DAYSTATE Mk4 ON GOING REVIEW.

Right, here goes.

On Good Friday, with the R-10 playing up yet again, but this time with a fault that wasn't there when I took it back to B.S.A, for what I think was the fifth time, I took it back to the shop for a refund. I can tell you that I felt rather cheated!

About half an hour later I was in my local gun shop in Kidderminster, drinking coffee, having a natter & perusaling the gun rack. One of the guns in the rack was a Daystate MK4S with a rather nice walnut stock, O.k, it was a fair bit more dosh than the R-10 with £845 on the ticket, but did have some similarities, such as a similar shot count, slightly heavier, but better balanced, due to the use of a air cylinder instead of a buddy bottle. The overall finish to the action was far better than the R-10 too.

I played with the MK4 most of the day, indeed, I was in the shop most of the day & very nearly got a parking ticket, except that my swarve/slick talking got me out of it with the lady parking attendant! Just shows you, be polite & things may go for you.

Later on I did a bit of bartering with Gary, the owner of Field Accessories in Kidderminster and he said he'd do me the MK4 for £800. O.k, it was still £150 more than the R-10, which again made me feel a bit cheated, but this wasn't the fault of the shop, or indeed the MK4. It was just the lingering effect of the R-10.

With the bartering completed over another coffee, we agreed that Gary would drill the stock for QD studs there and then in the shop for just the cost of the studs, but this was delayed by a sudden influx of folk wanting info' on rifles & actually buying some too. This is one thing that I think rifles should come with from new, QD studs that is.

Once the rush had calmed down, Gary drilled the stock, before I had paid for the rifle. The area under the butt for the rear QD stud is a lovely twisting curve and the stock is very well oiled from new, which made drilling the stock quite difficult. This was qualified by a huge sigh of relief from Gary when he had finished it. I must say that it is some very hard bit of walnut & it wasn't easy to get the thread of the QD studs to bite. This was rectified by using a stainless bolt.

So it's now the beginning of June & where am I with the MK4? Well I have the mounts fitted, but i'm yet to complete the fitting of the scope, which will be a Hawke Varmint II 6-24 x 44AO, that I bought for the R-10. I've read the programming instructions for the MK4 several times & I think i've finally got my head around them! I've been messing around with other rifles in the collection, such as stripping my B.S.A Stutzen and replacing the seal, buffer washer, piston retaining pin & main spring, along with a good lube, which has took a couple of weeks doing it on & off, so hopefully i'll get around to setting up the Daystate soon, however, I have a Meteor Mk V that requires a strip too.

Update 1, 11/06/09;- Tonight I finally got around to the Mk4 again. With the rifle upside down in my gun rest I first inspected the bore by shining a small torch up from the breech end. It looked fine, but just to be sure I pulled the bore through with a bit of WD40 on a small piece of cloth, followed by another pull through with a dry piece of cloth to dry the bore, then finally I pulled the bore through with a few drops of 3 in 1 on a small piece of cloth. This is my normal procedure for new & new to me rifles.

After removing the remains of the sticky tape from the Hawke 6-24 x 44AO Varmint II scope, which were deposited off the Hawke mounts that were fitted to the R-10, I proceded to mount the scope, first checking my eye relief position, then, after checking the level of the gun rest, rifle & scope, tightening the mount saddles. Just the rear one at first with just two bolts to hold the scope in position, followed by fitting the other saddle with its four bolts, then finishing off the first saddle with the remaining two bolts. For once everything went well first time & the rifle shoulders very nicely indeed. First tests & initial scope zeroing may commence tomorrow morning, if I get chance before work, but for the time being here's a photo';-



.177" Daystate Mk4 & Hawke 6-24 x 44AO Varmint II scope.

Update 2, 12/06/09;- This morning I screwed the Daystate push on adapter on to my hose & fitted the adapter to the Mk4. I find this type of fitting fiddly to use as you have to pull back the collar on the adapter to fit it onto the nipple on the rifle. You must also make sure the collar has returned to its normal position once fitted to the rifle because if it isn't, the adapter will fly off when under pressure. Due to the confined space avaiable whilst fitting the adapter to the rifle, I find it best to use both hands, or to be more precise, one hand and one finger. The finger to actually hold back the collar and your other hand to actually push on the adapter.

Once it was fitted to the rifle I began to fill the rifle slowly up to its maximum working pressure of 230bar. It was then that I found out that I only had 220bar left in my air cylinder. Still, it was more than enough for a short play.

