New ART barrel from Daystate

nomojo65 I would say you are ostentatious. There are better methods express curiosity. 

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

Can you pick the smooth X and ART bores?

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STX top, ART bottom? Lands on the ART look a bit bigger...

Matt, what I was referring to was how many rnds it took for the 12 groove to come back after a good cleaning, it was actually less rnds to settle out..., but would shoot very accurately for a good many shots then will shoot like a shotgun until u clean it again!, now if I use only JSB’s usually all I need is about 3 tight fitting cotton patches, the poly’s shoot so long w/o cleaning that when accuracy starts to drop off I forget it might be because they need to be cleaned...now keeping in mind that all my LW barrels EXCEPT my Redwolf barrel has gone through Martin Rutterford’s hands first & attached to RAW’s, And if anyone knows LW barrels I suppose it’s him!

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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.

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!

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.

Mark, which liners did you receive and what about them was different to what you expected?

None of the twist rates, land/groove dimensions and chokes have been published, so I don’t see how you could have been “led to believe” anything.

If you need any questions answered, I’d probably be able to help you. I’m not sure who you mean by Fred Jr (maybe Johan?)

Matt



Hi Matt, sorry I missed your reply. I bought a liner B in .22 600mm as did others I know, plus slug liner in .22 600mm.

What surprised me most was that when we pushed a pellet through the slug liner it appeared to have a great deal of choke, most of us were expecting little to no choke. Secondly the pellet B liner is very tight with the 25g Redesigned Monsters which I suspect is exactly the pellet most of us wanted to shoot with it and indeed what it was marketed as being for. The old 25 Monster gains speed over the new redesigns but doesn't group, which is annoying at best.

Then there was the confusion of the two lines on the breech, yes Johan tried to explain to me what this was about and I was still confused (perhaps language was more to blame for this though).

Anyways it appears to me that the the two liners I mention are practically identical, so why do this? better results were achieved by some when they cut off the choke on the slug liner and recrowned it, none of this to me makes any sense and all I have heard up till now is hearsay at best you are right on that one.

A very well known gunsmith and somone that Fred has known in the past inspected the liner on my very first Crown when they were initially released, he slugged the barrel and said, that to him at least the barrel was terrible, the pellet joged down the bore and not in one smooth movement. He then made me a LW barrel for my Crown from a blank and a .177 FX transfer port assembly.

Oh and as far as FX guns not shooting I should know because I bought 3 Crowns and none of them shot acceptably (12FPE) the UK importer ASI knows very well about this issue don't they as there were loads of complaints.

Great to hear your valued opinions as always.

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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 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 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.



I have to dispute this Matt as I know this is not what Tony says at all, the reason I know is that I told him face to face about my experiences with both barrels and he gave me his personal opinion on the matter.

I have owned 7 FX rifles (Crown/Impact) and own 5 Redwolf's so I am by no means an FX hater, quite the reverse in fact I love my guns from both companies.

However what LW barrels do is shoot different pellets into very different areas on a target, but with the same pellet they will shoot very tight groups, but same POI all the time.

FX barrels don't shoot groups as tight as LW on my Daystates that is undisputable IME. However they do shoot most pellets into the same area of the target, that is also proven IME, less pellet fussy you could call it I suppose?

This is ABSOLUTELY not the same as saying LW barrels throw regular fliers at all! 

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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

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 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.



I have to dispute this Matt as I know this is not what Tony says at all, the reason I know is that I told him face to face about my experiences with both barrels and he gave me his personal opinion on the matter.

I have owned 7 FX rifles (Crown/Impact) and own 5 Redwolf's so I am by no means an FX hater, quite the reverse in fact I love my guns from both companies.

However what LW barrels do is shoot different pellets into very different areas on a target, but with the same pellet they will shoot very tight groups, but same POI all the time.

FX barrels don't shoot groups as tight as LW on my Daystates that is undisputable IME. However they do shoot most pellets into the same area of the target, that is also proven IME, less pellet fussy you could call it I suppose?

This is ABSOLUTELY not the same as saying LW barrels throw regular fliers at all! 

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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.

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?

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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

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

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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.

All I can say is that I am enjoying this debate, thanks for sharing and keep them coming!

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 "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"



Matt, I couldn't agree more, I think from tradition airguns have been seen as short range performers (25 yards-10m).

However as we all know this is changing rapidly, I see this as the reason that Daystate is stepping up and developing the ART, to further enhance their reputation in the long range arena, it will be very interesting to see what happens when Shane K uses the Safari on the podium at EBR this year.

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 "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"



Matt, I couldn't agree more, I think from tradition airguns have been seen as short range performers (25 yards-10m).

However as we all know this is changing rapidly, I see this as the reason that Daystate is stepping up and developing the ART, to further enhance their reputation in the long range arena, it will be very interesting to see what happens when Shane K uses the Safari on the podium at EBR this year.

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Agreed!

Won’t we see the Wolf Pack at the Rocky Mountain Airgun Challenge? I hope they’ll be there with the new Safari.