RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber Pellet Test Review
Overview
Testers: Doug Wall
Caliber: .177
Model Number: 231 73 76
Test Date: 12 May, 2017
Serial Numbers: N/A
Source of Supply: Umarex USA
Condition: New
We Like
The lightest – and hence fastest – lead pellets available.
Low price.
We Don't Like
Considerable variability ensures poor accuracy.
HAM RATING
- Comparison to Makers Claims:50%
- Most Common Head Diameter 40%
- Variation in Head Diameter 35%
- Most Common Weight 50%
- Variation in Weight 30%
- Most Common Length 50%
- Variation in Length 30%
- Dirtiness 100%
45%
HARD AIR MAGAZINE TEST CONCLUSIONS
Unfortunately RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 caliber pellets suffer from considerable manufacturing inconsistency. This makes them inaccurate in almost all airguns, as you can see from reviewing HAM air rifle tests.
Even the low price cannot outweigh the inconsistency problems.
Sadly, this is a pellet that the HAM Team cannot recommend.
VALUE FOR MONEY
RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets are among the lightest lead pellets commonly available. For that reason, they’re extensively used by manufacturers to test their “Maximum FPS with Lead” muzzle velocities as light pellets obviously shoot faster than heavier ones. Here at HAM, we use them in all our airgun test reviews for the same reason.
At a typical online Street Price of $7.99 for a 500 pellet tin, RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets cost 1.6 cents each. This is a low price for German-manufactured wadcutter pellets. As leading online retailers can offer “buy four tins, get one free” offers, the actual price per pellet can be even lower than that.
BUY FROM PYRAMYD AIR
RWS Hobby .177 Cal, 7.0 Grains, Wadcutter, 500ct
BUY FROM AIRGUN DEPOT
RWS Hobby Pellets, .177 Cal, 7.0 Grain 500 Count
TEST DATA SUMMARY
| Price per Pellet | 1.6 cents |
| Most Common Weight | 7.05 Grains, 7.07 Grains, 7.08 Grains |
| Pellets at That Common Weight | 12%, 12%, 12% |
| Variation in Pellet Weight (Smallest to Largest) | 19.7% |
| Most Common Head Diameter | 4.53 mm |
| Pellet at That Common Head Diameter | 42% |
| Variation in Head Diameter (Smallest to Largest) | 0.9% |
| Most Common Length | 5.39 mm |
| Pellets at That Common Length | 22% |
| Variation in Length (Smallest to Largest) | 7.8% |
COMPARISON TO MAKERS CLAIMS
The manufacturer claims that RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets are packed in tins of 500. The tin tested by HAM contained exactly that number of pellets.
The claimed weight of 7.0 Grains was exceeded by the pellets in this test review. The average weight of the RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets tested by HAM was 7.07 Grains.
The manufacturer claims that the light weight gives increased muzzle velocity. This is clearly true compared to all heavier lead pellets.
RWS also claims that the Hobby is a “rifled pellet”. The HAM testers have no idea what that means! Yes, there are longitudinal “flutes” in the skirt of RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets, but these are very unlikely to contribute any practical “rifling” to the pellet as they do not extend either the head or the extreme end of the skirt.
The packaging of RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets is branded “Precision Training”. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be true in practice. The variation in consistency demonstrated by these pellets, together with the results of dozens of HAM airgun tests, indicate that these pellets are unlikely to deliver the consistent accuracy that’s implied by the words “Precision Training”.
CONSISTENCY
No damaged pellets were found in the RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets tested by HAM.
However, there was one very curious “dwarf” pellet in the sample we tested. This combined a small head with considerably shorter length and much lighter weight, due to the base of the skirt being missing. The HAM Team could almost imagine that it was from a completely-different, otherwise unknown type of pellet! Here it is (on the left) compared to another Hobby pellet selected at random.
This was the only malformed pellet in the sample tested by HAM.
Head diameters of the RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets tested by HAM varied from a minimum of 4.49 mm up to 4.53 mm. The largest head diameter was 4.53mm. This was present on 42% of the tested pellets, as shown in the chart below. The average head diameter calculates to just under 4.52 mm, however.
The variation between the smallest and largest head diameters of RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets tested by HAM was 0.9%.
Interestingly, no single pellet among the RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets tested by HAM actually weighed 7.0 Grains.
The most common pellet weights were 7.05 Grains, 7.07 Grains and 7.08 Grains, with 12% of the pellets falling into each of these weights. As always, all pellets were weighed on HAM’s incredibly-precise, laboratory-grade milligram balance.
With a minimum pellet weight of 6.10 Grains and a maximum of 7.30 Grains, the heaviest pellet weighed 19.7%more than the lightest. Note that we did not include the 6.10 Grain pellet in our chart above as it would have stretched the X (horizontal) axis so far that presentation of the other results would have been very difficult to read!
This statement also applies to the pellet length distribution chart below.
As you can see, the most common length of the RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets tested by HAM was 5.39 mm. 22% of the pellets tested were of this length. The longest pellet – at 5.49 mm – was 7.8% longer than the shortest, which measured 5.09 mm.
