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Eley is still available and still very good ammunition, my only criticism is their range is vast and unless I am looking for Club level target ammunition I have no idea what to go for.

Ovenpaa wrote:Eley is still available and still very good ammunition, my only criticism is their range is vast and unless I am looking for Club level target ammunition I have no idea what to go for.

I feel this ever expanding range is aimed at the USA market and all a marketing ploy. In a nutshell, as far as I can see, there are three different bullet types, the hollow nose, flat nose and standard round nose and cases all seem to be the same size. As we see from Adams recorded velocity for Team ammunition there are wild variations 1047-1100 so are there really differences in the twenty or so different types they now offer? Team, Edge, Force, Action, Biathlon Tenex, Biathlon club, Sport, Semi-Auto Benchrest Outlaw, Semi-auto Benchrest precision, 5 different pistol types etc.

I sometime have the idea they are shovelled out of a Tea chest and into what ever box is handy.

Years ago, in simpler times - there was just Tenex, Match or Club and Hollow Nosed.

1066 wrote:

Ovenpaa wrote:Eley is still available and still very good ammunition, my only criticism is their range is vast and unless I am looking for Club level target ammunition I have no idea what to go for.

I feel this ever expanding range is aimed at the USA market and all a marketing ploy. In a nutshell, as far as I can see, there are three different bullet types, the hollow nose, flat nose and standard round nose and cases all seem to be the same size. As we see from Adams recorded velocity for Team ammunition there are wild variations 1047-1100 so are there really differences in the twenty or so different types they now offer? Team, Edge, Force, Action, Biathlon Tenex, Biathlon club, Sport, Semi-Auto Benchrest Outlaw, Semi-auto Benchrest precision, 5 different pistol types etc.

I sometime have the idea they are shovelled out of a Tea chest and into what ever box is handy.

Years ago, in simpler times - there was just Tenex, Match or Club and Hollow Nosed.

It's a little bit more complex than that, to my understanding, however there are some collations with your hypothesis and what seems to be happening.

There are essentially 2 lines, there's the silver line and the black line.

This denotes the 2 types of lead/bullet.

Silver covers off:

Tenex, Team, Match

Black covers off everything else (and at a guess the hollow lines).

Tenex, Team and Match, are essentially the same recipe, same loads, bullet, brass and powder, the categorisation comes down to statistics during the creation and test process. This will be closely guarded information as to exactly what denotes each batch into which category, but essentially the most consistent and best performing ammo coming off the line is denoted Tenex, followed by Team, then match.

If the whole production is good, then you can get Tenex Categorised ammo in team or even match boxes. Tenex code is denoted by 10 at the start of the batch number. 1019 - 00000 / 1020 - 00000 / 1021 - 00000.

If your match or Tenex box has a batch number laid out like the following, it means that the bullet inside meets the criteria to be branded as Tenex.

The Tenex pistol/match etc I believe are the same as Tenex in a different box.

The round nose/black line is somewhat more complicated.

There are different powders, primer methods and bullet weights within this line.

There are Subsonic loads, and Supersonic Loads

40gr bullets and 42gr bullets

Pink Primer vs Green Primer.

And it seems recently that they've added the same kind of grading to ween out the best of these mixes for certain other products, such as the semi-auto outlaw, etc.

For the "action" rounds, I'm informed the brass dimensions have been tweaked for better feeding, however my calipers and measurements on 10 randomly selected rounds of action plus and 10 x action, showed no difference to 10 x Force, Contact or Tenex I had to hand...

There are notably different powder loads from Force to say Action Plus and 100f/ps difference avg. over a chrono.

None of this is "from the horses mouth" or from any representatives of the company, merely observations from using a lot of the products.

Would it not be Tenex -> Match -> Team?
My understanding is that Team replaced Edge?
Either way, I’ve found team to be appallingly inconsistent though my experience is only limited to 5 boxes

Adamdavi3s wrote:Would it not be Tenex -> Match -> Team?
My understanding is that Team replaced Edge?
Either way, I’ve found team to be appallingly inconsistent though my experience is only limited to 5 boxes

Yeah, my bad. Tenex > Match > Team.

We've used team at our club for over a year now and it's been very consistent. However we were lucky to get 1019 batch boxes...

TattooedGun wrote:

Adamdavi3s wrote:Would it not be Tenex -> Match -> Team?
My understanding is that Team replaced Edge?
Either way, I’ve found team to be appallingly inconsistent though my experience is only limited to 5 boxes

Yeah, my bad. Tenex > Match > Team.

We've used team at our club for over a year now and it's been very consistent. However we were lucky to get 1019 batch boxes...

I’ll have to go read my boxes now

However to be honest I’m happy with the decision to switch to SK

@ovenpaa how did you get on?

Adam, I tested the SK Flatnosed Target, Rifle Match and the Centre-X with 5 fouling shots, followed by a group of 10 at 10m of each type. We had driven to the range through a mix of hail and snow and were hit by torrential rain on more than one occasion so testing was far from ideal however, the Centre-X did have the edge when visually inspected. Unfortunately, the targets were soaked through at the end so no real point in measuring.

On a downside I decided to shoot a card, 50m offhand and shot 10, 10, 9, 9, 9, (So far so good) followed by a couple of 8s and finishing with 6,6,5 the last three being high, low and left. To say I was disappointed is an understatement and I would put such abysmal scores down to a combination of being a crap shot and a drastic loss of light as the next wave of rain and black sky rolled in. I was shooting the 1931/32 rifle with my 1957 eyes. I know the rifle will hold 3/4" and better at that distance and the relatively heavy trigger does put me off a bit so I will go out with my Vickers Jubilee next week as it has the advantage of a nicer trigger and balance and see what it prefers and how I shoot.

Yes, I know I could just use a modern rifle and sights but where is the the fun in that?

That’s better than I can shoot off a bench with my scoped RPR!

I’ve gone full native and have a ogive to base gauge on order from the states to go with the rim thickness gauge
Something I read was how a slight change in seating depth on a full bore can cause split groups, something I am seeing a lot of with SK, two one hole groups with 5 shots.

Who knows if it will make a difference, but it’s a lot of fun finding out

Adam, I suspect my scoring zones are more generous than yours!

I have SK Standard ammo.. shoot an old CZ 452.. I regularly get 8/10 rounds in a half inch group at 50 metres. The rifle is nothing special other than I have adjusted the trigger to get a light pull.
Must have been a very good CZ barrel. Consistent ammo. Cheap scope.

Mike95