I sent my HW30S in .177 to Vortek to be used as a Beta test gun using their new PG2 kit using their new On-the-X (OnX) spring technology. I thought I would do a fair and honest review after a month or more of testing and observation. I think with some reviews I can see the pom poms waving and they lose a bit of honest constructive criticism so I hope this does not read like an add for Vortek.

MECHANICAL
The first thing I noticed immediately was the gun seemed a little more cocking pressure but not a lot. From the last 1/3 of the cocking effort you noticed about 15% more pressure. It was still very smooth. Upon shooting the gun, it had a sold thump with zero twang or vibration. The recoil was definitely more. I would say about in proportion to the velocity increase. Of course any recoil increase in a springer is not a positive for me but for some guns I do enjoy the extra velocity.

SOUND/NOISE
It appears the sound increased some as would be expected with a velocity increase. It is still one of the quietest Springers made so I consider that totally moot.

ACCURACY
The next question was accuracy. I tested it in my basement 20yd range with a benchrest set up. The guns accuracy and like/dislike of all the pellets remained exactly the same. It still loved JSB Express 7.87s (blue can) and will put them in one ragged hole all day at 20 yards. It will do the same with those cheap RWS Hobby 7.0s with an occasional flyer at half the price of the JSBS. It is also still rock solid as far as not being hold temperamental.

POWER
The little gun is shooting at a little over 8ftlbs! I used an average of 3 ten shot strings for mine with the chrono about 1.5 feet from muzzle. These are average strings and all the ones with the Vortek Kit had a very impressive 6 feet per second spread with a lot of duplicate velocity shots. Mind you my chrono was not at the muzzle.

Out of the box my HW30S was shooting:

JSB 8.4gr at 540fps
JSB Express 7.9gr at 600fps
RWS Hobby 7.0gr 665fps

With a Vortex OXtune kit it is shooting:

JSB 8.4gr 590fps
JSB Express 7.9gr 665fps
RWS Hobby 730fps

SUMMARY
All in all I think the gun is greatly improved for hunting, plinking etc. I do not think I can shoot it as good at 20yds off a rest than I did when it was stock. Due to the increase in recoil it necessitates a much more pronounced follow through. The R7 has a short tube and stroke so any increase in velocity is going to be noticed in recoil as there is not much area to spread it out. In stock form it was kind of a no brainer as far as follow through closer to my FWB300S. The other trade off I feel is the cocking is a little harder in direct proportion to the additional power.

I think the 60fps extra velocity has extended its range a bit and made it noticeably flatter shooting past 20yds with only giving up a very moderate amount to additional recoil. I think it really improved its ability to be an efficient pest control gun. Starlings on the winter birdfeeder lookout! Not bad for a DIY drop in kit.

I personally do not feel the Vortek kit is for the smooth as butter R7 guy but more the guy looking to give his R7/Hw30 a steroids kick creeping closer to its big brother the HW50 with a total no brainer drop in kit.

Your mileage may vary.

That is the clear and accurate review I wish I was knowledgable enough to write.

There are always trade-offs, but I do agree the vortek kit makes the R7 better overall.
R

Over the past couple of months, I've put a LOT of pellets through my vortek PG2 kitted R7. Probably close to 2,000 or 2,500 shots overall.

A belief that was tentative at first has been steadily reinforced as the shot count has increased. Namely, that my 20-25yd groups are tighter with my JM kitted R7 than they are with the vortek kitted R7. Not by a huge margin, but the difference is material and has persisted over many hundreds of shots with both guns under identical conditions. In hindsight, this should have come as no surprise. The vortek kitted R7 shoots harder and with more of a snap. And that is likely what has impacted the accuracy, at least for me. For hunting or longer range plinking, I can see where the vortek kitted gun would shine. The accuracy is quite good, just not at the same (very high) level as a mellower shooting R7.

First I thought it might be seal issue with the vortek gun. So I checked everything over and all looked fine. Then last week I tried swapping out the vortek spring for the OEM R7 spring and bingo, the groups tightened up to be identical with both guns. I shot about 200 pellets over a couple of days just to make sure this wasn't some jedi mind trick.

So I'm pulling the vortek spring out for the time being and going back to shooting a lower velocity, mellower but somewhat more accurate R7. I'll keep the spring around because I'm sure boredom will lead me to want a change and for hunting or longer range shooting the vortek kit would have an edge.

R

We need to get together and do some shootin'' first nice weekend - those shootin' benches need a workout!

I was working two jobs there for quite awhile. I will call you.

Thanks for the comprehensive review, I enjoyed it.