Viton.

What I did was take the original O-ring to my local Ace Hardware and used it as a reference to choose one that was just a tiny bit thicker but had the same outer diameter. Knowing that the hole would be too tight for the barrel to slide into, I used a dremel to shave off some rubber in a radial motion on the internal side of the O-Ring until it allowed for a slighly tighter fit than that on the original.