New ART barrel from Daystate
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Nick47, you are entitled to your opinion, I respect that, but I guess I’m not sure what you are referring to? I’m not curious, this is what I’ve personally experienced with my LW barrels just relaying my experiences, if I’ve offended you I apologize!, if you want to further explain, PM me
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Can you pick the smooth X and ART bores?
STX top, ART bottom? Lands on the ART look a bit bigger...
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That is my experience also. And yes, Martin would know LW barrels!
I sat next to Tony Belas of Daystate at a dinner in early 2016 and I remember him saying that in his testing, LW 12-Groove barrels shoot extremely tight groups with 1 or 2 flyers every 10 shots, while Smooth Twist would shoot a larger group but with zero flyers. The reason ST did so well in competition was that there were no flyers that killed the scorecard, and I see this every year at EBR with LW barrels that are shooting 9s and 10s all day and then... a bad spiral.
The introduction of STX barrels tightened up the groups while still keeping those flyers at bay, and the introduction of Poly barrels on the HP Daystates allowed people to shoot the Monsters well with no flyers.
The only problem with the poly barrels is that they are one-trick ponies - They shoot bery well, but only with one or two pellets. I think the point of the ART is to change that. If it does, then I think the FX and Daystates will be more evenly matched, but ONLY if th quality control issues are resolved. It is clear to me from speaking to many people in the industry that the issue is not so much with barrel profile, but with dud guns that can’t hold a group at all. People are getting tired of new guns being talked up and then performing miserably.
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I agree!, several yrs. ago I talked to Martin before ordering my first BM-500 I asked, I’ve had such good accuracy with my 12 groove I’m not sure I want the poly barrel?, and he assured me that it was much better in the wind especially with the heavier pellets! Didn’t question any further and have been very HAPPY!
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FYI Daystate have put out a picture of groups that Roger shot with the ART barrel on their Facebook page, these groups were shot with the barrel that will actually be on the production guns, as there were may variants tested initially by Arzrover and others.
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Spray1mark,
Thanks for getting back to me. Yes, the slug liner has a choke. The choke is very necessary, the results without it were horrible, so I’m surprised to hear that some people had good results after cutting the choked section off... I would go as far as saying that I can’t believe that. Remember that I started 2 years ago with this project when we knew nothing about slugs, we started with 10” groups at 50yds and after hundreds of different barrel designs we have it down to 1/4” at 50 all day long. So I can tell you with confidence that the choke is very necessary. Without it the lands don’t have enough surface area to support the pellet/slug properly. You could probably solve this by shooting larger, tighter slugs, but then you’d have to deal with more friction. Some of the ug manufacturers actually told us that there’s no difference between choked and unchoked barrels as long as the dimensions at the muzzle are correct.
The choke is very different to any other choke though - The grooves are choked more than the lands. I can’t really say much more because there’s a lot I can’t share, but I’ll tell you that the initial choking method we tried caused fouling and it was difficult to find consistency from barrel to barrel. This is why it took so long for the slug liners to hit the market, even though the actual land/groove diameter, twist rate etc. had already been finalized. Fredrik came up with a new choking method that would allow us to only choke the grooves but leave the lands the same, and this solved the problem, every barrel was exactly the same to the nearest hundredth of a millimeter, they all shot well, and none of them fouled up after break-in.
The problem with with the Monster barrels was that JSB changed the head diameter of the redesigns after a few batches, so we had to start all over again. We found that the slug liners shot the new Monsters really well, so we kept the same land/groove diameter and just changed the twist rate to better suit a pellet. That might explain why they looked the same. BTW the pellet A has an even slower twist rate and larger lands, if you wanted to know the difference there. I also noticed that the slugs/pellets seemed to “jump” in the STX barrel, and I was concerned about this, but I haven’t seen any effect on accuracy.
I watch every year as some of the top manufacturers from Europe, UK and Russia come begging to FX to buy barrels from them because they are struggling to get good barrels from LW and CZ
This comes as a shock to me because they are very quick to praise their barrels in public.
On the topic of the sub 12 FXs, were they Smooth Twist or STX? I’m asking because I know the ST were not good at all at sub 12. They could not generate the spin rate required for proper stability in .177 and .22. I know there was a big improvement with the STX, and I know that within the past year they replaced their old .177 machine and have been getting very very good results in .177. But I can fully believe that you may have had bad luck.
