FX guns seem to rule the roost at the last benchrest; where were the Daystates?

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I bought one of the first AZTECS to land in the UK and whilst I do agree it has features (reticle) not found on the competitions scopes, on an indoor range at 25 yards with not great lighting my eyes really start to struggle after even a short while due to the very average glass.

Add to that no illumination to black the reticle which is too fine for very bright days outdoors I gave it away and went back to the March LOL!

But get a very fine RET on an NXS or a March with their very high power illumination and you dont have a problem (excepting the price of course).
 
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The Daystates are coming 

This year Daystate has allocated more resources to the match and so will probably fair better, the company, along with Brocock also has some new guns which we hope to be popular and should bring in some results. Then as a previous poster stated its all down to the shooter.

I'm coming this year and have the envious task now of selecting which gun and scope to shoot from the entire daystate/Brocock/mtc range. I have almost no time to practise, and will be shooting the next day that I fly in, so am looking to select one gun/scope to do the lot. Help me chose please!

Tony Belas 

Daystate Ltd
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Good to have you back Tony!
 
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Based on your posts to the 2 threads, I'd say you're disappointed with your Daystate Red Wolf and are now considering the FX line.

Been there; done that. The FX's are very accurate -- the Royales, Wildcat and Impacts -- as are the Vulcans.

I state this from my personal experience with those rifles.

I also own 4 Daystates, one Air Arms and one big bore Ataman. 

I suspect you will own several brands eventually; always chasing that elusive perfection. Consider what your needs and uses are. Then proceed from there. 80% of the targets you posted depict accuracy more than adequate for hunting. For bench target shooting, FXs and Vulcans would be my choices.

My $.02.
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2manyAirGunz... indeed, I have been wondering if I might do better with FX. But I think Daystate USA will get my Red Wolf squared away for me. When it is accurate, it's great! It's the inconsistency from one group to the next that bewilders me.

My shooting involves targets primarily, with only the occasional pest to dispatch, so hunting is not a high priority for me. I enjoy precision target over killing animals, generally, though I will kill animals that are causing a problem.

I'm sure you are right in that I will own at least two, if not more brands over time. The Wildcat or Streamline are probably the next up as candidates, though the Weirauch H110 and some of the Russian and eastern bloc rifles are coming onto my radar now.
 
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I think that sponsorship does have a big effect. I used to be sponsored by a certain BBQ grill/smoker company. It was their habit to find people who were already well known, and then sponsor them with free equipment and supplies. This way, when their sponsored chefs posted something, their grill/smoker equipment was in the picture. People started to associate great cooking with a specific grilling/smoking product, and the sales of their equipment skyrocketed. This simple fact was the company did make a great product, but also, a lot of their sponsored chefs could have produced an amazing meal over a pile of coals on the ground.

I suspect we are seeing the same thing in air rifles. There are a lot of air guns which can produce winning results. By sponsoring some of the top marksmen out there, a company can improve the visibility of their product. A lot goes into shooting at the competition level, things which your average shooter never bothers with. They agonize over trying many different brands of pellets, variations in head size, variations in weight, trimming/increasing and adjusting the velocity by a few FPS, to find the velocity which gives them the tightest groups, learning the exact windage characteristics for their selected gun/ideal-pellet/velocity. They even map the temperature variations in their scopes. Some even consider barometric pressure. This is way beyond what most "typical" air gun shooters worry about. It is that kind of obsessive behavior which separates match shooters from the "good, or even excellent" shooters out there. Manufacturers bet on the jockey, and not the horse.
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addertooth... sponsorship does likely play a significant role. But if the rifles backed by sponsorship weren't allowing the top shooters to stay on top, they wouldn't be used anymore. So, while the shooter plays the key role, the equipment has to allow the shooter to do his best.

I'm sure the top pros do this, but some of us "ordinary" shooters also give concern to experimenting with different pellets, cleaning pellets, weighing pellets, lubing pellets, chronographing shots, and judging the windage. This is a really fun sport and doing well with it does seem to demand a bit of extra attention to details! :)
 
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There was a time when Daystates dominated - Look at the first couple years of EBR. Then FX made the .30 cal boss and later the Impact - it was all over for Daystate after that. I remember that there were AOA employees that had to use Daystates last year (so that the brand is fairly represented) and I remember them saying that they wished they could have used an FX. The Red Wolf is the first Daystate that can compete with the FXs, so this year should be interesting, but I still think that there will be more FX shooters at the event. Remember that FX barrels are designed for long range performance and Daystate barrels are better suited to close range. You will probably see the Daystates do better at the 25m.

