Blackwolf Blackwolf and Sub-MOA Barrels Review

[Franklink]

Late night in the gunroom..
Three brief topics...

1. Cleaned the SubMOA barrels in the last 30 minutes and found only one teeny tiny sparkle of lead on my patches. Used the same process that was before, stripping out a fair amount of lead sparklers. The barrels each have had a couple hundred shots since last cleaned. Weeks ago I polished the 1:22, but the 1:16 is still as-received. I think the reduced lead buildup is from shooting EVERYTHING that goes through the barrel, generously lubed up with Gunzilla. From about 5 years worth of examples of witnessing that agent's ability to reduce or greatly slow down lead adhering to the barrel, I'm not surprised. And glad to see it helping immensely with the leading up of the SubMOA barrels.

There's always some chicken or the egg when running experiments like this....in this case, have the SubMOA barrels become "seasoned" and aren't grabbing the lead as much because of that? or in the case of the one I polished, did that make the difference? Or is it the lubed projectiles that I switched to making the difference? If the 1:16 was still leading but the 1:22 wasn't, I would conclude that the polishing of the 1:22 is why it quit collecting lead in the rifling. BUT, because even the 1:16 that I didn't polish is collecting much less lead, I'm leaning towards the difference being the lubed projectiles.

Testing is ongoing of course, but at this point, I'd recommend lubing projectiles that will be shot from SubMOA barrels. Gunzilla is working for me, but other agents may achieve the same benefit.


2. Tomorrow's weather forecast is looking good for some shooting. If all goes to plan, I hope to...

• run some more of the 12.5grain NSAs through Rudy's barrel with current settings, on paper at 50 yards. The idea here is to verify that that last 0.8moa group from it wasn't just a fluke or an outlier.
• bump the reg up from 130 bar to 140-150 bar and run some of the 36-40grain slugs through the 1:16 barrel on paper @ 100 yards.
• degas, drop the reg down to 70-90bar and start dialing in on a sub20fpe tune for pellets with Rudy's .177 barrel.

3. I was lent a bore scope from an airgun buddy. I've spent a couple hours, a couple different times, trying to get it to work with my phone. It's the kind that uses the screen on the phone as the image viewer. I'm fed up with fighting it, and will no longer be messing with it. It's in the "pellet sorting" category for me now, ie, I'd rather eat horse manure than waste another second on it. Okay, hyperbole....much more realistically....I have limited airgun time, and, as much as I'd like to inspect the bores, shooting is just more fun that fighting that dang bore scope anymore.

 

[Hot shots]

Airguns of Arizona has asked me to do a deep dive into the Daystate Blackwolf, and a couple of Sub MOA barrels as well.

View attachment 16692


I've reviewed a few of their guns in the past few years. Here are the links to them, in case you're new to the forums and/or haven't seen them prior.
(a good number of these were done prior to the advent of the HAM Community)

• BSA Gold Star "Union Jack" in .177, ongoing review
• Red Wolf Standard with G2 board
• Brocock Concept Lite XR (.177)
• RTI Prophet .22
• BRK Ghost Review

As evidenced in those links, I'm not the type of reviewer to make a box-opening video, shoot it a few times, and then try to act like I know anything about the gun. In contrast, I go in-depth, perhaps even more in-depth than some are interested in. And that's the plan with the Blackwolf and Sub-MOA barrels. This has the potential to be an extensive series of posts about the gun and barrels.

There's no retailer or manufacturer oversight in my postings when I do a review. I share my impressions, pros and cons, warts and all. For full disclosure, I don't get paid for my reviews, although I was gifted the Ghost when I asked if I could purchase it after we had spent a pile of time together and I wanted it in my collection for continued use.

Now, on to what I was sent, and my very preliminary first impressions....

What I was sent...
A Daystate Blackwolf, chassis version, with an OEM 28inch/700mm barrel in .22. AOA has it listed as a "HiLite Chassis" on their website.

Daystate Blackwolf .22 HiLite Black Chassis 28" Barrel: Airguns of Arizona | Premier Airgun Store

The following accompanied the gun...

