If you’ve been keeping track of my ongoing ammunition testing series, you know we’ve been dabbling a bit on both ends of the spectrum of cost and reputation. On the higher end of the spectrum, we’ve been slowly going through ELEY’s catalog of 22LR offerings; today we’re finally getting into the territory of the truly expensive offerings with ELEY 40-grain Match Flat Nose. This highly expensive and unique ammunition is said by ELEY themselves to be second in the world only to ELEY’s own Tenex match ammo. As is my custom in this series, we’ll be testing a 50-round box of this stuff at 50 yards, out of a precision rifle ( Angstadt RPR), to see what $0.50 per round gets you out of a match-grade rifle. More Rimfire Report @ TFB: The Rimfire Report: Master Chief's Favorite .22? FarrowTech's FT-M Kit The Rimfire Report: Franklin's F22-V SBR - Is Two Stamps The Way? The Rimfire Report: Celebrating 75 Years of CCI — A Trip to Lewiston ELEY 40 gr Match Flat Nose Ammo Product Link: https://www.eleyammunition.com/eley-match-22lr/ELEY Match is renowned amongst elite competition shooters for its excellent accuracy and performance. It ranks second in the world of .22LR accuracy and performance, with ELEY Tenex holding the top position. This cartridge features a patented flat nose profile and a cut mouth case that deliver consistent internal ballistics performance. Each round undergoes rigorous quality control, including computer-controlled visual inspection and finely calibrated measuring equipment, all overseen by precise and meticulous engineers.Key FeaturesPatented flat nose technologyCut case for consistent ballistic performanceExcellent competition roundDesigned ForProfessional and elite shootersUsed For50m Prone50m 3 Positions50m Free PistolBenchrest SpecificationsFirearm Compatibility: .22LR Match Rifle, .22LR Free PistolBullet Profile: Flat noseCartridge Length: 25.4 mm / 1 inchBullet Weight: 2.59 g / 40 grainsVelocity:Muzzle: 331 m/s (1085 ft/s)50 m (55 yds): 303 m/s (994 ft/s)91 m (100 yds): 285 m/s (935 ft/s)Energy:Muzzle: 14.5 Kg.m / 104.9 ft.lb50 m / 55 yds: 12.1 Kg.m / 87.5 ft.lb91 m / 100 yds: 10.7 Kg.m / 77.4 ft.lbLubricant: Beeswax-tallow The beeswax-tallow lubricant is somewhat thick on the entirety of the bullet, and if you’re not wearing gloves, it will get all over your hands, especially on a hot day. I’ve heard that in some extremely cold or hot temperatures the wax can either harden too much, leading to difficulty seating in match chambers, or melt off of the bullet, which is why you sometimes see pro shooters transporting their ammo in coolers. So why the flat nose? ELEY's own explanation is that the profile pulls the center of pressure forward and aerodynamically stabilizes the bullet in fligh. The flat nose profile also has a long, well-documented history in target shooting for a much simpler reason: it punches a clean, sharp-edged hole in paper instead of the ragged, torn hole a round nose leaves behind, and that matters enormously when a match comes down to whether a shot is touching the next scoring ring or not. Or I guess in my case, the groups we’ll see today. Velocity ResultsIt should come as no surprise that we had a very good result from just the velocity data alone. With a maximum velocity out of our 18” ported Angstadt barrel of 1,051 fps, it seems that there is very little chance, if any, of this cartridge going supersonic out of this rifle. I don’t exactly have the spare scratch to spend $25 on another box of ammo just in the pursuit of testing the ammo's velocity out of every type of rifle and barrel length, so I’m just going to call its extreme spread of 43 and standard deviation of 10.4 excellent. This is far better than you’ll get from any budget ammo. Naturally, this should translate to more consistency down range, with very little risk of ammunition-induced dropped shots at longer distances. Since we’re staying 100% subsonic with this one, we’ll also get the added benefit of the ammo never having to cross its own transonic wake like high-velocity ammo would at the same distance. The downside here is range; you won’t win any ELR matches with this stuff. Accuracy Results“Superb” isn’t a word I use lightly, but similar to a few of the other results we’ve seen from ELEY and even some recent Remington offerings, the results here, even considering my marksmanship skills, are pretty impressive. Each of the groups was a single connected one, and not a single group measured over an inch in size. Essentially, paying $0.50 per round allowed me, an experienced yet average shooter, the ability to shoot some pretty tight groups from just a prone position, which is exactly one of the prescriptions that this ammo has on the company’s website. Although, if we’re being completely honest, I was a whole 14 feet short of 50 meters since we did this at 50 yards. This is the kind of accuracy I would expect out of both this type of rifle and especially this type of ammunition. Whether or not this level of accuracy is worth it is entirely up to the task you have at hand. As I stated before, ELEY has this ammo placed in a pretty tight box as either a bench rest, 50m prone, or even as a precision pistol round - not so much as a slightly more budget-friendly precision round you’d bring to a rimfire PRS match (unless you have that kind of cash to blow on rimfire). Final ThoughtsAt nearly $0.50 a round, ELEY Match Flat Nose isn't ammunition you buy on a whim. It made a strong case for itself in this test, though, so I’d say it was worth the cash I shelled out for it at Midway. A standard deviation of 10.4 and an extreme spread of 43 out of a rifle barrel is the kind of consistency handloaders spend years chasing even with centerfire ammo, and every group staying under an inch at 50 yards from prone backs that up on paper as much as it does on a chronograph. I think this is genuinely excellent ammunition, and I don't think that claim needs much hedging after what I saw today. I’m sort of surprised by this because my recent reading through various forums indicated a sharp drop-off in the quality of ELEY Match, leading me to believe this test would sort of be a wash in terms of accuracy. However, where it gets more complicated for me is figuring out who actually needs to spend this kind of money. ELEY built this round for 50m prone, three positions, benchrest, and free pistol, disciplines where every shot gets measured against a scoring ring and a ragged hole can cost you real points. This is probably the only place in the world where a watcutter-style nose would matter most, and it's also exactly the kind of shooting where $0.50 a round starts to make sense when you’re looking at prize tables and titles, since the marginal gain in a discipline decided by tenths of a point is worth paying for. If you're shooting rimfire PRS or plinking steel, none of that scoring precision matters to you. A hit is a hit regardless of the shape of the hole, and you can get most of this rifle's accuracy for a fraction of the cost with ammunition that isn't chasing paper-target scoring rules you'll never be judged by - even within ELEY’s own ammo ecosystem. So I'd stop short of telling every reader of this series to go stock up on a brick. If you're a dedicated smallbore, benchrest, or free pistol competitor, this is worth every cent, and I'd be surprised if it didn't tighten your groups over whatever you're currently running. For everyone else, I'd treat this the way I'd treat a nice bottle of something you save for an occasion rather than a Friday afternoon of “work” like me. It's not a round I'd feed a PRS match gun every weekend, but for a day at the bench where I wanted to see exactly what my rifle and I were capable of, it more than earned its price tag. I’d love to hear your thoughts and/or experiences in the comments below. Thanks as always for reading The Rimfire Report, and we’ll see you all again next week! ELEY Match 22LR Flat-Nose Ammo Buy on Optics Planet We are committed to finding, researching, and recommending the best products. We earn commissions from purchases you make using the retail links in our product reviews. Learn more about how this works.