I was considering getting a Red Wolf and thought I would do a search to see how Daystate did at the Extreme Benchrest last year. I was surprised not to see any Daystates in the top 20, I expected to see some Air Wolfs, Wolverines or Air Rangers.
Because everyone was using FX pretty much a sponsor for them... take RAW over both anyday.
I imagine that people go with the gun that gives them the best chance of winning. I own 4 rifles and if I was going to enter, I'd definitely choose my FX Wildcat or even the T12 over my Renegade or Bantam. I like all of my guns, but the FX guns I own are more consistent and more accurate than the other two.
Then you need to try an Anschutz!
Fx has just been insanely innovative these past few years with barrel designs and gun designs. Accuracy is highly debatable but there are some key points which have altered people's opinions on daystate. One is that most if not all are unregulated due to them deciding to stick with the Harper hammer system.
More and more Daystates are now coming through with Huma regulators. I suspect they will begin putting them in most of their guns in the near future.
This made them take a pretty hard hit as regulators keep consistent output pressure on shots when cylinder pressure continues to drop. They say the mct system/with Harper hammer system is a great alternative but this too is debatable.
It does eliminate hammer bounce and that can be felt when the gun is shot. It is a very smooth cycle. Now add the regulator and you just jumped to a much higher level.
Then lothar walther barrels have now been seen as excessive for pellets and that smooth twist is both cheaper, simpler with similar results without damaging the pellets. Lothar Walther tried to remedy this with polygonal barrels with little success. Many youtubers claim that lead fouling is a issue with lothar Walther barrels and that smooth twist is near immune to this
I can agree that they are choked (at least mine is) quite hard at the muzzle, but if one understands this and keeps it clean, the LW barrel is generally right up there with the others.
The smooth twist barrel is known not to work that well with 177 pellets and although the trend is for larger calibers these days, 177 is far from being dead. All my guns are 177 and they are all very accurate and that includes the Wolverine R. The newer X barrels may be a different story.
. Daystates movement toward electronic system has not had very good reception as it seems like a extra chore to worry about in a gun and adds complexity to the system. Then fx's pricing on their guns are far more competitive than Daystate's. Fx has also taken over social media, and YouTube so it's just more popular overall.
I too shy away from mouse click triggers, but the new Red Wolf seems to be doing well except for the price which does tend to be high throughout the entire line of their guns.
Now this doesn't mean daystate is dead in the water. I still think their quality is above and beyond and that they have taken a careful approach to adopting innovative features. I've owned both fx and daystates and can say that this time period is more of a Golden Age for FX. However, I can assure you, Daystates time will come soon enough.
FX guns with their infinite adjustability may act like a golf club to many people. They buy the club that can be adjusted in 50 different directions and wind up keeping it at the neutral setting. When they start playing with the adjustments, their game goes further to poop.
All of these points basically made FX a majority leader in the airgun industry and this is why we've seen them win all these competitions. Then there's the idea that fx has a slight edge in accuracy. However, I don't know enough about both guns to tell you if this is true or not.
True there are more FX guns on the line than Daystates, but with that, the chances of coming out at or closer to the top is improved also simply due to higher numbers.
Of course, after spending all those bucks on my Daystate, I am sort of tilted to that side.