The magazine for the Mk4 is plastic bodied with an alluminium rotor. The rotor has just one "O" ring to hold the pellets in place and the mag' holds a maximum of ten pellets. The magazine itself is similar to a B.S.A magazine in that it is "clockwork", i.e. as you turn the magazine to load it you actually turn the rotor against a spring, which turns the magazine when you pull the bolt back. The magazine seems to work more smoothly than my B.S.A mag's & it is lighter too. However, loading the pellets is fiddly as the plastic body of the mag' is quite thick and this means there is quite a deep recess to the rotor itself and I found that I had to push the pellets in to place with something. An allen key works well.

The nice thing about the magazine is that you can load it into the rifle from either side of the action. The only thing you have to do is remove the magazine stop pin with a pair of pliers & refit it in the hole opposite.

I loaded 10 pellets & tried the rifle for the first time with a scope fitted. (I had put a couple of pellets through the rifle in the shop). Now of course the scope wants zeroing, but the rifle was fine & accurate, albeit only at 9m, but you have to remember it's me at the trigger too! Initially I found the trigger a tad too light for me, of course, as the Mk4 is electronic with a solenoid, the trigger is actually a micro switch. O.k, it's not as light as my Air Arms EV2 Mk II, but it's not far off. Even though I only put 10 shots through the Mk4 I can say that it is very smooth in use & seems very well balanced & just about the right sort of weight for me.

One thing I did think that was not quite right was the scope. O.k, it might be me, but it looks & feels like the scope is canted a little, so, after much messing around with my mini dovetail spirit level & another spirit level, I am of the opinion that the mini one is rubbish. I have removed the scope again & will have another play over the next few days.

Regarding the actual operation of the rifle, the rifle being a tad different underneath, i'll go into this in more detail as the review progresses, and i'll include all about the programming side of things, if I can understand them myself that is!

Update 3, 17/06/09;- I had a theory about the mini Hawke spirit level the other night and i'm glad to say that my theory was today proved to be correct. The built in mount on the mini spirit level is not only machined for standard scope rails, but is also machined for wider scope rails, much wider than B.S.A's Maxigrip scope rails. Now the Mk4 action below the dovetails is quite square & wide and my theory was that the wider mount edge on the mini spirit level just might be in contact with this part of the action when it is fitted to the scope rails & thus would force the spirit level up slightly & give incorrect readings. A quick look at the spirit level fitted to the Mk4 this afternoon proved this to indeed be the case, so a few minuets was spent shaving off this wider mount edge with my trusty Woolworths mini hobby drill, and i'm glad to say that the mini spirit level now fits the Mk4 scope rails perfectly. I then spent half an hour fitting the scope again & now it sits nicely on the Mk4 and the rifle shoulders very comfortably indeed.

Before I went any further I decided that before any zeroing I would try the Daystate Airstream moderator. The Mk4 is already fairly quiet with its shrouded barrel, but I wanted to try the moderator to see if it made the rifle any quieter. Now I could fit a HW moderator, or the B.S.A VC moderator, both of which are very good, but I like the way the Airstream slides back over the Mk4's barrel shroud and thus keeps any increase in length of the rifle to a minimum.

I rang my local shop & they said they had one of the Airstreams, so I made my way there. I had a look at the Airstream moderator & it looks well made, except for a few spots of the glue that holds it together on the outside of the moderator, which I was told would be reflected in the price, which was good as the Airstream is normally £55. Unfortunately I was unable to fit the Airstream properly to the Mk4 as the shop had run out of the screw in adapters, but we did try it on a Webley Raider 10. It fitted very nicely to the Raider & due to the set back nature of the moderator, reduced the "flag pole" effect of the rifle by almost three inches. However, i'm not so sure that the Airstream is as good as a HW moderator, so now i'm a bit unsure of what to do. With a bit of luck they may have some screw in adapters by Friday, but i'm thinking that I may not bother now.

With the scope now fitted correctly to the rifle I managed to put a few more pellets through it just before work tonight. Now earlier on I had fitted the magnetic single shot tray, as it is likely that the rifle will be used with this more often than not. It's simple to fit. Just slide it in from the side & push down carefully, making sure the tray fits flush with the base of the action & that the bolt moves freely. As I was going to be doing a bit of zeroing I removed the tray so I could use the magazine. The tray is easily removed with the aid of a thin bladed screwdriver. Just insert the screwdriver underneath the edge of the tray & lift it slightly. Then just slide the tray out of the way.

