I have been reading the rimfire forums over here and the rimfire forums over at Benchrest Central. I thought that it might be helpful if I attempted to write down everything I have learned about Eley ammo for the Hiders who are interested in rimfire. At Benchrest Central, and really for all major 22LR competitions (position shooting and benchrest), Eley dominates.
By the way, I am not a shill for Eley. At least not a paid one. I have no connection with Eley other than getting good results from their ammo.
<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">Why Eley?</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">1) Lot segregation</span>
Here is an article from the Shooting Times that talks about Eley's manufacturing process.
For the feint of reading, I will summarize here:
Eley has identified all of the variables that go into the manufacture of ammunition. These include 50 primary variables (things like bullet mass, case internal volumes, propellant charge), 200 secondary variables (things like ambient temperature in the manufacturing facility, case metallurgy, human competence), and 700 tertiary variables (things like weather conditions in the country of manufacture of the powder the day a lot of poweder was manufactured). The article implies that they control all of these things. Well, they don't. They isolate them into different lots... which means that ultimately the shooter can control these things like selecting the appropriate lot of ammo.
In fact, the number one reason to buy Eley ammo is not because they manufacture better ammo, but rather because they keep the variables for a given lot segregated from other lots. Their lot tracking capability is superior to their competitors. It is just that simple. They also give more info on those lots (speed, machine) than their competitors, but I will cover that later.
<span style="font-weight: bold">2) The bullets</span>
Eley has created a bullet mold that creates much more consistent bullets in terms of where the mass of the bullet is. This dimple-nose design has a higher BC, but the dimple itself does not serve a design purpose. It is a result of the manufacturing process much as the hollow point of a Sierra Match King is not a true hollow point in fuaction, but there because of the process to manufacture the bullet.
<span style="font-weight: bold">3) The lube</span>
Eley has spent some R&D dollars to come up with a great lube. It is an acquired smell when fired (shoot it and you will se what I mean), but it is part of what makes Eley different. If you feel a spent Eley casing, it will feel different than a match grade casing from any other manufacturer because of the consistentcy and durability of the lubricant. It feels grease and sticky. And that is a good thing.
<span style="font-weight: bold">4) The great rimfire smiths build for Eley</span>
If you already have a 22LR, this doesn't matter. If you don't, most of the great rimfire smiths, Bill Calfee, Bill Meyers, Gene Davis (to name a few), build their rifles around Eley ammo... meaning the reamers and headspacing are designed to match (get it) Eley specifications. I was speaking to an ammo dealer the other day who was telling me that different smiths actually build their guns for different Eley ammo machines... I highly doubt that, but it might very well be the case.
Unlike centerfire, rimfires are built arround the ammo. With centerfire benchrest guns, it is assumed that the shooter will handload to the chamber specs. In rimfire, reloading is not allowed, so the best smiths have to conform to a spec for a type of loaded ammo. This is typically Eley because Eley has taken most medals in most shooting competitions (although Lapua has been slowly gaining some ground). Basically, Eley is the Microsoft of Match .22LR. They set the standard and everyone else complies if they want to be in the game.
<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">Tenex versus Match versus Team</span></span>
Tenex, or 10X as I like to write, is the highest grade of Eley ammo and also the costliest. You would think that this means that all of the top rimfire shooter shoot 10X for competitions. Not true. You will probably see more Eley Match (sometimes called Black Box, because it comes in a black box) at a rimfire competition. So what is the difference? Well, in the manufacturing process there is no difference. They manufacture all of their ammo in lots as described above. Once they have created a lot, they have four different fixed test guns fire that lot in a 50 meter tunnel (to minimize wind). These rifles are all different ages (round counts) with different barrel lengths and chamber specs. If all four guns shoot a lot well (some arbitrarily sized group dimension... an Eley secret), then the lot is labeled 10X. If it shoots well in some of the guns and not others, it is labeled Match. If it does not shoot that well in any of the guns, it is declassified to Eley Team.
I should note that not all of the Team ammo are rejects. Some of it is extras from Match and 10X production... for instance if they made a lot with 5045 bullets, the overfill 45 bullets would go to Team otherwise, they would have a partially full box.
I should note that all of the above is based on things that I read on the Internet which might or might not be true... to be taken with a grain of salt. I do know that most serious rimfire benchrest people will include Eley Match in their testing and many even think that as a conspiracy, most of the good 10X is sold / picked over in Europe, leaving the bad 10X for the US (Eley is made in the UK). Maybe true, maybe not, but Eley does have a concierge program in the UK where you take them your gun and they will fix the action in a vice and test different lots of ammo for you. All you have to do is agree to purchase a case and pay for the ammo used in testing. Pretty cool. Probably not worth the trip to London and the paperwork (to transport a firearm) for me.
