Eley Edge

[Mike357]

Anybody tried them yet?

[Graham M]

I suspect that this is little more than downgraded Match that has been lubricated with graphite instead of the usual wax.
Either way I wouldn't waste good money on their s*** any more and am now using Lapua.
Even the lower grade of Lapua is better than the Tenex I have been using over the last two years and I feel that Eley know that they are producing crap and are now re-marketing that crap as a slightly lower priced product in order to get rid of a few million rounds that they can't sell as Match. No doubt they will now be able to tell customers that they aren't being sold rubbish because it is slightly cheaper and therefore, as practice ammo, it is brilliant.
I was 62 this June and I know I'm not as prolific as I was when a bit younger, but when my average went down by over 2 full points over a season for no apparent reason, and then went back up slightly once I started to use this cheap Lapua, I knew something was VERY wrong.
Eley made sure that ALL the best ammo went to China 4 years ago and have found a very lucrative market over there, so WE will get all the s*** whilst everyone else gets the top stuff.
They can go to hell for all I care as I won't be buying any more of there competition ammo again..........it stinks.
G.M :cool2:

[DL.]

Anybody tried them yet?

Is there not a bit of a demand for .22LR in the USA at the moment? I haven't checked the sites over the pond lately, but they were going mental for ammo lately... So why would Eley make something like this? To get rid of down graded ammunition? - surely not.

[Mike357]

Edge has a black case and a different bullet profile so I doubt very much it is being produced to use up old stock that has been sitting in their warehouse.

The reason I ask is that the last batch of SK Plus I got has been poor with quite few FTF and the occasional stovepipe. Usual cause of this was dirty mags but that didn't cure the problem. A full strip, clean and lube has been done but I haven't had enough trigger time to see if their is an improvement. If it is the SK Plus then it has cost me dearly this year.

[dromia]

All the competitive 22 shooters at my club, mainly bench rest but also prone and off hand are now shooting RWS brand with good results.

I like the the RWS stuff too but have a few thousand rounds of Eley Match to shoot up first, this particular batch of ten thousand I got has been particularly good but Eley have definitely lost their place in producing trustworthy ammunition in my shooting circles.

Lapua lost my support when the re-jigged their line and Midas L and M disappeared.

[paxtond]

I've burnt though nearly 3000 eley match rounds this year so far, have no problems what so ever. Had 1 FTF on Tuesday but recocking the bolt and trying again sent it down range. This is the only 1 out of nearly 3k

The price is creeping up but I'm still getting a good price for the ammo I'm using.

My only problem with eley is they will only batch test tenx and not any other of the range

Any others worth trying?

[Mike357]

Some guys in the National Team have switched to RWS as they lost faith with Lapua too.

[Graham M]

Edge has a black case and a different bullet profile

No it doesn't. Have a look and you will se it's the same as Match and Tenex
As for the black case................... :lol:
http://www.eley.co.uk/media_files/media ... 202013.pdf

[Dirky Atwood]

Anybody tried them yet?

I started to use Edge the moment they replaced Team. I don't think any manufacturer doesn't look at modern techniques to produce a competitive product and increase the profit margin on sales. So I view the advertising and marketing aspect suspiciously.

Anyone who has ever reloaded their own full-bore ammunition knows that the main labour is in polishing the brass cases. Polishing is a very time consuming process and if there is a method to avoid this then costs are reduced. However, polishing will have produced a case that easily slips in and out of the breach, which has to be good for the rifle. Eley produce ammunition for modern fully floating barrels. They make ammunition best for these modern rifles. So if you are shooting a BSA Martini International be prepared for tight rounds, ejection problems and the occasional flyer. The BSA works best with the polished brass cases and not so well with Edge.

My colleagues who shoot Anschutz find Edge to be dirty and some have gone back to Club. I can shoot any of the original polished brass cased ammunition in my BSA but I found Edge was not suited to it. They vary in diameter when a micrometer is placed on them and if there is also a breach variation then extraction might be a problem.

Eley has come up with what I believe to be a more cost effective manufacturing method. Their marketing angle will always be that of improvement. If this is a successful marketing exercise then we can expect other polished brass types eventually replaced with the black, unpolished replacement. Lines like, owing to our international shooting successes with Tenex and now similar success with Edge, we are going to offer users of Match, Club and Sport the opportunity to shoot with the same advanced technology. Names like Squad (Match), XPro (Club) and XSport (Sport) might be the suggested names to replace them. Edge is not Tenex, nor is it Match. It is a budget round that costs less to produce than Team and performs as well as Team did in the right rifle. With my BSA Mart. Int. I shot possibles with Team but never with Edge. I was the last in the club to shoot a possible before going over to Edge last year. My colleagues with Anschutz rifles have had mixed successes (flyers). I wait for my colleagues to confirm that possibles are not possible with Edge and we are nearly six months into trials.

[jimbo303]

We have used Edge and found the results to be positive.

We had the Eley rep visit and discovered that, contrary to some oppinion, Edge is made on a new dedicated production line - as opposed to producing one sort i.e. Tenex and then downgrade poorer batches to Match.

We also heard that the reason why Tenex dropped the other year or two ago, when they could not produce sufficient of the high enough standard, was discovered to be as a result of a change in the water supply. Obviously its always Eley against RWS on the marketing side - but the Eley chap would not be drawn on the competition - save it to say they haev identified what they need to do and are actioning it. I would expect that the cycle of shift may well fall back in their favour.......

We are in the process of arranging a batch test shortly at Eley - I will report further once we have doen it with the results, but so far our higher level shots have not found anything untoward when compared to Match.