Ok, I said I would not buy one as they were too bloody expensive, but I managed to get hold of one at the right money and boy, what an amazingly beautiful bit of kit it is when you actually see it and hold it in the flesh. The press pictures were none too flattering - it looked like a butchers window and I thought you must be mad to part with £2.5k for mutton dressed as mutton - but in real life it really is nice, very nice.
The price debate will go on - so moving beyond that, here are my first impressions:
Very light - on paper it's over 7.5lb, but pick it up and you get a shock - I don't know where they hid the weight, but it feels more like 6? The carbon shroud and bottle up front help this a lot by taking the weight back to your shoulder instead of having it up front and pulling your leading arm down. The Daystate electronics help keep the weight back also as they have moved the battery from the front of the gun into the stock at the rear and further created a water tight compartment by doing so - they have also put in more waterproofing in the form of a boxed enclosure for the electronics where as in the Mk4 etc. it was a bare, but waterproof circuit board. Arguably it didn't need it as water is not generally an issue for the electronic Daystates - but as they had the opportunity in the redesign of what is essentially a Pulsar action in a target/hunter style stock they took it.
As it started life as a Pulsar they removed the laser - fine on a bull pup for close rat shooting, but there is no where to put it on a normally stocked rifle, and 95% of people will not miss it. They removed - or hid, some of the programming functions as they felt it was too complex to give people too many options which were seldom used - back light timing for example. They also pre programmed the low battery and low pressure functions and added a bigger "rumble" which vibrates to alert you to such events - no big flashing light or loud buzzers to ruin your night vision or scare the game - not that you would be hunting with the LE version, but it's the same parts on the normal Red Wolf other than the fancy stock and LE name.
On shooting the gun you realise it's quiet - very quiet with that carbon shroud, you don't even need a moderator in normal use, but I may get one as I like them, rumour has it some fancy red ones from Huggett are being tested but not sure yet if they will actually be produced.
Shot count is good from the carbon bottle, it's a 480cc size and mine fills to 210 SWP - not sure of the shot count yet, but I done over 200 shots today and only used 50bar, so I'm guessing a real 450+ is on the cards with ease in .177, probably 500+ in .22.
The new single shot trays are better than the old ones and now have higher sides so the pellets don't fallout as easily, but they can still fall back towards the breach while loading, and the Rowan single shot loader from the Pulsar is a better option. The mag is a 10 shot Daystate favourite, mine worked fine, but the ones in the new Brococks looked better made, which surprised me. The accuracy was also good with the mag - which can be a bit less at times depending on the mag/gun line up, but they are normally good for hunting, and not acceptable for bench rest comps where your looking at a couple of mm variances.
The accuracy is what people want to know about, and this one is a belter - absolutely great from the word go with 8 different pellets I thought I'd give a go. The target cards have rows of three smaller targets on them - the ones of the left with the pellet type written on them were just to zero that pellet, then 10 shots were taken at the next two targets to the right - 5 shots in each to see how it grouped, not necessarily hit the bull, but in reality I was finding it hard to miss:
All the groups are under a 5p at 30m (about 18mm) - in fact, most are around 8 to 10mm CTC from tins of unsorted, unweight and unsized pellets - probably the best groups I've done indoors from a bench doing pellet testing. With a bit more patience I was getting 5 shots through a .22 sized hole on some targets - I don't know about you, but that is at the limit of my ability, and it was tiring.
Final couple of bits - nice ambi stock and the action can have the bolt moved for left handers, the filling adapter it comes with is a triple length universal one - like the older Daystate filling adapters, but longer so it's easier to get in and out of the stock - those with an Impact know the problem they have/had with there's, looks like Daystate paid attention and fixed it on this version.
Doing just over 11fpe with JSB Exacts in 8.44, the heavies pushed it up to 11.7 - perfect.
I'm not sure what I'll do about a bipod - nothing is fitted as standard, and I don't like the idea of doing anything to such a nice stock, so I guess I'll be using bags - a small rail fitting would have been nice, as would have been a Red Huggett in the box, but overall, it's a great gun and I'm very pleased with it - which I'm sure a lot of people will be happy to hear - because despite it being out for the last 4 weeks or more people don't seem to be using or writing about them, I guess there will be a lot simply being bought by collectors and being locked up or displayed - not my one, it's too good for that.
James
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