The new Daystate Blackwolf air rifle carries a huge burden of expectation. The British gunmaker is known for making some of the best airguns in the world, and the Blackwolf's arrival at the British Shooting Show 2025 followed weeks of speculation on social media. And, with prices starting at just under £1,800, shooters are going to expect some pretty special performance from the new Daystate airgun.
Daystate has built its reputation for innovation on its range of pioneering electronic airguns – but the black wolf in the pack has a fully mechanical action. It shouldn’t be forgotten, though, that Daystate has been making mechanical airguns for half a century, and recent offerings including the Huntsman and the Wolverine confirm that the company’s team of engineers don’t have to rely on electronic gizmos to produce an airgun that delivers a consistently high level of performance.
I was lucky enough to have a couple of weeks shooting the Blackwolf on the range and in the field prior to its launch. My first glance confirmed that this rifle is an evolution of Daystate’s familiar aesthetic. It’s a handsome, adult-sized air rifle with a distinctly contemporary appearance.
The Daystate Blackwolf is a modular platform offering numerous stock, barrel, power and air bottle / cylinder configurations. Starting with the stock, there is the standard carbon grey wood option, a striking grey/black laminate and a beautiful hand-oiled walnut option – an alloy stocked tactical model is also in development.
I was sent the standard stock version with 430mm barrel and 480cc carbon bottle. This model is 980mm long and weighs 3.5kg. It is very nicely balanced, handles well in any shooting stance and comes instinctively on to aim – so it certainly ticks the pointability box.
There is some variation in the fore end of the stock, depending on whether you go for the bottle or cylinder option of the Blackwolf. The former leaves much of the bottle exposed while the latter features a Wolverine-style polymer fore-end extension that engulfs much of the cylinder. All options have a distinctly flat, bench-friendly, underside with MLOK fittings, which seem to be the current vogue. A sweeping groove runs the length of the fore end, making for a secure hold point which is enhanced by three neat patches of stippling on either side to enhance grip.
The same subtle stippling is also present on the pistol grip, which has been carefully sculpted for a very comfortable hold. This is an ambidextrous stock, and you can shoot it thumb-up or thumb-round. The butt pad is height adjustable by means of a single Allen locking screw, as is the cheek piece, so it’s simple to get eye/scope alignment just right.
Daystate airguns tend to be very cleanly engineered, and the Blackwolf is no exception. All areas of metalwork look very tidy and the main block has a neat black anodised finish.
Scope attachment is via a 20 MOA picatinny rail – another very fashionable feature. That rail is in two sections, offering a total 150mm of clamping space, which should accommodate most choices of gunsight. The two sections of rail straddle the magazine, but it only stands proud by about 10mm so you don’t need excessively high mounts to keep your chosen optic clear of the magazine.
The Daystate Blackwolf platform offers calibre options in .177, .22, .25 and .30, and barrel length choices include 430mm and 600mm plus something very special for slug shooting. Daystate’s Accuracy Research Team has developed a high performance 711mm slug specific barrel that is compatible with the Blackwolf. And you can swap between barrel lengths and calibre, thanks to a quick-change barrel system that Daystate perfected for its Delta Wolf and Alpha Wolf models. The barrel is housed inside a carbon fibre shroud. It's threaded for silencer attachment, which most hunters will no doubt want to utilise. However, on the 12 ft/lb model, that shroud provided significantly more sound suppression than what I would regard as the norm.
The Blackwolf runs Daystate’s tried and tested self-indexing gate-loading magazine. This magazine is really easy to load and holds 13 shots in .177 calibre, 11 in .22, 10 in .25 and 8 in .30. Cocking and loading are taken care of by a slick sidelever that can be swapped to the opposite side for lefthanders. The oversized dropdown handle feels great in the handd and offers plenty of purchase. Most importantly, the mechanism works brilliantly – although positive, it feels very smooth and was utterly reliable during my weeks of testing.
Whatever clever features an airgun has, it is very difficult to shoot with accuracy if it doesn’t have a good trigger, and the trigger on the Daystate Blackwolf is excellent. It has a match-type blade that’s adjustable for height and angle and length of pull. The actual release has eight-point adjustment from just 8oz up to 3.5lb – that should cover everyone from the target shooter who wants a super-sensitive release to the hunter who is wearing gloves and needs a more positive let-off. Out of the box, it felt great. The first stage was fairly short and light, the stop was very clear and the second stage break was really crisp and utterly predictable.
This gun’s ambidextrous qualities continue with its AR-15 style safety catch, which has a switch on both sides. The switch on the review gun was quite stiff, but then nobody wants a sloppy safety catch. It’s safe when it’s in the horizontal position and you simply thumb it down when you’re ready to take the shot.