• The 28" barrel OEM barrel, which appears to be a true polygonal rifled bore. I'm told this is a 1:17.7" twist rate. It also has the tensioning system new to the BW platform. At a future point I will share detailed photos of that tensioning system. And of course accuracy results of how that barrel performs.
• A 24 and 5/8" barrel, also in .22, from the relatively new-to-the industry Sub MOA barrel manufacturer. This is a 1:22 twist rate. I was told the intention here is pellets, but that this configuration also performs well with certain slugs in their testing.
• An additional Sub MOA barrel, same length, also in .22, but with a 1:16 twist rate. I was told this is a slug barrel.
  • (additional Sub MOA information here: Sub-MOA Barrels - Exclusive First Report - Hard Air Magazine
• Both of these Sub MOAbarrels are:
  • Cerakoted black to match the gun
  • have spiral fluting
  • tapered, with a diameter of 0.981" at the largest, and tapering down to 0.692" at the muzzle.
  • HEAVY and SUBSTANTIAL, and visually striking, especially paired with a 0DB moderator with a similar spiral pattern.
  • They strongly remind me of a firearm barrel.
• A moderator adaptor was supplied for the Sub-MOA barrels, standard 1/2x20 male threads.
• A set of hammer springs (blue, white, red I believe)
• Finally, the gun arrived with a bare .177 barrel that will eventually go on to @cavedweller. He worked out a deal to have this barrel machined by mutual friend @Arzrover. This is a standard twist, 12 land and groove Lothar barrel, from the Sterling Armaments days, so 20-25 years ago. The .20 cal barrel in my Ghost and reported on extensively in the link above is also a Sterling/LW barrel, and is exceptional. This .177 has big shoes to fill. @Arzrover machined a .177 Sterling sister to this barrel for his .22 to .177 EVOL conversion, and reports that the one in his EVOL is as good as barrels get.

First Impressions and General Ramblings...
VERY prelim thoughts here but this is where I'm at so far...Much of this info was gathered and shared by @Arzrover in the week that he had the gun. He and I had scheduled a day to shoot prairie dogs at my place and AOA made him a Blackwolf mule to get the gun to me.

I've shot the gun less than 100 times, maybe even less than 75 times, not even two full fills to be precise. All with the 1:22 MOA barrel and pellets. About half of those shots were at 50 yards, and the other roughly half were at 100 yards.

Prior to shooting it I swapped the grip out. Personal preference, but I've found I just don't love that 90 degree angled grip that seems to be the current rage. The BW accepts standard AR grips. I went with a finger-grooved grip that I've found I like.

I also needed to scope it. I went with a 20x SWFA. This will primarily be a bench gun. And I've found the simple 20x SWFAs turrets to track true, eliminating the scope as a confounding factor. Yes, the BW probably deserves better glass. And no, I'm not a scope snob, being fairly tolerant of just using what works. The most likely scope upgrade it would get would be going to an Athlon Midas Tac 6-24x50, stolen from one of my personal guns.

Added a couple picatinny rails to the MLOK channel in the fore-end, end-goal here was to be able to shoot it from a bipod.

I dug around in my scope mount orphan bin and found a set of the correct height that will allow me to access the two grub screws that hold the barrel, without needing to remove the scope. The grub screws come down from the top of the breech block on the BW, similar to a Red Wolf. This scope mounting situation will allow barrel swaps (reminder that I was sent 4!!! barrels) without pulling the scope off of the gun.

Overall length with the 24 and 5/8" SubMOA barrel, plus a 0DB moderator in the 110 size is just shy of 47inches. Yes, it's a long gun.

Bobby recorded some weights and shared them....

• The SubMOA barrels weigh 3lbs, 3.8ounces (remember I said SUBSTANTIAL).
• The 28inch OEM barrel weighs 2lb, 8.6ounces
• AOA website lists the BW as 9.5lbs with the 28 inch barrel. That would be un-scoped.
• Total scoped weight Bobbie recorded was 11lbs, 14oz. That was the SubMOA barrel and an Athlon 5-25 scope that he had on it briefly (probably in the 25ounce range).

Some Cons (in my opinion) that I've found so far

• The bottle is not valved like a Ghost bottle. Degas means losing all the air.
• Lowering the regulator pressure requires a degas.
• Barrel machining is different than the Ghost/Alpha and Delta Wolf-was hoping for cross compatibility of barrels here.
• Magazines are also not cross-compatible between the BW and Ghost/Alpha and Delta Wolfs.
• Action has to be removed from chassis (or stock) to be able to swap hammer springs.
• Safety has to be removed from action to be able to pull action from chassis. (I'm not a safety guy, as I choose to single-feed and de-cock almost exclusively. So the safety will just stay in a baggy in the case while the gun is with me.)

