Daystate PH6

[AdminMASTER]

...well...first time in my life Ive come across such a rifle model....

Anyway - blast from the past

http://www.krale-schietsport.nl/nl/daystate-ph6.html

http://www.daystate.com/manuals/manual_ph6.pdf

REVIEW: http://www.airgunsofarizona.com/Huntsma ... eview.html

"...THE HEART OF THE SYSTEM

The magazine system is why I bought the rifle in the first place. Designed by a gentleman named Paul Hogarth (hence the "PH' bit). It's a fixed design that so far has worked flawlessly. The PH6 block is machined from solid aluminum and runs flush to the side of the cylinder, keeping the rifles lines nice and fluid. To my mind this gives the PH6 an edge over certain other makes because you don't have a dirty great magazine protruding like some kind of growth from the side of the rifle. At the heart of the system is a stainless steel, six shot magazine that indexes each time the rifle is cocked. One of the best features about the rifles with fixed mags is that you don't have to find somewhere to put the rifle down to load or change to another magazine. You can top it up as your go so that you don't run out while you're hunting (although I managed to do just this when I first bought the rifle and fired an empty chamber at a Magpie). There's a quirk in the system which means that the magazine rotates anticlockwise. This means that if you were to only load one pellet in, you would actually be 4 shots away from firing it. As Tony at Daystate said to me; "as long as you can count to 6, you won't have a problem with it". It's very easy to get into a routine where you become aware of the location of each pellet. The magazine itself is numbered and I find it easiest to keep each number aligned with the top of the breech clock so that I know which shot I'm on. On the early models, there was a tendency for the magazine to over rotate whilst it was being loaded, but this problem has been remedied by the fitting of a small spring to allow the magazine to align properly with the loading gate. Since I've owned mine, I've been keen to find out what people think of this rifle. One or two people have commented that the magazine is fiddly to load and to be honest, in the beginning I would have agreed. However, I've been using mine for over 6 months now and it's all a question of technique. You have to allow the rifle to do the work for you. If you tilt the gun down slightly, the pellets almost load themselves. This technique works best with longer bodied pellets like the Air Arms Field. Shorties like Accupells for example, have a tendency to somersault on the way down the gate and can sometimes end up backwards. Anyone who's seen me load mine now will understand that it's not as fiddly to load as it looks. In .22 caliber, the weight of the pellet is sufficient to allow it to simply slide into the hole in the magazine, whereas the .177 caliber version requires you to just flick the pellet into the chamber with the back of your fingernail. I've owned a few multi-shot air rifles now and I can load mine just as fast as any other make of rifle and in some cases, faster.

Daystate triggers have come in for some stick in the past for being a bit "agricultural", but this is the first rifle I've ever used where I didn't have had to adjust the trigger as soon as I started shooting. It's got a nicely curved brass blade and the release is very crisp with no overtravel or creep. I did adjust the trigger just to have a fiddle and I've actually managed to get the release at about the same weight as the one on my Ripley, which is like breaking glass when it goes off. I like my triggers to be set light. Not too much so but light enough that the release of the shot is almost subconscious. I know that many sporting shooters prefer to leave plenty of meat on the sears, but my idea of a nice trigger isn't one that needs a bottle jack shoved between the guard and the blade to get it to go off. If you're ever worried that the trigger on your rifle is set to light, cock it then while your pointing it in a safe direction, slap the butt to make sure the gun doesn't go off. . . if it does, then you need to adjust things back to a safer and more responsible pressure. A couple of my Field Target shooting friends have tried that trigger and they've all commented on the predictability of the unit.

When I first bought this rifle I was a little concerned about how I was going to clean the barrel. With the magazine being fixed into place and me not having any desire to attempt to remove it, I thought that the only option I'd be left with shooting would be to fire cleaning felts through the barrel. As it turns out I needn't have worried. On either side of the breech block, about two inches from the front, there are two small grub screws. If you undo both of theses, you'll be able to slide the barrel out to clean it. A word of warning though, be careful how you pull it through the fixing clamp at the muzzle or you'll end up scratching the blueing. When you're finished cleaning the barrel, simple slide it back into the block, making sure that you've lined the transfer port up the right way around, (it should face down). Tighten the two grub screws back up and the job's done. . . easy!

I'm not going to bleat on about the safety catch, because that particular gripe has to be commented on for donkeys years. . . it does what it's supposed to and it's positive to operate. I would like to see it operate the other way around because as it is now, you have to reach over the bolt to disengage it. It would be better if you could press down on the right hand side instead. The answer to the safety catch issue is simple. . . if you don't like it, either don't use it or remove it. It's only attached by one screw at the back of the action, so it's not a major gunsmithing job."