<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">How to choose the best Eley ammo for your gun</span></span>
On every box of Eley Match and Tenex, there are three different numbers. For instance, I am looking at a box of my current go-to Eley Match as I write. It has the numbers 1009-05069 and below that the number 1059. The 1009 is a manufacture date code (sort of). They change that number at certain date intervals. That number is pretty meaningless. The 05069 is the lot number. the "05" at the beginning indicates which machine the ammo was made on. They currently have 5 machines in production, 01 through 05. This is important for reasons I will indicate later. The number at the bottom 1059, is the average fps the ammo chronoed in Eley's lot test. This will correlate to how fast the ammo runs in your gun, but it won't be the number. It should be considered a point of reference. The number typically varies from 1050 to 1080.
At any given time, there will be a lot of lots available. You could spend forever and a day testing just to find which lot works for your gun and by the time you do that, the lot that worked best probably would have sold out. This is why those numers are important. Your first time, you will need to try a wide variety of the lots available and then see which machine and velocity works best for your gun.
When I was doing the broad test, I started out with stacks of boxes. Of the ones that performed well on the first round, I retested those boxes in a shoot-off.
After that, you will have to do a lot less searching to find some passable ammo... just try to figure out what velocities and machine numbers work well for your gun. For me, speed is the primary consideration, than machine number. I don't understand why machine number would have an impact at all... but it sure seems to.
<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">On a personal note</span></span>
This is all crazy, I know, but when I bought my 22LR from nesikabay a little while back, he was telling me this stuff and I thought he was crazy. He shipped some great ammo with the gun. That ammo was shooting lights out... my first group at 110 yards was 3/4"! My next few 5X5's were around .85 MOA at 110 yards. And then I ran out of ammo. I just got on the phone and ordered some new 10X without thinking anything of it... and then I started shooting worse inexplicably. I felt like I was shooting better than I ever had been, but my groups were widening up. Had I screwed the barrel up cleaning it? Was my scope loose? I started reading the Benchrest Central Rimfire Forums and became indoctrinated in ammo testing. I went through the process of testing everything out there. Maybe 15 or 20 lots. As it turns out, the best performing ammo that I could find was 05069, 1059 fps... 5 machine, slow ammo. My previous great shooting ammo was 05446, 1061 fps. 5 machine, slow ammo. All of the ammo that was passable was in the 1055 fps to 1064 fps range (except for one lot that seemed to shoot very well... incidentally, Bill Calfee himself said this was a great lot. It didn't shoot as well as some of the others, but shot really really well. If I had a gun that liked faster ammo, I bet it would have worked great). I wouldn't think machine would matter... but I am not questioning it because stuff from the "5" machine seemed to shoot better.
Now I am just one person, but this is also what most/ all of the benchrest 22 folks do. Whenever I see ammo from the 5-machine at 1055 to 1065 fps, I order a few boxes just to see how it'll shoot. As a matter of a fact, I found some recently that shoots as well as my current ammo. It is 1063 fps from the "5" machine. Unfortunately, as a postlogue, I have not found ammo that shoots as well as the stuff that nesikabay sent with his gun. It has all sold out. I am still seeking something that could deliver that kind of performance... or maybe that was just a fluke... beginner's luck. We shall see...
<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">A few final notes</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">Can't stand the weather.</span> The ammo that shoots best in your gun will vary by weather conditions and will even vary over the life of your barrel. See an article here . Remember this when you are buying a lot that shoots well... you will want to buy a bunch because testing eats up a lot of time and money... but not so much that your barrel's temperment may change.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Price.</span> Yip, this stuff is four or five times as expensive as normal match ammo from other makers. It is up to each individual to decide what the price tag is for smaller groups. I am not going to comment here. If it is any consolation, the most expensive ammo out there is the Lapua Midas +. I think it runs around $18 a box versus $10 a box for Eley Match. There, does that make Eley cheaper?
I like accuracy. How are you testing your shooting if you point your gun at the target, do your part, and the bullet hole ends up some place else? As a result, I shoot Eley Match or 10X all the time. It is expensive, but still cheaper than centerfire.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Switching ammo.</span> Unfortunately, when switching to Eley, you will need to reseason the barrel... basically, you will need to shoot a box of Eley. I think this is basically just to reprime the barrel with Eley lube. Or maybe it is the powder. Or all of the above. Whatever, that is just what I heard. This makes it costly to switch back and forth from Eley, so maybe it is just a marketing rumor. I have switched back once and found it pretty much to be the case. And I am not doing it again. This is a good opportunity to find some boxes of team to get the barrel ready. Those barrel heaters can also get pricey. Another great use for Team.