Some Pros (again, in light of this being very preliminary)

• Feels more solidly built than a Red Wolf and/or Ghost, Bobby and I both got this impression from our short times with it.
• Shot cycle is MUCH improved over the Ghost. That was one of my criticisms of the Ghost. Much less of the "kachunkity schlunk" Ghost feel when a projectile is fired from the Blackwolf.
• Trigger is better than the Ghost. Another of my Ghost criticisms. I've yet to even adjust anything on the BW trigger, and it is out of the box a better feeling trigger than the Ghost. More crisp, more predictable. It's easily under a pound as-is. And Bobby told me he didn't do any trigger fiddling.
• VERY enjoyable bench gun, which might go back to the shot cycle being so docile, even at pretty high power.
• Power potential. This thing is ROCKING! and that's without even trying very hard. I'll include an image of the chrono testing from Daystate, but they were getting 988fps with the .22/34grain pellets, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn they weren't leaning on it very hard. It's making more power than I'm typically interested in, without even pushing it.

Initial Accuracy Results
This was a handful of groups at 50 yards, mostly with the intent of zeroing the scope. The larger printed circles are just under 0.75." Only tried three different weights of pellets, all JSB: the 20.83, the 25.4, and the 28.55. I was blowing out the back of my rubber mulch pellet traps. This was with a reg pressure of 175bar (as shipped), and the blue hammer spring. This was so unofficial that I didn't even have a chronograph out. I suspect the 20.83s were close to 1100 fps. Best accuracy seemed to be from the Grands with the hammer wheel at 10, which still might have been too fast.

Then this was with the Grands at 100 yards. That last (bottom right) group had 3/5 into the same bout 1/2".

Scores were arrived at with this method...



No, this initial session isn't showing any earth shaking accuracy. This is the absolute definition of quick and dirty, undertaken just to get on the gun a bit. I will need to get serious enough about it to get out the chrono and figure out a general "tune" and what the barrel likes. From the speeds that 1:17.7 and 1:30/32 barrels like, I suspect I'll find best accuracy around 900-930 from this 1:22 barrel, but that is of course variable with the projectile that I'm shooting.

The following are a couple images from the manual that I found interesting.

Conclusion
I'm a bit overwhelmed at the number of permutations possible with this gun, the barrels, the reg pressure, the hammer springs, various projectiles, etc. Along the same lines of how many hundreds of thousands of words are in the English language, starting from an alphabet of only 26 letters, arranged in various ways....The variables with this review of the Blackwolf combine to create a VAST potential for testing and tinkering and subsequently reporting the results. Current plan is to work through some of those, and share the results here. Having an often more than full-time job, and kids and a wife, I'll test and share as time allows.

How many guns do you have in your collection, and from what I hear your spoken if very highly

 

[pan60]

@Hot shots welcome to HAM

 

[Franklink]

How many guns do you have in your collection, and from what I hear your spoken if very highly

All but one of those review guns went back to AOA when each review concluded. I was given the Ghost. My joke with the Ghost is that is actually my most expensive airgun, when looked at from an hourly wage perspective. I spent hundreds of hours documenting the process on that one.

Outside of the guns I've officially reviewed, this is what I currently own...

Mac1 USFT (multiple barrels)
Crosman 1720T
Beeman P17
Taipan Veteran Short (multiple barrels)
Taipan Veteran Standard (multiple barrels)
Taipan Veteran Long (multiple barrels)
Airforce Condor SS (multiple barrels)
HW50s
FWB300s
FWB300
Crosman 1377 (bag full of parts anyway)

The following are guns I owned in the past, but no longer do...
FWB Sport X2 (the newer version)
RX2 (HW90 with laminate stock)
HW77k
Benjamin Discovery
Brocock Concept Elite S6 (the name got recycled, this was the first version, with walnut stock)
FWB300s (had three at one point)
Airforce Condor
Crosman 2400 (multiple barrels)
Xisico clone of an RWS34

There might be a couple Im forgetting above.

Also, there have been a handful of guns I had on loan for various amounts of time, the purpose of which was barrel testing.

Generally, my airgun interests revolve around barrels, projectiles, and ballistic coefficients, and comparing real-world results from various rifling profiles. Also, I lean HEAVILY to .22 and below. Around 65-70fpe I start thinking you might as well shoot a powder burner, and my hard limit for that thinking is 100fpe.

