OPINION: ELEY Ammo from across the pond

[CedarGrove357]

Since I can't compete with the local big box store on their white box .22LR [usually Winchester SuperX, and rarely CCI] ammunition, I am contemplating stocking some ELEY ammunition at a price point that is more in line with what I have been reading as excellent quality ammuntion. I know they are a british company who's just come across the pond since 2012, but been making ammo since 1828. http://www.eley.co.uk/news-info/abou...story-of-eley/

I just received a small order of FORCE, CONTACT, TARGET, and CLUB lines of ELEY .22LR to toss in a few persnickety arms I have to see how they do, and am researching the detailed differences in each line.

What says the Oracles and 8-ball fortune tellers of TFL on this line?

[wpsdlrg]

The Eley ammo is excellent stuff. Very consistent, excellent quality. It is pricey, though.

So, if your clientele consists of match shooters and those who will pay for the best....go for it.

If, on the other hand, your customers are mostly plinkers, they may not want to pay for Eley, let alone any of the other top grade brands.

It is a misnomer to believe that top grade ammo, like Eley, will be more accurate than most others in any rifle. .22 rimfire rifles, in my experience, are so individual that there are no guarantees. My rifles like some lots of Eley, others not so much. What you are getting with high end ammo like Eley is much higher consistency than with cheap ammo. But, some rifles will do better with the cheap ammo, in terms of absolute accuracy.

[NoSecondBest]

I'll share my experience on Eley ammo. I shot competition for many years with rimfire handguns and rifles. There is NO non-premium ammo that will even begin to compete with ammo like Eley, RWS, and a few others that true competitors use. Winchester, Remington (the worst), and the other stuff you buy at Dick's, WalMart, etc goes bang and that's about it. I've owned many custom built rifles and handguns and they all shot better with premium ammo. That being said, the cheapest Eley that is sub-sonic shoots nearly as well as the best Eley ammo. The only American made ammo that shoots "pretty good" compared to the Eley is Federal Gold Medal Target. I have won some pretty big shoots with rimfire handguns and rifles. I have never seen a top competitor use anything but premium ammo and win a match. I used Eley Std. Velocity (brown box) back when I was shooting and it was "affordable" so to speak. It was Eley's cheapest target ammo and shot 98% as well as their best ammo. I was shooting 35,000 rounds of rimfire a year so based on usage vs performance, I shot what I could afford to buy and compete with. I still have a large box of different Eley ammo on hand from when I ran the comparison tests with different guns. Yes, each gun will have a distinct preference of ammo for accuracy. However, if you run tests using an avg. of ten, five shot groups you'll soon find out that anything less than premium ammo fails badly. FWIW, I had a custom built Ruger 10-22 (the only thing on it that was Ruger was the receiver) that would shoot ten shots into 1.1" at 100 yds on a pretty regular basis with Eley standard ammo. I had a Browning Buckmark handgun that would do nearly as well. At a regional championship I shot a 9x10 shoot-off rifle chickens with this ten inch open sighted Buckmark at 100yds. That could have never been done with anything less than premium ammo. Again, I was using Eley. If you've got some people who want target ammo, get some Eley sub-sonic target ammo for them.

[wpsdlrg]

Agree with your comments, NoSecondBest. Premium ammo is certainly the best....far more consistent than the cheap stuff.

However, outside of match conditions, that does not mean that some rifles won't produce amazing results with some ammo that you never would believe. Case in point: one of my CZ452's will shoot 250's, consistently, with CERTAIN lots of Eley Match. But, I'll be lucky to break 200 with other lots. Yet, lowly Federal Auto Match, which is high velocity ammo....and certainly NOT premium in any way....will do almost as well (better than the lots of Eley Match that the rifle doesn't like, anyway).

Go figure.

As I said before....and I will stick to it....premium .22 rimfire will tend to produce more consistency. That is certainly the case. It MAY not, in all rifles, however, produce better absolute accuracy in all circumstances.