By the way, I am not a shill for Eley. At least not a paid one. I have no connection with Eley other than getting good results from their ammo.
<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">Why Eley?</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">1) Lot segregation</span>
Here is an article from the Shooting Times that talks about Eley's manufacturing process.
For the feint of reading, I will summarize here:
Eley has identified all of the variables that go into the manufacture of ammunition. These include 50 primary variables (things like bullet mass, case internal volumes, propellant charge), 200 secondary variables (things like ambient temperature in the manufacturing facility, case metallurgy, human competence), and 700 tertiary variables (things like weather conditions in the country of manufacture of the powder the day a lot of poweder was manufactured). The article implies that they control all of these things. Well, they don't. They isolate them into different lots... which means that ultimately the shooter can control these things like selecting the appropriate lot of ammo.
In fact, the number one reason to buy Eley ammo is not because they manufacture better ammo, but rather because they keep the variables for a given lot segregated from other lots. Their lot tracking capability is superior to their competitors. It is just that simple. They also give more info on those lots (speed, machine) than their competitors, but I will cover that later.
<span style="font-weight: bold">2) The bullets</span>
Eley has created a bullet mold that creates much more consistent bullets in terms of where the mass of the bullet is. This dimple-nose design has a higher BC, but the dimple itself does not serve a design purpose. It is a result of the manufacturing process much as the hollow point of a Sierra Match King is not a true hollow point in fuaction, but there because of the process to manufacture the bullet.
<span style="font-weight: bold">3) The lube</span>
Eley has spent some R&D dollars to come up with a great lube. It is an acquired smell when fired (shoot it and you will se what I mean), but it is part of what makes Eley different. If you feel a spent Eley casing, it will feel different than a match grade casing from any other manufacturer because of the consistentcy and durability of the lubricant. It feels grease and sticky. And that is a good thing.
<span style="font-weight: bold">4) The great rimfire smiths build for Eley</span>
If you already have a 22LR, this doesn't matter. If you don't, most of the great rimfire smiths, Bill Calfee, Bill Meyers, Gene Davis (to name a few), build their rifles around Eley ammo... meaning the reamers and headspacing are designed to match (get it) Eley specifications. I was speaking to an ammo dealer the other day who was telling me that different smiths actually build their guns for different Eley ammo machines... I highly doubt that, but it might very well be the case.
Unlike centerfire, rimfires are built arround the ammo. With centerfire benchrest guns, it is assumed that the shooter will handload to the chamber specs. In rimfire, reloading is not allowed, so the best smiths have to conform to a spec for a type of loaded ammo. This is typically Eley because Eley has taken most medals in most shooting competitions (although Lapua has been slowly gaining some ground). Basically, Eley is the Microsoft of Match .22LR. They set the standard and everyone else complies if they want to be in the game.
<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">Tenex versus Match versus Team</span></span>
Tenex, or 10X as I like to write, is the highest grade of Eley ammo and also the costliest. You would think that this means that all of the top rimfire shooter shoot 10X for competitions. Not true. You will probably see more Eley Match (sometimes called Black Box, because it comes in a black box) at a rimfire competition. So what is the difference? Well, in the manufacturing process there is no difference. They manufacture all of their ammo in lots as described above. Once they have created a lot, they have four different fixed test guns fire that lot in a 50 meter tunnel (to minimize wind). These rifles are all different ages (round counts) with different barrel lengths and chamber specs. If all four guns shoot a lot well (some arbitrarily sized group dimension... an Eley secret), then the lot is labeled 10X. If it shoots well in some of the guns and not others, it is labeled Match. If it does not shoot that well in any of the guns, it is declassified to Eley Team.
I should note that not all of the Team ammo are rejects. Some of it is extras from Match and 10X production... for instance if they made a lot with 5045 bullets, the overfill 45 bullets would go to Team otherwise, they would have a partially full box.
I should note that all of the above is based on things that I read on the Internet which might or might not be true... to be taken with a grain of salt. I do know that most serious rimfire benchrest people will include Eley Match in their testing and many even think that as a conspiracy, most of the good 10X is sold / picked over in Europe, leaving the bad 10X for the US (Eley is made in the UK). Maybe true, maybe not, but Eley does have a concierge program in the UK where you take them your gun and they will fix the action in a vice and test different lots of ammo for you. All you have to do is agree to purchase a case and pay for the ammo used in testing. Pretty cool. Probably not worth the trip to London and the paperwork (to transport a firearm) for me.