 

[Franklink]

Tomorrow's weather forecast is looking good for some shooting. If all goes to plan, I hope to...

• run some more of the 12.5grain NSAs through Rudy's barrel with current settings, on paper at 50 yards. The idea here is to verify that that last 0.8moa group from it wasn't just a fluke or an outlier.
• bump the reg up from 130 bar to 140-150 bar and run some of the 36-40grain slugs through the 1:16 barrel on paper @ 100 yards.
• degas, drop the reg down to 70-90bar and start dialing in on a sub20fpe tune for pellets with Rudy's .177 barrel.

Well, National Weather Service got the wind wrong for Saturday.

The highly variable winds are the hardest to shoot in, both in direction and intensity, and I had both on Saturday. But it was my day off so I shot anyway.

Run some more of the 12.5grain NSAs through Rudy's barrel with current settings, on paper at 50 yards.

Here are 10 groups of 10 shots each at 50 yards, using the 12.5grain NSA from the Blackwolf. 15% plenum reduction. Blue spring @ hammer tension of 4. For an average fps around 900. Small ES, almost all were 890-905ish.

Top left of each page was the sighter bull.

First page was dirty barrel, second page was clean barrel, didn't change the average of each page much, but the smallest ten shot group was from the clean barrel.

Overall average size of those ten, 10 shot groups was a 1.08", which would put us at just a hair over 2moa. Most of that was wind. I've long held the opinion that there's a weight component to a particular projectiles ability to deflect the wind that our usage of the ballistic coefficient simply doesn't account for. And these small .177 pellets fit my theory. They have a BC up around 0.06-0.07, but in the wind, behave about like a 10-13 grain pellet with a BC of half of that does. Fun to shoot, but you dang sure better be on your wind game, watching flags like a hawk. When assessing accuracy I sometimes don't hold off for wind, to see what the true accuracy potential is. I feel that trying to outguess the wind only muddies the waters. I wasn't holding for wind for those 120 ish shots above.

Overall not as good as that one 0.8moa group from a few days prior, but still respectable, given the conditions.

As for shot count, at one point I kept track and got 60 shots from 240-170 bar. With a reg pressure of 130 bar, and just doing comparative math....a full 250-130bar should yield around 100 shots at this modest 22.5fpe setting.

Very pleasant overall shooting experience.


Bump the reg up from 130 bar to 140-150 bar and run some of the 36-40grain slugs through the 1:16 barrel on paper @ 100 yards.

Disclaimer prior to reporting how this went: I realized after I was all done shooting the heavy stuff, that I hadn't swapped out out to the .22 probe!!! So I shot a bunch of heavy slugs with the 1:16 barrel, using the .177 probe! I laughed at myself when I realized this at the end of the day. I wasn't feeling any puff of air, but definitely noticed how sharp the crack of the report was. I noted a bunch of the tuning info, but most of that is probably useless since I had the wrong probe on and was likely losing some air there. Suffice it to say that I was surprised to be able to shoot the 40grain Altaros as fast as 850 with a reg pressure of 140 bar, and the .177 probe! lol.

I shot 3 different slugs in that 36-40grain area: the Altaros 35.8gr, Altaros 40gr, and Thomas 38.5grain. All were from the 1:16 SubMOA barrel.
All three shot fairly respectably, given the conditions.
The two ten shot groups from the 35.8s on the top of the first page are decent.
The first page has a 5 shot group with the 40grain Altaros that is less than an MOA (bottom right).
The second page has a 10 shot group with the Thomas slugs that is much better than it looks (also bottom right). I numbered the shots on that one and shot 8 nicked the nail that holds my target to the cardboard backer, and of course that caused chaos.

The 40grain Altaros seemed to do better at 850 than they did at 825-830.

I've said it previously in this review, but the easy button for the Blackwolf is high BC slugs from the 1:16 barrel. I'm experimenting with plenum size and transfer port, etc, for .22 pellets an even lately .177 stuff, but the Blackwolf really seems to be designed for these heavy slugs. And they shoot well. The price per shot of lathe turned (Altaros) slugs isn't very appealing to me, but it's dang-sure are easy to make them go where I want them to at 100 yards, even in the wind.

Degas, drop the reg down to 70-90bar and start dialing in on a sub20fpe tune for pellets with Rudy's .177 barrel.