Rimfire rifles can simply be THAT trifling. All of that, however, is tangential here.

The OP's question was not whether this ammo is ultimately better than that.....it was whether it might be worthwhile for him to STOCK Eley in his shop, for sale. With that as the issue, I will stick to my previous post.

That is, it MIGHT be worthwhile.....if his customers are willing to pay for it. But, Eley, like any other premium ammo, is NOT a miracle product that will make any gun shoot to match quality. Simple as that.

[NoSecondBest]

I've never seen Eley target ammo shoot bad in any gun. One particular brand of Eley may shoot better than another (Club vs TenX, etc) but none of it has ever shot actually bad. I've found the worst Eley to still be better in almost all cases than off the shelf American ammo. I did get some decent results with Federal Gold Medal, but still not as good as the Eley brown box. If anyone is a dedicated target shooter they know enough to stock up on one lot number if it shoots well out of their gun. That's why I always purchased case quantities. However, I was shooting seven cases a year so it was also cost effective for me to do that. Accuracy is a vague area. What is mediocre for me might be stellar for someone else. It all depends on what your expectations are.

[g.willikers]

One of the podcasters had a recent interview with the folks from Ely.
They said that there's really no telling which of even their ammo will work best in any individual gun.
The Olympic shooters come to their shooting facility to try them all and to find out which version of Ely to use at the matches.
One of the major US ammo makers sells a version of Ely, too.
Remington, maybe?

[NoSecondBest]

The "Remington" Eley ammo is just plain old Eley with Remington's name on it. If you buy it at Cabela's you'll pay a buck a box more for it than the stuff sitting right next to it marked as Eley without the Remington name on the box. I researched this and after making numerous phone calls and emails that's the info I got. The specs are the same and it's produced in the same plant. Don't waste the money to get Remington's name on the box. Remington has such a poor performance record in .22lr target ammo that this is their way to bring some credibility to their name in rimfire ammo. I think they should spend a bit more time just trying to fix what's broken in their production rather than piggy back on someone else's name.

[T. O'Heir]

"...Eley ammo is excellent stuff..." Yep. If your pistol/revolver/rifle likes it. My Smith 41 won't cycle it at all. Smith 41's being extremely particular things.
"...Remington has such a poor..." Now. Hasn't always been like that. My 41 loved the Target stuff when I was shooting bullseye regularly. Kind of suspect all the ownership changes have affected their QC.

[Pathfinder45]

Well, if you are thinking about stocking expensive target ammo for resale, hoping for a profit, there are some considerations:
Do you already have a ready market for it? If so, no worries. If not:
Perhaps you can develop a market. Your target-market will be competitive shooters. Consider attending their events and offering discount coupons to all, just to get them in your door, and offer really, really good coupons to top-scoring competitors.
Remember that you have to consider that shooters can buy their ammo online and have it delivered, so you need to look at their price-plus-shipping options and don't price yourself out of the market.
What else would you/should you have in your store to attract that segment of the market? Become an Anschutz dealer, maybe?
To some degree, it's a gamble. But if you are proactive to attract shooters into your store, and are thoughtful to stock something for everyone that comes in the door at reasonable prices, you should do OK.

[NoSecondBest]

In the original post the comment was made that Eley came here in 2012. They've been here a lot longer than that. I started shooting Eley back in the early 80's and it had been here a lot longer than that. It's been around a while.....just added for a bit of clarification.

[CedarGrove357]

Chiming in to extend appreciation for your opinions and thoughts and stories. A wealth of knowledge for sure. I am at the stage of building this little shop, still trying to figure out what people respond to around here, but these are tight lipped folks when it comes to newcomers. So I have been sending feelers out and guessing responses.

Regarding the ELEYU, I agree with everything said. Eley started in 1828 and has specialized their .22 rimfire. They are a family business still I believe and even supported the confederates in the civil war. So they have been on this side of the pond for quite a while. They will certainly have a spot on my shelf, but not the only spot - as was mentioned - there are other items to bring people to one's door.

Thanks again everyone.