Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Eley Target .22 LR

Out of curiosity I purchased a box about 1-1/2 years ago. Cut the plastic seal and shot some today. First thing I noticed was that all of the bullets were oxidized. Crimps were loosey goosey. 3 FTF out of 15 rounds but they fired after being reloaded. The firing pin strike for the gun is strong. Accuracy was fair at best. ~3/4” at 20 yards for 5 shots.

If I read the label correctly the lot # is B761BA.

Won’t be going down that road again.

Similar thing happened to me. They may be good, but SK match rifle shoots better in my rifle.

That's weird. I've had pretty good luck with it. Even stuff from a few years back. Weird that it is oxidized. Was it lubed? I'll blame my poor shooting in the precision rimfire shoot on that crap ammo.. Ha ha..

I bought a brick of eley target and one of Club probably 7 years ago thinking it was top tier Ammo, which ended up not being the case.

DD- what Ammo was shot in the rifle before shooting the eley target? Because of eleys paraffin based bullet lube, I find it takes more rounds for the Ammo to settle in than when switching between similarly lubed bullets.

Guys the price of the ammo doesn’t matter. All that matters is does your rifle like it.
I spent a lot of money going to school on 22 rifles. Still have a lot to learn.
First pretty good 22 I bought , I also bought 7 or 8 different brands of match ammo.
Went to the range and tried one right after the other. No one ever mentioned seasoning a barrel. Hasbeen

There was no obvious lube on the bullets and when I said oxidized earlier my characterization is “severely”.

My preferred is SK Standard + and Wolf MT that was made by SK. The bricks of Wolf are 10 years old or more and still have the greasy lube w/o any oxidation. They shoot superbly from all of my LR chambered rifles.

Are you able to share a pic of the oxidation? Any idea Based on the lot number when it was produced?

Lot # posted in my first post. I have lubed the remaining ammo with NASA lube and photos would be pointless. The appearance was that of a nearly white powdery finish with a coarse texture.

I had some tenex that had its lube turn somewhat white and crackly. Wasn’t old or stored poorly either.

Odd.

Found some of the Eley at a gun show that looked like Dan described. It was cheap enough, but the dried and oxidized lead made me reconsider and I left it on the table....

I have some RWS Subsonic I purchased in the late 70's that still shoots as well now as it did then. The lube is now a powdery white but it hasn't hurt the accuracy. In fact, it shoots as well as the newer RWS Subs.

It's not really what you want to see, especially not in expensive ammo.

Had the same thing happen with a old box of Remington/Eley. The white powder substance won't allow them to even chamber in my Bergara.

About 3 years ago a big sports store had Target on sale at a ridiculous price. I picked up 2k thinking this would be great in my 513T and 455 Varmint. It wasn't. Nothing is as good as SK in them. It functions well though and the lube is good. I will chip away at it. If I don't use it up my son will.

Cheap grades of Eley aren't any better than cheap grades of anything else. Where Eley shines is in their steely-eyed QC standards employed in the making of their high grade stuff.

I was gifted a brick of Federal Gold Ultra Match (OM-1) from maybe 20 years ago, along with a brick of ancient Eley Tenex (still in cardboard boxes). The lube on both bricks of bullets had dried up, and looked for all the world like oxidation. Undaunted, I shot it all up out of a bunch of different target rifles and it performed beautifully, as one would expect of that stuff. Nothing untoward happened inside any of the barrels either.

I would sell my soul for another stash of that Federal OM-1 ammo. Why oh why did they ever stop making it?

I just took a look at a few open boxes of Remington marked Eley Target Rifle and Club, doesn’t have any of the powdery stuff on the bullets. Must be at least 10 years old.

I bought a few bricks of the WW SS HP made in Australia and it looks a little oxidized but not much.