Rounded out the day doing the above. While I had it degassed for the plenum reduction, I traded out my 15% plenum reducer for AOA's prototype reducer. Figured if the goal is 19ish fpe as a .177, sure don't need much plenum volume for that. I didn't try the water displacement to figure out CCs, but from volumetric comparison (yes, the ole "eyeballin" it method) I'd estimate that AOA's reduces the OEM 53cc plenum to more like 10-15ccs. There's just not much room left in there for air, as the prototype takes up nearly the entire volume.

White hammer spring for this.

I'm really hoping this barrel likes JSB manufactured 10.34grain pellets. In field target we usually shoot for high teens in energy level, depending on the speed that the barrel shows a preference for. So, something like 880-930 with the 10.34s is likely where we'll end up.

I started with a reg pressure of 75 bar and worked my way up, shooting two pellets at min, and then two shots at max.
75 bar --> min = 818,819 and max = 848-849
85 bar --> min = 828, 828 and max = 863-865
95 bar --> min = 835, 838 and max = 863, 865
100 bar --> min = 847, 846 and max = 900, 902
105 bar --> min = 854, 851 and max = 921, 916

at this point had noticed how much more pleasant the shot feel and sound was with less hammer spring tension than it was with more, so jumped to 120 bar, hoping to use less hammer spring to get in that 880-920 window

120 bar --> min = 848, 854 and max = 953, 956
130 bar --> min - 858, 855 and max = 972-977
130 bar looked good enough that I gathered a bit more detailed data...."4" = 893, 895 and "8" = 928, 921 and "10" = 930, 936

The above was mostly for fps gathering, but I also shot at paper at 30 yards for all of this. The first ten or shots went into the same dime sized group, until the fps climbed out of it as I made adjustments and incrementally increased the reg.

Very down and dirty here, but right of my thumb is the first 10 or so shots. Started cranking turrets after that.

Having some baseline data, decided to shoot it a bit at 50 yards too. I was running out of light by now. It was shooting good, and then wasn't. I concluded that the barrel was likely dirty after all the slugs from earlier that day. And called it a night.

Fast forward to this morning...I had about 20 minutes this morning before work, so hastily (read not thoroughly) ran a few patches through barrel and took about 20 shots at 30 yards. This was the best 5 shot group from this morning.

Just under 1/2." And the ever present wind was...present.

Next step is to polish up the barrel well.

I might end up taking out AOA's major plenum reducer, and either put my 15% reduction back in, or leave it at the full 53ccs. The port on this .177 barrel is small, and might be sufficient air restriction by itself, for the intended purpose. I'm also wondering about maybe getting to my 880-930fps with 10.34s with either less reg pressure and/or less hammer tension, goal being an even gentler shot cycle.

That white spring on the lower end of the hammer spring tension wheel almost feels like cocking a Red Wolf. There's just hardly any cocking effort there. It's a desirable enough trait in a field target gun that I'm interested in fiddling with the tune to be able to take advantage of it.

Lots of shooting, and lots of fun.

 

[Franklink]

I polished Rudy's .177 barrel today.

Also decided to swap out the moderator situation, from the 110 0DB to a spare Veteran shroud. MUCH quieter now. I like quiet airguns. The quieter the better. And Vet shrouds are the best method I've seen to do it.

I also decided to lube the pellets with some Slick 50 One lube. Just to see. Counted 30 pellets and lubed em, intent was to shoot 6, 5 shot groups, using the 100 yard EBR practice cards, but at 30 yards.

With running kids to and fro, and dinner and bedtime, etc. I wasn't able to shoot until well after dark.

The changing of the moderator situation of course shifted my poi a bit. So two of the bulls got used up for rezeroing the scope. Started on top left and shots were low and right, adjusted and got the vertical correct, but too far left, then a smidge too far back right. As it often goes. And some of that could have even been the freshly polished barrel settling back into stable results.

So, went down that left column, first one after zeroing was the bottom left. Then started on the bottom right column and went up that side. I was tweaking the hammer spring ever so slightly, from 4-6, only about an 8-10fps change with each step on the power wheel. The two low shots that stretched the middle right group to 1/2" were a 4 setting. I dialed up to 6 prior to shooting the 0.2" top right group. From those particular two groups, barrel seems to prefer 905-915. Will need to shoot some more to confirm that.
So, finished on top right. And quite pleased with that one. The four non-zeroing 5 shot groups average out to 0.34", which @ 30 yards is 1.0823 moa.