DIRTINESS
Some amount of lead dust and other small particles is almost inevitable in the production of lead pellets. The photograph below shows how much dirt there was in the tin of RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets tested by HAM. That’s 0.017 Grain of dirt in total, or 0.003 Grains per 100 pellets.
DOWNRANGE PERFORMANCE
Downrange performance of the RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets has been charted using the ChairGun ballistics program. We used the Ballistic Coefficient of 0.010 that’s given in the ChairGun database.
Muzzle velocity averaged 999.6 FPS using our standard “1,000 FPS” Beeman 1074 air rifle. That gives 15.68 Ft/Lbs of Muzzle Energy.
The ChairGun chart shows that, when sighted-in at 27 Yards range, the RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets would have a point of impact within plus or minus half an inch from 12 yards to 40 Yards. That’s 28 Yards of effectively “flat” shooting.
Here’s the ChairGun data from which the above graph was created.
Range POI Drift Time Vel. Vel. Energy Energy Drop
(Yard) (In) (In) (sec) ( Ft/s) (%) (FtLbf) (%) (In)
10 -0.55 -0.45 0.033 857.3 85.8 11.54 73.56 -0.2
15 -0.12 -0.99 0.051 804.2 80.5 10.15 64.73 -0.5
20 0.17 -1.74 0.070 757.4 75.8 9.01 57.42 -0.9
25 0.31 -2.68 0.090 714.6 71.5 8.02 51.11 -1.4
30 0.29 -3.84 0.112 675.1 67.5 7.15 45.62 -2.1
35 0.07 -5.23 0.135 638.1 63.8 6.39 40.76 -3.1
40 -0.36 -6.84 0.159 603.2 60.3 5.71 36.42 -4.2
45 -1.03 -8.70 0.185 570.2 57.0 5.10 32.54 -5.5
50 -1.97 -10.82 0.212 538.8 53.9 4.56 29.06 -7.2
55 -3.21 -13.23 0.240 508.9 50.9 4.07 25.92 -9.1
60 -4.78 -15.92 0.271 480.4 48.1 3.62 23.10 -11.4
HUNTING USE
Due to the flat-fronted wadcutter design of RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets, the initial Muzzle Energy of 15.68 Ft/Lbs recorded by HAM will have dropped to 70% of that within just 12 yards of the muzzle. Yes, energy down to just 11 Ft/Lbs at 12 yards range and that’s our suggestion for a maximum hunting range with these pellets.
This means that RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets are suitable for hunting only at EXTREMELY short ranges.
To be fair, wadcutter pellets are designed specifically for target shooting and not for hunting, so this is not a fault specific to RWS Hobby pellets.
However, on the upside, the wound channel was a large 10 mm in diameter in our standard soap block. Also the pellet expanded from a head size of 4.51 mm to 5.85 mm in the soap – that’s an expansion of 30% in head diameter! Penetration was 29 mm, as you can see below.
So at short range on pests the RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets would be very destructive in an air rifle that shot them accurately.
BUYING AND OWNING
RWS Hobby 7.0 Grain .177 Caliber pellets are packaged in a push top tin. There’s no padding inside the tin, however no damage was found in the pellets tested by HAM from shipping.
As befits the wadcutter design, RWS Hobby pellets give exceptionally clean, sharp holes in paper targets.
Although these RWS Hobby pellets are fairly clean to handle, all appropriate precautions associated with any lead product must still be taken in use.
TEST DATA
For background details on HAM’s Pellet Test Review methodology, check out this link.
Chairgun is a product of Hawke Sports Optics LLC and is used with permission. Check out http://www.hawkeoptics.com
BUY FROM PYRAMYD AIR
RWS Hobby .177 Cal, 7.0 Grains, Wadcutter, 500ct
BUY FROM AIRGUN DEPOT
RWS Hobby Pellets, .177 Cal, 7.0 Grain 500 Count
Understanding HAM Pellet Awards
HAM Pellet Awards come from the most rigorous, professional and comprehensive pellet testing by any independent publication. They are the result of much precise measurement and analysis using high precision measuring devices and highly-experienced testers.
Note that accuracy is a product of the complete “system” of airgun, scope, atmospheric conditions and shooter ability – not the pellet alone.
This means that no pellet test review can predict the accuracy of a particular pellet with YOUR individual air rifle. That’s why we do not measure accuracy in these pellet tests.
What HAM Pellet Awards do recognize is manufacturing consistency. Inconsistent pellets definitely will be inaccurate, consistent pellets are much more likely to be accurate.
HAM Awards also recognize value. There’s considerable variation in the price of airgun pellets. This means that an 8 cent pellet needs to score higher than a 2 cent pellet to achieve an award.
For full details of the HAM Pellet Award scoring methodology, please check out our Pellet Testing page.
For a full listing of HAM-tested Ballistic Coefficients, please see our Ballistic Coefficients page.
This entire article including scoring, data etc is Copyright Hard Air Magazine and may NOT in part or in whole be reproduced in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from the publisher.
