RWS Pellets – Are they any good? What about their Ballistic Coefficient?

[Shuggoth]

Been shooting Superdomes and Hobby's for since the 1970s and all my Webleys like them for 30yrds or less.  Not as good as the old Wasps in them but pretty close.

[HOSPassassin]

I have yet to see a gun that doesn't shoot at least OK with Meisterkugelns. All but one has LOVED them. I just learned to live with the poor BC. Besides, I think a lot of manufacturers fudge their BC numbers like a lot of gun companies fudge their velocities. A clear majority of the time when I calculate my own BC for a pellet it is lower than what they are reputed to have. I think RWS is probably more honest about it like HW is modest about their velocity readings.

[nced]

FWIW, with the .177 Supermag wadcutters, I'm getting a trajectory coinciding with a BC=0.012.  That makes me question the Superdome having a published BC nearly the same. 

At the same time, even if the published BCs of the domed RWS pellets are incorrect, I still wouldn't be looking at them for shooting at 50+ yards even in calm conditions because the basic accuracy just isn't on a par with the best JSB and H&N have to offer.  However the various RWS pellets that have proven capable of hovering around MoA at modest distances have earned a favorable spot in my airgunning lineup, filling the spot that Crosman vacated 5 years ago.

I personally had rather inconsistent accuracy shooting 8.3 grain .177 cal RWS SuperDomes Perhaps with 1 or 2 pellets out of every 5 shot group from my Beeman R9 "going wide" at the 30 yard zero distance (same for my brother and his R9). This wasn't acceptable so I never bought another tin and I never shot more that half a season with a .22 HW barrel on the R9 and never a Super dome.

Perhaps part of the issue with the "SuperDome BC being close to the SuperMag BC" is due to differences in weight and profile of each pellet. I did use .177 SuperMags from my R9 for a while (they really smacked the squirrels) and the accuracy with those wadcutters was pretty good out to 30 yards, however they seemed to "go their own unpredictable way" past 30 yards. Since I could rather consistently "head shoot" a squirrel at 40 yards the SuperMags were also nixed.

To address the BC similarity between .177 SuperDomes and .177 SuperMags here are a couple pics of the pellets and tins........

Notice that the .177 SuperDome weighs nominally 8.3 grains whereas the .177 SuperMag is about a grain heavier at nominally 9.3 grains. Also notice that the SuperDome doesn't have a round dome but a rather flattened "oval dome".
Here are a couple pics of other "dome" type pellets............


It does seem to me that the "flatter dome" of the SuperDome and the heavier weight of the SuperMag would affect the BCs some due to the head shapes and weights.

[nervoustrigger]

Checking my records, I had subsequently measured the BCs of the .177 Superdome and Supermag using delta V method.

.177 Superdome (8.2gr dome): 0.015
.177 Supermag (9.3gr wadcutter): 0.014

So yeah the heavier wadcutter nearly equaled the dome.  The rifle used was a 13.5fpe PCP with a choked LW barrel.

[rsterne]

I can confirm that the RWS SuperDomes have a much lower BC than JSB Exacts or Crosman Premiers of similar weight.... The have a very shallow dome, causing a much sharper corner at the back of the head.... Their BC is only a bit better than a wadcutter, and more like that of a pointed pellet than a true round-nosed design....

Bob