John Bagakis Shares His Daystate Red Wolf Mods

John Bagakis is an outstanding shot who placed extremely well at Extreme Benchrest 2021. But if you looked carefully, you could see that he was not shooting a standard gun. So I talked to John and here he shares his Daystate Red Wolf mods.

John explained to me that his Red Wolf mods were undertaken by himself. So they’re not intended to be pretty, but they’re definitely effective!

John’s main modifications are to make the Red Wolf faster to shoot. So, his first mod is to alter the position of the lever action knob so that it makes a shorter stroke.

As there’s no hammer spring to cock in the lever’s travel, the shorter stroke makes it much faster to cock the Red Wolf. John explained that the short cocking action makes possible to keep the gun in place while cocking at speed.

You can see the modified cocking lever in the photographs above and below. As the Red Wolf’s cocking lever is easily-reversible, he uses it on the left for fastest use in Speed Silhouette competition. Then he switches to right-hand operation for benchrest shooting.

John also wanted a higher capacity magazine than the standard Daystate mag. So he’s chosen to use the current “Side Shot” type, as used in current FX air rifles.

In order to mount this magazine in the Red Wolf, John undertook some risky machining!

In fact he machined a large slot into the Red Wolf’s breech. The cut extends right down into the valve, as we can see below. Don’t try this at home folks!!!

This mod allows a 28-round magazine to be mounted, instead of the conventional 10-shot .22 caliber mag. More capacity means fewer stops to reload in Speed Silhouette competition.

Yet, surprisingly, it’s still possible to use a standard factory magazine on the gun if required!

As you can see, John also uses a breech riser to obtain clearance for the 34 mm tube scope on his Red Wolf. This gives clearance for the new magazine. But the eye line is still comfortable and convenient for him.

A less radical mod is that John has installed a barrel tuning weight from Pitbull Airguns.

This barrel tuning system is actually 3D printed from plastic. It included holes for pellets to be inserted around the circumference to provide some mass. You can see them in the photograph above.

John has tested this barrel tuning system and showed me some test results. It certainly seems to make a positive difference to accuracy at 50 Yards in John’s testing.

The final Red Wolf mod on John’s gun is a replacement buttpad. This is actually a prototype buttpad from Kraford and Lypt. John likes it and it should be available in regular production form very soon. HAM will be bringing you details.

Thanks to John for sharing his mods. Maybe some of them will be taken up by the UK manufacturer in future…