TargetTalk

DAISY 599 PARTIAL/INITIAL REVIEW

*AIR TUBE/VALVE LOWER RECEIVER


Our air rifle project just received 2 daisy 599s. On initial inspection these rifles are built like a tank. Typical BSA quality with very stout receiver, barrel, action and air tube, and the bluing is very nice. The stock is of good quality with very good inletting-not a sliver or gouge to be found. The forearm is much more rounded than the Challenger, and the grip wrist area is smaller as well. All measurements are a little bit smaller (see list below) making this suitable for shooters who do not fit the Challenger. Gammo sights front and rear. Soft rubber butt plate-not plastic, metal inserts for the metal rods on cheekpiece and butt plate adjustments. All possible air leaks except the transfer port with its two associated O rings, and the barrel chamber O ring are contained within the removable cylander/valve in or on the exterior of it. The physical size of the brass transfer port itself is large with two substantial O rings that aligned well with the barrel/probe and is not pressed into the receiver. Within the very smooth interior of the action tube rides the hammer within a plastic (?) shuttle for essentially a friction free travel. There is no adjustment for travel length on the hammer, but there is a fine threaded adjustment for spring pressure for the hammer that can be reached and adjusted with an allen wrench from the back after taking the barreled action out of the stock and removing the plastic plug on the end of the action tube. When the hammer spring tension is backed completely off ie counter clockwise until it stops, you have 16 turns clockwise until that plug is flush on the spring side of the part it’s screwed into ie max travel. It will fall out if you keep going further. That piece needs to be lock tighted in with green penetrating thread lock from the back once you have the rifle tuned. This particular rifle came set maximum spring pressure, and if you leave it alone and don’t turn it any it will be fine, but if you turn it and break it loose it will not stay put without lock tighting it.

*BARREL/UPPER RECEIVER

As you can tell by these pics it is a very heavy duty barrel and receiver. The T handle bolt has a sleeve (some manmade material) over what appears to be a steel bolt. I didn’t take this part out because it was too locktighted up (no spare parts available yet!). There was a lot of grease up at the head of the bolt where it locks, so it was hard to see for sure, but it looks like it has one good sized spring loaded ballbearing in the head of the bolt that snaps into a detent for lock up. It is very secure. The charge air flows through the center of the probe, O ring is in the barrel.

*TRIGGER HOUSING

Typical style of BSA pcp trigger. I did some stoning work on the sear and where the trigger rides on the lever in particular. The sear wasn’t bad, but I just couldn’t leave it alone. There were some rough machining marks where the lever touches the trigger. To get the weight near legal I took one coil off the trigger spring, and one coil off of what they call the second stage spring adjustment, and adjusted that adjustment until I was near my weight. I would be very careful adjusting the sear engagement adjustment on these as it hooks directly to the hammer, which in turn rides in the receiver with some clearance. As this isn’t a true two stage trigger, the first stage you are pulling is thin air. I didn’t adjust the sear engagement from factory. I feel a very slight movement before it breaks on the second stage that’s fine. It passed every bump test I gave it. This safety blocks the trigger not the sear. 2009 safety blocks the sear.

PICTURES

Enclosed are side by side comparison photos of the 599 and a 2009 and an initial crony string of 164 shots from the factory setting with 3200 psi (that was all the pressure I had). You can see from the numbers that if I had 3365 psi the numbers would be smaller on the front end of the string producing larger extreme deviation.
We are just a small 4h air rifle project-we don’t have an air compressor, and it is hard to get a bottle filled around here above 4300 psi so I don’t plan on doing any more crony work in this area but for people who have scuba bottles and or a 4500 psi bottle I took the time to work up a 100 shot string, albeit much slower than the factory string, but plenty fast enough to cut clean holes in paper with a much smaller extreme deviation.

At this time I cannot see to accuracy test, but I have an eye exam scheduled in the near future. I have a stigmatism in my shooting eye and cannot focus on the front sight because it’s about 4 feet too close for my eye. If my daughter gets home before then I’ll have her accuracy test. I would expect these barrels to be very accurate due to their history.



COMPARISON MEASUREMENTS

599 2009
Overall weight approx. 3oz more

grip wrist circumference: 5” 5 1/2”
rear of receiver to muzzle 23” 29 1/4”
Back of wrist to face of trigger 3 1/4” 3 1/2”
rear of receiver to muzzle 23” 29 1/4”

from center of butt plate curve out

To the front of the grip 9 1/2” 10”
To the face of trigger 12 1/8” 12 1/4’
To the front of the probe
with action open 14 5/8” 15 1/2”
To the back edge of rail 17” 18”
Back of wrist to face of trigger 3 1/4” 3 1/2”
rear of receiver to muzzle 23” 29 1/4”

Thanks for the review!
Lets see .... the Crosman literature notes 70-100 shots.
Your test of the Daisy 599 is 164 shots with what I see a a slightly "hot" velocity. As I recall I've had our precision airguns set to about 530-535.