Very nice shot cycle, compromise of reg pressure and cocking effort. Still with a reg about 130 bar, and still with the AOA prototype plenum castrator. And putting the quieter shroud situation on there was the cherry on top. I think I'll leave it as-is for now. Will do some more accuracy assessment and maybe work up 10-55 yard dope to be able to shoot it at a field target match.

 

[WillM]

Can you please explain your polishing technique step by step or point to a good reference on the subject? Thanks
I did search but didn’t find anything

 

[Franklink]

Can you please explain your polishing technique step by step or point to a good reference on the subject? Thanks
I did search but didn’t find anything

One piece cleaning rod with a handle that rotates, really tight patches, JB bore paste.

I like to work from the breech end so I pull the barrel off the gun. I also remove the probe area oring from the groove in the barrel.

Slather a couple qtips worth of JB into the bore and go to town. I focus on any tight areas, "focus" being more strokes at the tight spots. Replace the patches frequently and add new JB a couple times. I'll occasionally push pellets through the bore throughout this process to monitor progress. The feel of a pellet tells you more than the feel of a tight patch.

When I'm satisfied with how pellets feel, I use Gunzilla on patches to flush out all the JB. Sometimes there will be some stubborn JB in the transfer port and/or the oring groove. I try to get it all out, sometimes it takes a dental pick, etc.

 

[Franklink]

I shot the Blackwolf off and on yesterday. The weather was atrocious, gusts into the 20s, which doesn't usually stop me. But the sporadic sheets of snow and frozen rain were a bridge too far. So the shooting was on again, off again, as the weather systems blew through. Emphasis on "blew" cuz the wind didn't stop, even between the periods of falling moisture.

All of the shooting was with the Blackwolf as a 19fpe .177. And either at 30 or 55 yards. Used two different pellets, somewhat trying to compare them in the wind: JSB 10.34 and 13.43 (RDs). Found out that, as currently configured, the Blackwolf as a 19fpe .177 is good for 160 shots, from 250 bar, down to the reg set point of 130bar. When I stopped at 160, fps had not started to dip, but the needles on both gauges were definitely pointing at 130 bar.

I learned that Rudy's barrel seems to get along just fine with the .177 Monster Redesigns @ 810. That's a pellet that most field target shooters shy away from, as barrels typically don't love this particular pellet.

So both the .177/10.34s at 910fps, and the .177/13.43s (again, RDs) @ 810fps, will group into 0.5" @ 30 yards in the wind, and/or without trying very hard. Better conditions, and/or more concentration and the 5 shot groups at 30 yards from both pellets are in the 0.3" area, which is of course all touching/overlapping. Not too shabby.

As for 55 yards, that's when it gets tricky. Which is more of an inherent aspect of the physics of tiny .177 pellets in the wind, than it is a Blackwolf specific situation.

Generally, the 13.43 groups are tighter at 55 yards, but I was also holding off for wind for most of them (wasn't for the 10.34s) and also feel like the bulk of the 10.34 shooting correlated to the most gusty times. So, which is "better" was inconclusive.

Here are 6, 5 shot groups from 10.34s @ 30 yards.

And 6, ten shot groups from 10.34s @ 55 yards.

And then 3, 5 shot groups from 13.43s @ 30 on the left side, and 3, 10 shot groups from 13.43s @ 55 on the right side.

And then another 3, 10 shot groups from 13.43s @ 55.

Other than the numb fingers from the cold, pretty enjoyable shooting experience. Either of these pellets would be competitive for a field target match.

 

[Solo1]

Told you these 177-23” barrels like mrds! Lol

 

[Franklink]

Told you these 177-23” barrels like mrds! Lol

This .177 is a 19.5" very special, old stock barrel from the 90's.
Do you shoot the MRD originals or Redesigns from your factory .177 Ghost barrel?

 

[Solo1]

This .177 is a 19.5" very special, old stock barrel from the 90's.
Do you shoot the MRD originals or Redesigns from your factory .177 Ghost barrel?

Ya ive been shooting mrds from the brk hp 23” barrel from the day i received it and discovered it shot way better with mrds than 10.3’s.

 

[Centercut]

This .177 is a 19.5" very special, old stock barrel from the 90's.
Do you shoot the MRD originals or Redesigns from your factory .177 Ghost barrel?

I’m pretty sure the two time AAFTA GP National champ has shot the .177 RD Monsters from her Ghost the past two years….

 

[Billm]

I’m pretty sure the two time AAFTA GP National champ has shot the .177 RD Monsters from her Ghost the past two years….