By the way, nobody gets to choose their lanes. Shooters are given random lanes during qualifying and then can pick their lanes based on the position they qualify in (1st place picks from a hat first). Even this doesn’t really help - Shane Kellar and I picked what we thought were the worst lanes last year and they ended up being the best. Ted qualified first, happened to draw what everyone thought was the best lane, and strugged with some crazy wind that took everyone by surprise.

Keep in mind that both FX and Daystate have sponsored all the EBR events since year one, so there was never any bias. Both brands had their shooters that came out from all corners of the globe.

We will continue to see a see-saw of domination as each manufacturer keeps bringing out new technology. And that’s what we want to see! These competitions are largely responsible for the drive to make the next best gun. FX made the .30 cal solely for Benchrest shooting, and Daystate were left behind. But who knows what the future will hold!
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Hi Matt... glad that you chimed in, mate. I sure enjoy your videos and your contributions to the sport!

You make some very interesting points. I had heard that Daystate positioned their rifles primarily as hunting rifles, but I wasn't aware that Daystate barrels may be designed more for close range and FX barrels may be designed more for long range.

I think (and hope) that our future as air gunners, with new and even better rifles coming out, is indeed very bright! :)
 
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With the right shooter pretty much any ( reasonable , maybe not a wildfire or such) airgun could take 1st and as they are all so much fun and the majority of us do not shoot well enough to take 1st place pick a flavor & shoootttt.



John

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John... I know that there are a lot of accurate air rifle brands out there, with the designs and features generally setting them apart. Accuracy is and should be a given! As a beginning air rifler shooter, it can get a little bewildering sorting out what brand and what rifle to choose.

I went with Brocock initially (on Robert's recommendation - from AoA) and while I liked the gun very much, I found that I wanted "more", so I traded it for the Red Wolf. And one of the reasons I selected Daystate is because I live fairly close to AoA, the exclusive USA importer/distributor/service facility for Daystate. Really nice to have them so close by, in case their assistance is needed.

I'm certainly not out to try to win any competitions - but I do like to shoot very well. It was a curiosity to me to see so many FX rifles in recent competitions and so few Daystates. So, I was wondering what some of the reasons for that might be.
 
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I’m sssuming you mean the Main Event - 75/100 yards? Reason I’m asking is because FX did not dominate AFT or 25M BR.
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I think so. But it's been a while since I saw the results and they were flowing by during a Youtube video, so I never got to see and carefully review the full picture of the results.

It would be nice to be able to see the full results... I would guess that they are probably posted somewhere?
 
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The Daystates are coming 

This year Daystate has allocated more resources to the match and so will probably fair better, the company, along with Brocock also has some new guns which we hope to be popular and should bring in some results. Then as a previous poster stated its all down to the shooter.

I'm coming this year and have the envious task now of selecting which gun and scope to shoot from the entire daystate/Brocock/mtc range. I have almost no time to practise, and will be shooting the next day that I fly in, so am looking to select one gun/scope to do the lot. Help me chose please!

Tony Belas 

Daystate Ltd
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Hi Tony! Thanks very much for chiming in. I plan to stop by the EBR this year, as a spectator, and hope to see you there, and meet you! 

If I had to guess, I'd say you will pick a Red Wolf HP .25?
 
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Whatever these fx guns are designed for, I have yet to see one in FX gun here in South Africa that out shoots anything at all - long or short range. My (second replacement) crown is a month old and already the 'improved regulator' has shat the bed. Add to that a revolutionary barrel that shoots at most 70 shots (2/3 of a fill???!!!) reasonably accurately before quickly producing 5cm/2inch groups at 40m and big lead slivers at cleaning... It currently simultaneously holds the coveted spots of most expensive and most useless gun in my collection, being effortlessly outmatched in every way by my cheapy p15. My Vulcan just decimates it completely. 



FX in my opinion is/has become mastery of marketing over product quality. Just make sure the rifles you give to your favored sons are perfect. Bugger QC for everyone else. I envy the lucky guys and now really hate my FX - don't care what competitions are won or lost. It's the last I'll ever own.
 
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Whatever these fx guns are designed for, I have yet to see one in FX gun here in South Africa that out shoots anything at all - long or short range. My (second replacement) crown is a month old and already the 'improved regulator' has shat the bed. Add to that a revolutionary barrel that shoots at most 70 shots (2/3 of a fill???!!!) reasonably accurately before quickly producing 5cm/2inch groups at 40m and big lead slivers at cleaning... It currently simultaneously holds the coveted spots of most expensive and most useless gun in my collection, being effortlessly outmatched in every way by my cheapy p15. My Vulcan just decimates it completely. 



