Daystate Red Wolf ART Tuning – A Special Service At AoA
The Daystate Red Wolf in .22 caliber is already well-known as one of the most accurate air rifles available for long-distance benchrest shooting, out-of-the-box. But a special Red Wolf ART Tuning service from Airguns of Arizona can improve even on that, should the customer wish.
Today, we’ll find out how…
ART stands for Accuracy Research Team. It’s the name of a Daystate philosophy for ensuring that their products are developed to achieve outstanding outstanding accuracy. You can read more about it in this HAM story.
But even with such dedication, skill and technology, it’s still possible to improve individual examples of a product and take it to even greater heights.
“Blueprinting” the engine for a race car is one example of this type of work. ART Tuning is another – it’s a service offered by Airguns of Arizona, specifically for the Red Wolf.
The way that AoA undertakes their ART service is to break it into two parts…
First, there’s a workshop part. Secondly, there’s long-range test-firing to prove the effectiveness of the tune.
Importantly, the two stages of this process are undertaken by two different people. This is deliberate as it provides an un-biased approach, combining outstanding workshop skills with world-class testing on the range used for the annual Extreme Benchrest competition.
Let’s Start With The Workshop Side.
A key part of the ART Tuning service is mapping and re-programming the Red Wolf’s electronic “brain”.
In this way, the gun’s electronics is individually set-up to provide best performance when using one specific, known-good pellet. Normally this is the 25.39 Grain JSB Monster Redesigned.
Then the AoA specialist installs a new bolt probe that’s specially-optimized to provide best performance with this pellet.
Steve Buchanan is the “wizard” tuner. He also has several other specialist “magic” tricks that are incorporated into the tune…
If the customer has any other specific requirements, these will be incorporated while the Red Wolf is on Steve’s workshop bench.
After a lot of painstaking work, the results of this tune are documented and will be presented to the customer as proof of the exact set-up of his or her individual gun.
Then To The Range.
After this extensive set-up process, the gun is taken to the Rio Salado range and test fired.
I joined Jared Clark one evening and watched him test a batch of guns that had passed through the ART tuning process.
Jared explained that his shooting test typically takes around 100 shots. He’ll normally shoot 20, 5-shot groups with each gun. As you can see, he shoots from bags. This is to prevent any possibility of jump when shooting from a bipod and is another part of removing variables from the testing.
What he’s looking for is a “good feel” with multiple, consistently-excellent groups of around 1-Inch Center-to-Center at 78 Yards from the same gun.
If a customer orders a Red Wolf with a scope, that scope will be mounted, sighted-in and used for the test. Likewise, if the customer orders a dedicated airgun silencer at the same time, the whole ART Tune process will be undertaken specifically to include that configuration.
Let’s be clear, this is a customized process that provides the customer with an unique air rifle that’s dedicated to its new owner!
Normally, the ART-tuned gun will pass Jared’s testing first time. But if he’s not satisfied with the accuracy – it will go back for the tune to be double-checked, then tested again.
It has to be right!
The customer will also receive a test target illustrating the Red Wolf’s performance.
Note that Jared shoots the Monster Redesigned pellets “straight from the tin”. So there’s still additional accuracy improvement potential should the customer be willing to sort pellets by weight and head size for competition at EBR…
So why isn’t ART Tuning included with every Daystate Red Wolf? In a word – cost!
Like “blueprinting” an engine, this is a specialist tuning process that goes waaay above and beyond even the best that can be achieved with volume manufacturing in a factory environment. As you can tell, it takes knowledgeable, highly-skilled people a lot of time to achieve.
That’s why it’s an additional-cost option for those customers lucky enough to buy a Red Wolf from Airguns of Arizona.
If you’re interested in Red Wolf ART Tuning ART tune for your new air rifle, the best way is to order by phone from AoA and discuss any specific requirements.