In your accuracy test .... would make more sense to me to clamp the gun and look at the resulting group size.

Our 4-H club just received our very first Crosmans via an NRA Foundation Grant. If the Grant Store would have had 599s I would have chosen those instead. We've been a "Daisy" club for 15 years now with a few XSV-40s and 887/888 CO2 guns still delivering strong.
I'm going to be doing some pellet selection w/ the 2009s with the guns in a vice, and also using a chrony as well as a Megalink to look for the point where the group starts to expand when the air gets low.

I really hate to see kids getting up and wandering off the line in the middle of the match to fill their guns. If I can convince the other coaches ... and we can pull in some 599s, I'd like to relegate the 2009s to Air Silhouette .... but we'll see.

I am very interested any update on the 599

We have been using the Challenger 2009 going on 4 years now. With a 2000 psi fill, the max allowed and 7.0 grain RWS Match Pellets, we have had no problems getting through a 3 * 20 with a single fill, and very little if any drop off. Nearly every JROTC unit we shoot with have Challengers.
There are sight adjustments between prone, standing and kneeling, but has little to do with drop off, as our Anschutz .22's have almost the same sight changes.

We just received a Daisy 599's a couple of months back, and out of the box was a great performer with a 2000 psi fill. Again 7.0 grain RWS Match Pellets. After 60 shots there was only a 350 psi drop in pressure. We also had no problems getting our 599 to Legal trigger weight of 1.5 pounds using a dead weight without messing with springs or anything other then slight adjustments of the screws as outlined from the manual. This rifle came in with 1.75 pound trigger. We will see if the spring weaken with use in the next few months.

The only time I have seen Challengers not make a 3*20 on a single fill, is when someone has been messing with it and the velocity's are higher then they are suppose to be for a legal Sporter Match Rifle. At the 4-H Shooting Sports Nationals, several Challengers made the 40 shot Air Silhouette match with no issues. Only Sporter legal rifles are legal at Nationals Air Rifle events, so you through a scope on a Challenger and make hits.

Looking forward to getting more time on the 599's!

Louis

jhmartin wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2019 10:26 am Thanks for the review!
Lets see .... the Crosman literature notes 70-100 shots.
Your test of the Daisy 599 is 164 shots with what I see a a slightly "hot" velocity. As I recall I've had our precision airguns set to about 530-535.

In your accuracy test .... would make more sense to me to clamp the gun and look at the resulting group size.

Our 4-H club just received our very first Crosmans via an NRA Foundation Grant. If the Grant Store would have had 599s I would have chosen those instead. We've been a "Daisy" club for 15 years now with a few XSV-40s and 887/888 CO2 guns still delivering strong.
I'm going to be doing some pellet selection w/ the 2009s with the guns in a vice, and also using a chrony as well as a Megalink to look for the point where the group starts to expand when the air gets low.

I really hate to see kids getting up and wandering off the line in the middle of the match to fill their guns. If I can convince the other coaches ... and we can pull in some 599s, I'd like to relegate the 2009s to Air Silhouette .... but we'll see.

trlrider wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2019 8:49 pm We have been using the Challenger 2009 going on 4 years now. With a 2000 psi fill, the max allowed and 7.0 grain RWS Match Pellets, we have had no problems getting through a 3 * 20 with a single fill, and very little if any drop off. Nearly every JROTC unit we shoot with have Challengers.

If you have a chance to Chrono your gun I would be very interested.
I run a 4-H program here in NM, and we just got 4 challengers last year after our season was over.
I officiate at our local matches which are predominantly JROTC shooters (280-350 shooters per match). In almost every case the shooters are filling their rifles after the standing portion of the 3x20 match.

Back when they first came out (the CH2009's) I had an opportunity to have a few of my shooters at the time fire two of the first ones off the production line in a match and they pooped out while in Kneeling. Needless to say I was/have never been too impressed with that feat.

The only ones I've seen make it thru an entire match are those who's coaches are in the camp of "The first shot of the day is your best shot. Don't shoot too many sighters". My thinking is that in a 3x20 match a rifle should be able to 100 shots minimum before dropping off.
What I've really liked about our CO2 guns (888s & 887s) is that firing two complete (3x20) matches on one 475 gram cylinder fill is easy peasy. We can get almost 290 shots w/o a drop in velocity.

Hey Jim,
You have repeatedly mentioned the 2009's needing to be refilled in the middle of matches, that has not been my experience at all. I regularly get more than 100 shot with my 2009 without any pellet drop. I'm not shooting matches, but I use it regularly for biathlon training. I shoot in my basement in the evenings and I have lowered the pressure to reduce the noise level, so maybe the pressure is lower than what is recommended. The rifle produces nice clean holes on Kruger targets so the pressure is more than sufficient for me. Perhaps if you dialed the pressure back a bit you would be happier with the 2009's. That being said, I think the 599's are a better rifle, particularly the pistol grip.