With the tray now removed I fitted my bipod & moved upstairs to my indoor range. Lying down you only get about 7.5 - 8m, but it's handy for testing & preliminary zeroing, before final zeroing at 35 yards, which I hope to do at Furnace Mill on Friday afternoon. It only took about 25 shots to zero the rifle & I left it about two mil dots down for this distance and I will fine tune the zero on Friday. I'm glad to say that the rifle is spot on, even though it's only at a short distance at the moment, but the pellets fly straight through the same hole time & time again and the feel of the trigger, albeit a little weird at first, it being a micro switch, is really quite nice to use in operation.

Unfortunately, not all was well with the scope. Well, perhaps that's a bit harsh as the scope is quite decent, but the Varmint will not focus down to the approximate 10 yards that I was shooting at, which made zeroing a little more difficult. The thing is, now i'm used to the quality of my Bushnell Legend on my EV2 Mk II, i'm not so happy with the Hawke as I once was. O.k, the Legend is about £70 more, but the quality of the optics is fantastic and it has crossed my mind to px' the Varmint for another Legend, but then i'd lose a fair bit on the Varmint. Still, I'll give the Varmint a full workout at Furnace Mill and see how it goes, before I make my mind up. The R-10 being so unreliable meant that I never really had the chance to get to grips with the Varmint, so I think it's fair to give it a chance first.

I'm going to put a few more pellets through the Mk4, then i'm going to do a chrono' test with individually weighed light, medium & heavy pellets. As long as the test proves that the rifle is running well & with a decent margin of error of the 12lb.ft limit, on Friday afternoon i'll take it to Furnace Mill to complete the zeroing and give it a run out on the HFT course.

Update 4, 18/06/09;- This afternoon I managed to cram in a chrono' test with the Mk4. I filled the rifle to approximately 218 bar, which was all that was left in my 3 litre cylinder, and took 10 warm up shots. I then tested the rifle with 10 shots each of light, medium & heavy pellets, all individually weighed earlier in the day. See below;-

Test 1, RWS Hobby's, 6.9 grain.

Shot no./fps.

1, 800.

2, 813.

3, 815.

4, 820.

5, 816.

6, 822.

7, 804.

8, 810.

9, 797.

10, 813.

Low = 797/9.7346795lb.ft.

High = 822/10.354965lb.ft.

Diff' = 25/0.620286lb.ft.

Avr' = 811/10.079679lb.ft.

I don't usually use Hobby's in my rifles, well not the pcp's anyway, but these are the lightest pellets I have. I'm glad I don't use them for normal use as in this case the Mk4 just didn't like them at all, as you can see from the variations above. I must admit though, at this stage of the test I was a little worried with the above variations. Don't forget that I had weighed all the test pellets individually, so the above results were a little surprising.

Test 2, Air Arms Field 4.52's, 8.5 grain.

Shot no./fps.

1, 777.

2, 780.

3, 785.

4, 782.

5, 782.

6, 781.

7, 779.

8, 782.

9, 785.

10, 781.

Low = 777/11.397691lb.ft.

High = 785/11.6336lb.ft.

Diff' = 8/0.235909lb.ft.

Avr' = 781.4/11.527142lb.ft.

Phew, that's much better! These are my usual pellet of choice for the vast majority of my collection of rifles and the Mk4 seems to like them very much indeed. However, perhaps i'm being picky here, but I think it could be better than the 8 fps difference between the lowest and highest readings, baring in mind the cost of the rifle and the fact that it is essentially regulated, not mechanically of course, but electronically. Now o.k, the R-10 had a leak to start with & several other faults, but on its first full chrono' test it only varied 4 - 9 fps for shots 71 to 140 for the second half of a 232 bar fill, with many readings being exactly the same for half a dozen or so shots, followed by a slight variation, then the same readings again for several shots. The pellets were unweighed too. Mind you, it was only putting out about 4lb.ft for the first half of the fill! Has anyone else tested their Mk4 over the chrono'? What variation do you get with your Mk4?

Test 3, Bisley Magnum, 10.3 grain.

Shot no./fps.

1, 700.

2, 702.

3, 700.

4, 705.

5, 698.

6, 697.

7, 705.

8, 700.

9, 701.

10, 700.

Low = 697/11.1137lb.ft.

High = 705/11.370285lb.ft.