Hopefully you can try the barrels from the new machine sometime, I watched guys test shoot a whole shipment of sub 12 guns for a week, and they all shot very very well! But as I said, I know FX have had some catching up to do for a long time in the sub 12 department, and I know ASI have been a pain. I’ve been at the factory when a gun comes back from ASI with a note “bad barrel”, and when it has been taken to the test range it has shot lights out. Clearly they can’t put the effort into solving problems and dealing with customers themselves.
Anyway, hope that clears it up a bit! I’ve tried to cover everything I can
Matt
Thanks for getting back to me. Yes, the slug liner has a choke. The choke is very necessary, the results without it were horrible, so I’m surprised to hear that some people had good results after cutting the choked section off... I would go as far as saying that I can’t believe that. Remember that I started 2 years ago with this project when we knew nothing about slugs, we started with 10” groups at 50yds and after hundreds of different barrel designs we have it down to 1/4” at 50 all day long. So I can tell you with confidence that the choke is very necessary. Without it the lands don’t have enough surface area to support the pellet/slug properly. You could probably solve this by shooting larger, tighter slugs, but then you’d have to deal with more friction. Some of the ug manufacturers actually told us that there’s no difference between choked and unchoked barrels as long as the dimensions at the muzzle are correct.
The choke is very different to any other choke though - The grooves are choked more than the lands. I can’t really say much more because there’s a lot I can’t share, but I’ll tell you that the initial choking method we tried caused fouling and it was difficult to find consistency from barrel to barrel. This is why it took so long for the slug liners to hit the market, even though the actual land/groove diameter, twist rate etc. had already been finalized. Fredrik came up with a new choking method that would allow us to only choke the grooves but leave the lands the same, and this solved the problem, every barrel was exactly the same to the nearest hundredth of a millimeter, they all shot well, and none of them fouled up after break-in.
The problem with with the Monster barrels was that JSB changed the head diameter of the redesigns after a few batches, so we had to start all over again. We found that the slug liners shot the new Monsters really well, so we kept the same land/groove diameter and just changed the twist rate to better suit a pellet. That might explain why they looked the same. BTW the pellet A has an even slower twist rate and larger lands, if you wanted to know the difference there. I also noticed that the slugs/pellets seemed to “jump” in the STX barrel, and I was concerned about this, but I haven’t seen any effect on accuracy.
I watch every year as some of the top manufacturers from Europe, UK and Russia come begging to FX to buy barrels from them because they are struggling to get good barrels from LW and CZ
This comes as a shock to me because they are very quick to praise their barrels in public.On the topic of the sub 12 FXs, were they Smooth Twist or STX? I’m asking because I know the ST were not good at all at sub 12. They could not generate the spin rate required for proper stability in .177 and .22. I know there was a big improvement with the STX, and I know that within the past year they replaced their old .177 machine and have been getting very very good results in .177. But I can fully believe that you may have had bad luck.
Hopefully you can try the barrels from the new machine sometime, I watched guys test shoot a whole shipment of sub 12 guns for a week, and they all shot very very well! But as I said, I know FX have had some catching up to do for a long time in the sub 12 department, and I know ASI have been a pain. I’ve been at the factory when a gun comes back from ASI with a note “bad barrel”, and when it has been taken to the test range it has shot lights out. Clearly they can’t put the effort into solving problems and dealing with customers themselves.
Anyway, hope that clears it up a bit! I’ve tried to cover everything I can
Matt
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Thanks for your honesty Matt, that does clear a lot of it up and yes I concur with a lot of what you have said, ASI I don't know because they have great customer support.
I will be very candid here and say that I think the recent obvious support in the UK of Braces of Bristol and Giles getting first dibs on a product is because ASI had the guts to say to FX that customers in their droves in the UK were very unhappy with their £2000 FX Crown rock throwers and FX definitely didn't take kindly to criticism.
H&N shot better without a choke, lets call them "bullet shaped" projectiles, but for all intents and purposes not diablo anyways.
I will be very candid here and say that I think the recent obvious support in the UK of Braces of Bristol and Giles getting first dibs on a product is because ASI had the guts to say to FX that customers in their droves in the UK were very unhappy with their £2000 FX Crown rock throwers and FX definitely didn't take kindly to criticism.
H&N shot better without a choke, lets call them "bullet shaped" projectiles, but for all intents and purposes not diablo anyways.
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I'm also shocked to hear about all the "bad" CZ barrels. I've actually never heard of one as far as I'm aware. Looking at .22 Taipans, Crickets and Vulcans everyone raves about there accuracy same with .25 Vulcans that have CZ barrels also. I've owned 4 CZ barreled guns and all shot lights out. I can't see a barrel getting better than my CZ barrels same with TJ barrels they all outshoot me and I've had LWs do the same.