<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">How to choose the best Eley ammo for your gun</span></span>
On every box of Eley Match and Tenex, there are three different numbers. For instance, I am looking at a box of my current go-to Eley Match as I write. It has the numbers 1009-05069 and below that the number 1059. The 1009 is a manufacture date code (sort of). They change that number at certain date intervals. That number is pretty meaningless. The 05069 is the lot number. the "05" at the beginning indicates which machine the ammo was made on. They currently have 5 machines in production, 01 through 05. This is important for reasons I will indicate later. The number at the bottom 1059, is the average fps the ammo chronoed in Eley's lot test. This will correlate to how fast the ammo runs in your gun, but it won't be the number. It should be considered a point of reference. The number typically varies from 1050 to 1080.
At any given time, there will be a lot of lots available. You could spend forever and a day testing just to find which lot works for your gun and by the time you do that, the lot that worked best probably would have sold out. This is why those numers are important. Your first time, you will need to try a wide variety of the lots available and then see which machine and velocity works best for your gun.
When I was doing the broad test, I started out with stacks of boxes. Of the ones that performed well on the first round, I retested those boxes in a shoot-off.
After that, you will have to do a lot less searching to find some passable ammo... just try to figure out what velocities and machine numbers work well for your gun. For me, speed is the primary consideration, than machine number. I don't understand why machine number would have an impact at all... but it sure seems to.
<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">On a personal note</span></span>
This is all crazy, I know, but when I bought my 22LR from nesikabay a little while back, he was telling me this stuff and I thought he was crazy. He shipped some great ammo with the gun. That ammo was shooting lights out... my first group at 110 yards was 3/4"! My next few 5X5's were around .85 MOA at 110 yards. And then I ran out of ammo. I just got on the phone and ordered some new 10X without thinking anything of it... and then I started shooting worse inexplicably. I felt like I was shooting better than I ever had been, but my groups were widening up. Had I screwed the barrel up cleaning it? Was my scope loose? I started reading the Benchrest Central Rimfire Forums and became indoctrinated in ammo testing. I went through the process of testing everything out there. Maybe 15 or 20 lots. As it turns out, the best performing ammo that I could find was 05069, 1059 fps... 5 machine, slow ammo. My previous great shooting ammo was 05446, 1061 fps. 5 machine, slow ammo. All of the ammo that was passable was in the 1055 fps to 1064 fps range (except for one lot that seemed to shoot very well... incidentally, Bill Calfee himself said this was a great lot. It didn't shoot as well as some of the others, but shot really really well. If I had a gun that liked faster ammo, I bet it would have worked great). I wouldn't think machine would matter... but I am not questioning it because stuff from the "5" machine seemed to shoot better.
Now I am just one person, but this is also what most/ all of the benchrest 22 folks do. Whenever I see ammo from the 5-machine at 1055 to 1065 fps, I order a few boxes just to see how it'll shoot. As a matter of a fact, I found some recently that shoots as well as my current ammo. It is 1063 fps from the "5" machine. Unfortunately, as a postlogue, I have not found ammo that shoots as well as the stuff that nesikabay sent with his gun. It has all sold out. I am still seeking something that could deliver that kind of performance... or maybe that was just a fluke... beginner's luck. We shall see...
<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">A few final notes</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">Can't stand the weather.</span> The ammo that shoots best in your gun will vary by weather conditions and will even vary over the life of your barrel. See an article here . Remember this when you are buying a lot that shoots well... you will want to buy a bunch because testing eats up a lot of time and money... but not so much that your barrel's temperment may change.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Price.</span> Yip, this stuff is four or five times as expensive as normal match ammo from other makers. It is up to each individual to decide what the price tag is for smaller groups. I am not going to comment here. If it is any consolation, the most expensive ammo out there is the Lapua Midas +. I think it runs around $18 a box versus $10 a box for Eley Match. There, does that make Eley cheaper?
I like accuracy. How are you testing your shooting if you point your gun at the target, do your part, and the bullet hole ends up some place else? As a result, I shoot Eley Match or 10X all the time. It is expensive, but still cheaper than centerfire.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Switching ammo.</span> Unfortunately, when switching to Eley, you will need to reseason the barrel... basically, you will need to shoot a box of Eley. I think this is basically just to reprime the barrel with Eley lube. Or maybe it is the powder. Or all of the above. Whatever, that is just what I heard. This makes it costly to switch back and forth from Eley, so maybe it is just a marketing rumor. I have switched back once and found it pretty much to be the case. And I am not doing it again. This is a good opportunity to find some boxes of team to get the barrel ready. Those barrel heaters can also get pricey. Another great use for Team.