Daystate’s development boffins know a thing or two about making good firing valve systems, and the one on the Blackwolf features a lightweight titanium valve for ultimate efficiency. The Blackwolf is also fitted with a Huma regulator and is consequently very consistent. On maximum power output, the 12 ft/lb review gun’s muzzle velocity stayed comfortably within five feet per second over a ten-shot string – and that was with pellets taken straight from the tin. On high power models, regulator pressure can quickly be adjusted via a screw accessed through the belly of the stock. Regulator pressure is shown on the gauge on the left side of the stock.
The regulator chamber on the Daystate Blackwolf has been uprated – it’s the biggest yet on a Daystate – and, fitted with that slug-specific barrel in .22 calibre, high power models can churn out 82 ft/lb. The .30 calibre model is said to be capable of power levels in excess of 120 ft/lb.
A 20-stage, thumb adjustable power wheel at the rear of the action operates a progressive shaft, enabling you to quickly tune hammer spring tension with absolute precision. That level of airgun tuning will really come to the fore on high-power models. For sub-12 shooters, it should still prove handy for tweaking power output for optimum performance with your chosen pellet or slug, as well as giving you the option to wind it down for plinking sessions in the confines of smaller gardens.
With numerous barrel options in four different calibres – not to mention the choice of cylinder or bottle in various sizes – and the ability to quickly change power output – shot count is going to vary from option to option. However, at sub-12, even the cylinder model will deliver hundreds of shots per fill. Maximum fill pressure is 250 bar and the pressure in the bottle or cylinder is shown on the gauge on the right of the stock. When the time comes to refill, you just pop the magnetic cap off from the belly of the stock and couple up with the supplied Foster connector.
The Blackwolf is a real pleasure to shoot – its firing cycle feels fast and smooth – and it’s one of those guns that’s very difficult to put down. It is also very accurate; it genuinely is competition standard, which is no surprise when you consider Daystate’s gun-making pedigree and the brand’s achievements on the Extreme Benchrest scene. And that level of precision isn’t just important for winning competitions, it's also what you need for hunting over longer ranges.
During my range testing – from a bench in calm conditions – the 12 ft/lb .177 was dropping pellets directly on top of each other at 20m, and it was doing much the same at 30m. Running 8.44 grain Rangemaster Sovereign pellets, it also made fairly comfortable work of single-hole groups at 40m. Of three five-shot groups shot back to back at 40m, two measured within 14mm from centre to centre and the “worst” one was still within 16mm. Accuracy like that confirms that the new Daystate Blackwolf isn’t just well up to the standard for live quarry shooting, with further ammo experimentation it could easily tear up a target course.
It is a frustrating fact that the support of a bench is absent from most hunting scenarios and many competition disciplines, which means you need an airgun that shoots well from a wide variety of stances. In the standard bottle version of the stock that I was using, the Blackwolf did just that. Whether taking standing shots or shooting from kneeling or sitting positions, it sat well in my shoulder and delivered good eye alignment. As with every airgun I have every shot, alignment shifted very slightly when I got down on my belly to shoot prone, but even from this position, I could achieve a snug fit and a straight view through the scope by making a quick adjustment to the cheekpiece.
As I’ve already mentioned, the Blackwolf follows Daystate’s modular design philosophy, so many of its components are interchangeable. In fact, Daystate is already offering 16 model variations in a choice of four calibres. All stocks, barrels, air bottles and cylinders are available separately, making it easy to evolve and upgrade the Blackwolf as your requirements change. The Blackwolf’s modular platform design also means that Daystate will offer new accessories in response to future feedback from shooters.
The Daystate Blackwolf is an extremely versatile and accurate air rifle that offers shooters fast and effective mechanical tuning alongside a seemingly endless choice of stock, barrel, power and air bottle / cylinder configurations. I have been very impressed with it and, in an age when tunability, adaptability and long-range slug shooting is at the forefront of a lot of people’s minds, I think the Blackwolf is set to serve Daystate and airgun shooters very well. I am now looking forward to putting the high-powered versions to the test to see just what the Blackwolf is capable of when pushed really hard.
From: daystate.com
Manufacturer: Daystate, England
Model: Blackwolf
Length: 980mm (38.6in)
Weight: 3.5kg (7.7lb)
Length of pull: 360mm (14.3in)
Barrel length: 500mm (19.7in) – on model tested
Action: sidelever with tuneable mechanical action
Maximum fill pressure: 250 bar
Muzzle energy: Up to over 120 ft/lb (11.5 ft/lb on model tested)
RRP: From £1,795
First published 17th February 2025