I would love to hear from the shooters getting all these bad barrels.
Now I'm thinking the STX and now Daystates ART barrels are very good barrels and I like the polygonal style, but as a hunter I can't see the issue with the other barrels.
I am looking forward to how these ART barrels continue to workout though with great interest.
Can one buy just a barrel from Daystate?
I would love to hear from the shooters getting all these bad barrels.
Now I'm thinking the STX and now Daystates ART barrels are very good barrels and I like the polygonal style, but as a hunter I can't see the issue with the other barrels.
I am looking forward to how these ART barrels continue to workout though with great interest.
Can one buy just a barrel from Daystate?
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Well... I know what Tony told me and I can't budge on what I heard clearly. But I respect your opinion.
Every gun review I've ever done confirms this, although I have only really tested LW and CZ guns around the 28-32 FPE mark, so I can't comment on sub 12.
Out of interest, what distances are you shooting, and out of what guns (power?). I ask because I know that LW barrels tend to shoot tighter groups at closer ranges. You won't see an FX on the podium at a 25 Meter competition! I am talking more about long range, 100m plus.
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I think that the rifling portion of CZ barrels are excellent - Extremely well made and very smooth. It's the leade, choke and crown that often give problems. 2 of the 4 CZ barrel guns (1 Kalibrgun, 1 Vulcan) had to be sent back before I even reviewed them because I could not get them to group. Maybe I just got two bad barrels out of a hundred, but I am just stating my experience.
Here's a good video of some close-ups of CZ barrels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLDhUyDx-8M
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I know I’m stepping into a hornets nest... but I have to agree with SPRAY1 on the LW barrel remarks! Barrels don’t throw flyers? (They either shoot or they don’t!) it is usually inconsistent ammunition or non-consistent regulators/velocity or many other variables not related to the barrel specificly, and finding the right pellet,velocity, head dia. Etc. is all part of the game, one barrel isn’t going to shoot every pellet/projectile with the same accuracy! Matt you even eluded to that in your comment about configuring land/groove dimensions for a specific pellet, then the pellet manufacturer changed head size and fx had to start all over again?, now will agree that stx barrels may shoot a wider array of pellets good? but for pure accuracy my preference is LW or any Other good button/hammer forged/cut rifled barrel. Just shot these out of my 12 groove literally 20min. Ago After work! Note: did not weigh pellets or clean barrel, only premeasured pellet head dia. Also this is a 19ftlb gun not 12ftlb
The reason the Monster barrel design had to change is because the head diameter changed from 5.55 to 5.51 - That is a massive difference for a barrel like the STX which relies on the grooves to maintain concentricity. The reason LW barrels have shot the monsters so well (I think) is because the pellet rides the lands and NEVER touches the grooves. The grooves are 5.62mm, which means that even if the barrel is heavily choked, the pellet will still never touch the grooves. This is really good in the sense that you can shoot a wider variety of head diameters, but bad in the sense that it is prone to throwing pellets that aren't perfectly straight or concentric. If they aren't seated properly in the lands, or are not completely round, or encounter a rough patch in the barrel, they will leave the barrel as unbalanced projectiles and encounter gyroscopic precession and nutation issues at longer ranges. You won't pick this up at 17 yards, but you'll see that every now and again you have a wobbly pellet, and at long range this wobble turns into a spiral.
Barrels like the STX and TJ on the other hand (I am a big fan of TJ barrels) ensure that no matter what the head size/diameter is, every pellet will leave the muzzle exactly the same. This is bad if your pellet is too big (squeezes and deforms it) but really good if your pellet is 0.01-0.03mm larger than groove diameter, because it is resized the same as every other pellet that leaves the barrel, and kept perfectly concentric at all times.
That is perhaps why you can shoot unsorted, unweighed pellets out an STX or TJ and they will still shoot well, but LW barrels require sorting for best accuracy.
I agree that LW barrels will shoot very well with perfect ammunition, but it is extremely difficult to weed out the bad pellets when some of them have issues like weight unbalance which can't be measured and picked up easily - You only see the problem when it is too late.
If you are happy to hand pick every pellet you shoot then I'm sure your results will be good, but I personally prefer to shoot straight out the tin. I won the PRS last year and came 2nd at EBR the year before with a tin of damaged pellets, which is pretty comical, but proves my point.
PS I would probably choose a LW barrel for 25m any day. I'm just stating the strengths and weaknesses of each design.
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Won’t we see the Wolf Pack at the Rocky Mountain Airgun Challenge? I hope they’ll be there with the new Safari.
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