Very impressive shooter, she should have her own branded namesake BRK Ghost.

 

[Centercut]

Very impressive shooter, she should have her own branded namesake BRK Ghost.

I agree. She’s certainly done more with her gun than Fady, and he has his own branded Ghost!

 

[Franklink]

@cavedweller wanted some weights bad enough that he shipped me a scale through Amazon.

For anyone interested...

Weight of a SubMOA barrel =

Weight of the factory barrel/shroud setup =

Weight of 19.5" 15mm bare barrel =



Weight of the chassis stock=

And yes, it will balance on the grip =

Weight of just the action, no barrel or stock =

Weight of gun with 19.5" .177 barrel, no scope =

Above weight taken like this =

Weight of gun with 19.5" .177 barrel, plus scope, plus 110 0db moderator=

Weight of gun with Sub-MOA .22 barrel, plus scope, plus 110DB moderator =

Scope is a 6-24x 50 Athlon Midas Tac.

 

[Solo1]

Nice scale!

 

[Soren Drost]

I agree. She’s certainly done more with her gun than Fady, and he has his own branded Ghost!

There is a difference between being a national champion and a world champion !

 

[Airgun-hobbyist]

Blackwolf Pistol for field target?!?!?

Yes, and no.

My hope was that it would be as simple as removing the back end and getting a short enough barrel to fit the requirements. Sadly, that's not the case. There are a couple hiccups that make going from here to there a bit more complicated.

Here is the parts breakdown...

Those two through-bolts that hold on the rear of the stock have to be snugged up to...something, to keep the grip from rocking around. I see a couple ways of skinning that cat, the best would probably be fabbing a little oval shaped plate with two holes in it, with two shorter bolts, and nuts. A simpler yet option would be shorter bolts, two fender washers, and nylock nuts. That would at least make it useable as a pistol.

The problem than becomes the depth from center of barrel. The max measurement for anything forward of the trigger is 3 inches, measured from the center of the barrel. The aluminum bottle guard/under-rail is about 3.5"s from center of bore - too deep. So, take off the under-rail right? Nope, the bottom of the composite stock midsection is 3.125" from center of bore. Daystate was 1/8 of an inch away from accidentally making perhaps the sweetest AAFTA legal pistol in existence. And nearly plug and play at that! So close.

Next thought... is the under-rail of the air tube configuration closer to the barrel? From photos, it appears the rail is indeed closer to the bore, but still too deep. And both configurations seem to share the composite midsection, that is, again 1/8th of an inch too deep.

So, it doesn't appear that swapping factory parts around is going to get a guy a legal AAFTA field target pistol. But that doesn't mean it wouldn't be possible. Neither the bottle, nor the fill port is more than 3 inches below the middle of the barrel... (the photos make the starting and ending points of the measurements look funky)

And the action itself is definitely shorter than the 25" max length, even with this 19.5" barrel, we'd be under the overall max....

so, it would require either making your own stock from wood or laminate, or a bit of fabrication of something to hold an AR grip. I've been mulling over something simple, like a 1/4" thick aluminum plate held to the bottom of the action via the stock screws, with an AR grip receiver on the back end to attach the grip to.

In short, AAFTA legal Blackwolf pistol ? Not plug and play, but also not impossible.

How popular do you think the Blackwolf would be as an AAFTA legal pistol, if an anodized aluminum chassis that fits ar compatible grips were made? Would be worth the expense in sales to made a bunch of these pistol chassis?

 

[Franklink]

How popular do you think the Blackwolf would be as an AAFTA legal pistol, if an anodized aluminum chassis that fits ar compatible grips were made? Would be worth the expense in sales to made a bunch of these pistol chassis?

That's a great question, and I don't have an answer.

Pistol field target is interesting. Since the rules paint us into the corner of not a pistol, and not a rifle, there's not a lot of commercial options. The Crosman 1720t was probably the best cheap option, but they're no longer made. I see a lot of the little BRK pistols used these days. I also see a lot of guys chopping off pistol grips and barrels to make a pifle.

For someone that already owns a Blackwolf, I could see that person being interested in a turn key aluminum pistol chassis. I have not yet seen many BWs at field target matches. Some of that is probably because it hasn't been out long. The other issue is a barrel. The shortest factory barrel that I know of is a 17" and rules specify max of 15", including any moderator or shroud. So a barrel would still have to be sourced to get to a legal AFTA pistol.