Eley: The London Cartridge Maker Behind Olympic .22 Gold

An advert in the Morning Chronicle

On 10 July 1828, a notice in London's Morning Chronicle announced a new factory supplying patented cartridges. According to Eley's own history, the advert promised "the greatest ever improvement in gunnery."

That is a big claim for a shotgun cartridge. But it was a big moment. The brothers behind the factory, William and Charles Eley, had bought the rights to a patent issued in late 1827 to a man named Joshua Jenour, for what was called a "wire cartridge." Wikipedia's account says the patent was No. 5570, and that the Eleys bought it in the spring or early summer of 1828. They set up on Charlotte Street in London and later moved to Bond Street.

Nearly two hundred years later, the company still uses that 1828 date. And the thing it is famous for now, a .22 LR target round, would have been unimaginable to the men who placed that advert.

Caps, Colt and a fatal explosion

The early business was shotguns, caps and whatever the age of black powder needed. In 1837 Eley added percussion caps to its range, per Wikipedia.

The trade was dangerous. In 1841, Wikipedia records, William Eley was killed in an explosion. His three sons carried on the business. Eley's own timeline puts their inheritance at 1842.

One of those sons, William Thomas Eley, reached across the Atlantic. Eley's history dates a joint patent with Samuel Colt to 1855, for revolver cartridges. Wikipedia describes the partnership as a skin cartridge for Colt's revolvers, made before metallic cartridges took over. It's a reminder that "cartridge" meant something different in those decades.

The rimfire claim, and a date puzzle

Here is where Eley's history gets interesting for anyone who shoots a .22. Eley's timeline says it produced its first ".22LR rimfire cartridges" in 1860.

That date deserves a closer look. The .22 Long Rifle as most of us know it is usually dated to 1887, when J. Stevens Arms & Tool introduced it, combining the .22 Long case with a 40-grain bullet, per Wikipedia's .22 LR history. The .22 Short dates to 1857. So an 1860 Eley ".22" round was very likely one of the early .22 rimfires that came before the Long Rifle, not the cartridge in your brick of bulk ammo.

That doesn't make Eley's claim wrong in spirit. It means the company was making small rimfire cartridges well before the Long Rifle existed. When the LR arrived, Eley was already in the business.

Grays Inn Road, Edmonton and the shot tower

By the 1860s Eley was growing. Wikipedia says it moved to Grays Inn Road in 1864, and by 1865 had a factory at Tile Kiln Lane in Edmonton, north London. In 1874 it became a public company. By the 1890s it was making around 400 types of cartridge. Eley's own records show it won the Grand Prix at the Paris Exhibitions of 1898 and 1900.

The Edmonton works moved to Angel Road in 1894, with a tramway to a wharf on the River Lee. In 1907, a ballistics expert, F.W. Jones, built a 107-foot shot tower there.

The work stayed dangerous. Wikipedia records an 1895 explosion that killed three women workers, and a 1900 blast that killed two workmen and the works manager. In 1906 the mostly female workforce went on strike over wage cuts, and the Board of Trade appointed an arbitrator.

War, Nobel and IMI

The First World War turned British cartridge factories into national assets. Eley made 209 million .303 cartridges during the war, per Wikipedia, against more than two billion at Kynoch's Birmingham factory.

After the war, Eley became part of Explosive Trades Ltd, which became Nobel Industries. Eley's own history says it was a founding member of Nobel Industries alongside Kynoch. In 1921 the Angel Road factory closed, and production moved to Nobel's Waltham Abbey site. In the 1920s the company also partnered with FN of Belgium.

Then the corporate story gets tangled, as it often does. Wikipedia says IMI bought Eley from Nobel in 1926. Eley's own history says that in 1928 it moved to the Witton site in Birmingham as a subsidiary of what is now Imperial Metal Industries. Either way, by the late 1920s Eley was a Birmingham company inside a large industrial group.

1951: Tenex

The turning point for rimfire came after the Second World War. In 1951, according to both Eley's history and Wikipedia, the company introduced the first generation of Tenex, a .22 cartridge for Olympic-style target competition.

Eley's history says that in its first year, Eley team shooters using Tenex won at the British Championship and took the Grand Aggregate at Bisley, the heart of British target shooting.

Tenex has a look you can spot across a firing line: a flat-nose 40-grain bullet. Eley says the flat nose pulls the centre of pressure forward to stabilise the bullet in flight. Today Eley calls Tenex "the world's most consistently accurate .22LR cartridge" and says each cartridge is electronically inspected and every lot is tested. It prints a batch code on each box with grade, year, loader, batch and mean velocity, so shooters can buy more of a lot that works.

Priming without the mess

Eley's other big contribution is less visible. In a rimfire round, the priming compound sits inside the rim of every case, so how it gets there matters. In 1979, per Wikipedia, Eley developed a dry-priming process called Eleyprime, and won the Queen's Award for Technology for it in 1988. Eley's own history describes its Autoprime system, developed in the early 1980s, as the only fully automated dry priming system in the world.

Why should a shooter care? Consistent priming is one of the reasons a box of rimfire ammo either fires every time or doesn't. Our guide to rimfire misfires explains how priming and rims cause most rimfire failures.

Splits, a buyout and new owners

The late 20th century brought another shuffle. The Edmonton shot tower was demolished, and the old site became the Eley Industrial Estate. Eley moved to a new purpose-built factory near Birmingham. Eley's own history dates that move to May 2003. Its current address is in Minworth, Sutton Coldfield.

The shotgun cartridge side was split off as Eley Hawk and sold to Maxam Explosives, though Wikipedia says it still operates as a tenant at the same Sutton Coldfield site. Eley itself became a rimfire specialist.

In 2014 Eley became independent through a management buyout from IMI, backed by LDC. In 2017 it bought its U.S. importer and batch-testing partner, Killough Shooting Sports, through its U.S. arm, Eley Inc. In December 2022, LDC sold Eley to Lunele Limited, per Wikipedia.

The medal count

Eley's marketing leans hard on the Olympics, and for once the numbers back it up. Wikipedia reports that at the Tokyo 2020 Games, held in 2021, six of the twelve cartridge rifle and pistol medals were won with Eley ammunition. Eley's own Tenex page says national teams and world-record holders load it.

That is the strange arc of the company. It began by selling a patented shotgun cartridge in London. It survived explosions, wars and mergers. And it ended up as the maker of a single, obsessively controlled kind of .22 round, the one that wins medals.

What it means for the rest of us

If you shoot a sporter .22 at tin cans, Eley Tenex is not for you, and Eley says so itself: its own Tenex page notes that cheaper standard-grade .22 LR is fine for casual plinking and general practice.

If you shoot prone, benchrest, or Olympic-style pistol and rifle, the Eley story is the story of your sport. Our rimfire competition guide covers where to start. And if you're getting into bullseye pistol, our look at the Ruger Mark IV Target is a natural next step.

For practice, a consistent standard-velocity load does most of the work. CCI's Standard Velocity 40-grain is a common club choice in the U.S. Browse more options in the 22 LR category and check current price. Eley itself is sold mainly through specialist match retailers.

Editorial note: This is an independent editorial overview built from manufacturer specifications, retailer listings and published sources. We have not performed hands-on testing of the products discussed, and nothing here is a performance guarantee. Verify specifications, compatibility and the law where you live.

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