Diff' = 8/0.2333285lb.ft.

Avr' = 700.8/11.235213lb.ft.

As you can see from the above results the Mk4 was ever so slightly more consistant than when using the Air Arms Fields, but it was so slight a difference you would never tell in the field. The Magnums are really too heavy for a sub' 12lb.ft rifle, as can be seen by the reduced power levels for the high & average readings, however, if I couldn't get hold of any Air Arms Fields I would have no problem in using the Magnums.

Overall I am very pleased with the rifle so far and i'm happy with the half a lb or so for a margin of error of the 12lb.ft limit, but I hope that the differences in fps readings tighten up a little bit more though. The trouble is I have been spoilt by my Air Arms S400 MPR FT. It isn't regulated, but from a fill of 160 bar I get 80 shots with the worst difference reading being 13 fps and the best being 4 fps, over the 80 shots, with unweighed pellets too! For the vast majority of thoughs 80 shots the variation is between 4 and 8 fps.

Hopefully i'll be able to fit the Daystate Airstream moderator tomorrow, followed by a good session at Furnace Mill. Once I get past 500 shots i'll do another chrono' test, but this time with the Air Arms Fields only.

Update 5, 20/06/09;- After a prolonged visit to my local gun shop yesterday, in which I finally made my mind up & went for the Daystate Airstream moderator, I finally arrived at Furnace Mill at about 15.00hrs. I did try a HW mod' on the Mk4 & it was probably a little quieter in use, but it just makes the rifle far too long for my liking. The Airstream is calibre specific, so I can't try it in actual use on my Venom Viper, but i'm going to try it for fit & feel as there is a HW mod' on it at present & it is quite long & ungainly. The Airstream, if suitable, would save 2.5" - 3".

On arrival at Furnace Mill I started on the plinking range by first checking and adjusting the zero at 15 yards, then fine tuning the zero at 35 yards. With this done I then checked & made note of all the p.o.i's for 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 and 55 yards. I can confirm that the Mk4 is as accurate as an accurate thing!

In total, on the plinking range, I put 82 shots through her and there are no faults at all. I do find loading the rifle with the single shot tray in place a little fiddly, at least when compared to my B.S.A T.R.U. The Mk4 breech area is quite squared off and wide, where as the breech area on my B.S.A T.R.U is narrower and thus not so deep, thus allowing easier access for my fingers.

With the p.o.i's checked and noted I made my way to the HFT course, this time starting on lane 30 and working my way back to lane 1. The trigger is very nice to use. It's a little different, due to there being a micro switch instead of the normal mechanical sear arrangement that you get on other rifles. It has a similar feel, but it's not quite the same.

I didn't have a great round of the course, but it was just above my average for Furnace Mill, with a score of 37/60, all standing shots. My personal record being 45/60, all standing shots, with my B.S.A T-10. I did mess up a couple of times by pulling the trigger far too early, but this is something I do with other rifles that have such a light trigger. In general I perfer a heavier pull with a bit more first stage. This enables me to get a better feel for what the trigger is doing.

In all, yesterday I put 145 pellets through the Mk4 at Furnace Mill, with no sign of a drop off in p.o.i due to low air. I'm yet to set up the programming to let me know when the air is past a certain level. Hopefully, if it doesn't rain much today I will try to get to Harriers FT Club, near Hartlebury, followed by the afternoon at Furnace Mill again, but now it''s time for some shut eye, as i've just finished a night turn.

Update 6, 20/06/09;- I paid another visit to Furnace Mill this afternoon and i'm happy to say that there are no faults to report as yet. After having a play on the plinking range and a go at the HFT course, I returned to the plinking range for a final play, during which, after 112 shots, I thought that the p.o.i was dropping a little at 55 yards, but I will confirm this at a later date. On arrival at Furnace Mill I refilled the rifle with air and I noticed that after the last visit, in which I shot 145 pellets, there was 90 bar left in the rifle's cylinder. Whilst I was there I took a photograph of the Mk4 with the Airstream moderator fitted, see below;-



Shot count up to;- (all Air Arms Field 4.52's unless otherwise stated).

12/06/09 = 10 shots.

17/06/09 = 40 shots.

18/06/09 = 80 shots.

19/06/09 = 225 shots.

20/06/09 = 366 shots.

29/06/09 = 440 shots.

02/07/09 = 540 shots.

16/07/09 = 552 shots.

19/07/09 = 652 shots.

Chris.