FX in my opinion is/has become mastery of marketing over product quality. Just make sure the rifles you give to your favored sons are perfect. Bugger QC for everyone else. I envy the lucky guys and now really hate my FX - don't care what competitions are won or lost. It's the last I'll ever own.
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Interesting perspective. And, yes, I have heard quite strong disparaging comments about FX from a variety of people, so I know they're not all unicorns and rainbows in Sweden!

Have also heard some very glowing comments about Vulcans. The Russian and eastern bloc air rifles are apparently quite good, and winning over a lot of shooters, but at present, I know little to nothing about them.
 
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Hello-

I shoot handguns competitively- air pistol, bullseye, National Matches, EIC 22- what have you. With each gun the round fired must be matched to the barrel. It takes a great deal of time to develop 45 acp loads, including selecting the right powder, primer, case, bullet, seat, crimp, etc. All for the sake of accuracy. Heck, I even weigh my 22 rounds, and sort them based on size, prior to a match. Use the same size and weight for all matches, in my Pardini.

With regard to the Red Wolf (I have one in 22, used for hunting) extreme accuracy might only be achieved when pellets selected for the rifle are the same size, weight, and shape. No misshapen pellets or skirts.

As the shooter from the UK pointed out, reducing fps will increase accuracy- given the right pellet. Consider the competition air rifle shooter, who is puttng 60 pellets in the same hole at 10 meters. They are shooting at roughly 500fps, using a pellet similar to a full wadcutter. I would suspect that a Red Wolf in 177 caliber, using similar pellets, would be more accurate than shooting a 22Red Wolf, using round faced pellets that have a wonky BC.

Kind regards,

641


 
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Lets see any pellet gun come close to this. Most PCPs in the field are very close as far as accuracy. Under ideal conditions - which almost never happens in the field some of the more expensive guns will separate themselves from the pack. But slug shooters with the correct twist rate and speed will always out perform the most expensive pellet shooters. This gun started out as a $699 Epox Badger 40 cal. Cedric did some modifications and just look at the performance. He has several custom builds including a 172 cal and 30 cal and any one of them will shoot circles around any off the shelf PCP.



https://youtu.be/FT-f22xwF0U?t=13m45s
 
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I have owned several Daystates, two AW MCT .22, Two Huntsman’s, several Theoben, My FX Crown .25 has them all beat, lightweight, great trigger, reliable and most important accuracy is superb at all distances.Other people I know that own Crown’s have similar comments. Dead nuts accurate, group after group. Very efficient valving equals high shot count.
 
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 Mat talks about FX designing their barrels to shoot better at 100+ yards and Daystate, focussing more towards the 25-yard mark for their barrels. I don't understand that a barrel that will shoot better at long range, won't out-shoot one that has been rifled to shoot at closer ranges, at those distances. For the long range barrel to be accurate at long range, it must also be super accurate up close. I know this is over-simplified but you won't shoot sub inch groups at 100 if you aren't getting well under 1/4 inch at 25.
 
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I have owned several Daystates, two AW MCT .22, Two Huntsman’s, several Theoben, My FX Crown .25 has them all beat, lightweight, great trigger, reliable and most important accuracy is superb at all distances.Other people I know that own Crown’s have similar comments. Dead nuts accurate, group after group. Very efficient valving equals high shot count.
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That is great to hear. I’m really glad that your Crown has performed so well for you.

My hope is that everyone’s Crown would be a stellar performer as yours is. Unfortunately, I have also read other accounts that are the exact opposite.

I hate seeing anyone reporting having a terrible experience with a really nice rifle that they purchased. Some stellar reviews out there, among some terrible reviews. THAT kind of conflicting data is really perplexing, especially to someone considering purchase of an FX rifle.
 
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Mat talks about FX designing their barrels to shoot better at 100+ yards and Daystate, focussing more towards the 25-yard mark for their barrels. I don't understand that a barrel that will shoot better at long range, won't out-shoot one that has been rifled to shoot at closer ranges, at those distances. For the long range barrel to be accurate at long range, it must also be super accurate up close. I know this is over-simplified but you won't shoot sub inch groups at 100 if you aren't getting well under 1/4 inch at 25.
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Makes sense to me. Therefore, why would any maker focus on accuracy at 25 yards rather than accuracy at perhaps 50, 75, or 100 yds? Aside from the fact that it is probably much easier/less expensive to produce an accurate barrel for 25 yd range than it would be for 75 yd range?
 
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