Webley mk vi questions and help

I recently decided to try to find one of these. All I can find with a decent price i.e not an arm and a leg are ones been converted to .45acp/AR. I have heard tales of factory .45 ammo blowing these up due to some pressure issues etc. etc. Any one here knowledge on these revolvers help me out on this? If this is true how would one go about reloaded a safe load for these?

May sound like a stupid question but could one still run .455 through them?

Or are there cylynders available in the orginal .455? I have tried a quick search and have found none.

I have had one possible seller not answer and questions past the first I have one for sale email.

I have had another seller answer questions and send me pics, yet describes the cylynder as loose as "they all are" and admits to shooting around 200 rounds of .45acp and about 50 of the .45 snake rounds through it. I do not think the 2nd one is trying to be shady but as a new to the revolver I do not want to buy a lemon and/or get screwed over. Nor do I want to buy a gun I am afraid to shoot as it is going to blow up.

Any help would be much apperciated.

When the old Webleys were "converted" to handle the ACP round, what they actually did was turn off the back end of the cylinder. You were supposed to use .45ACP in those silly "half-moon clips". Thankfully, Remington came out about 1920 with the .45 Auto Rim cartridge with a very thick rim. It takes care of the "missing" half-moon clip and the gun works like a regular revolver once again.

If the gun has been altered to handle the clips/AR round, you should not use .455 ammo in the thing. There will be just ALL KINDS of excess spacing BEHIND the cartridge and you will get primer set-back that you won't even believe. MUCH easier just to load your .45 AR cartridges down to proper .455 pressure levels and use those. My guns have not been altered, so I keep AR brass around to convert into .455 brass: cut back the front of the rim. No other alterations necessary; it's that simple.

The Webley Mark VI was proofed for a Service pressure of 6 tons per square inch. The "tons" involved are Imperial Long Tons of 2240 pounds each, so the Service (working) pressure of the correct ammo is 13,440 PSI; the .45 ACP develops about 19,000. You can see the problem.

But if you are loading your own ammo, friend, the "problems" do not exist. Just use.45 Auto Rim brass and load with .455 LOADS and you will be fine. The Auto Rim brass is the same length as the old .455 COLT casing, which was loaded in Canada until 1968. I used a lot of it and never had troubles; so did a lot of other guys. Running .455 Mark II loads in .455 Colt (or converted Auto Rim) brass just gives you lower pressures, which are always nice to have.

Note that, for a converted gun, NO conversion of the Auto Rim brass is necessary; you just use it the way it comes out of the bag.

The actual REASON that a lot more Webleys did not blow up when using .45ACP ammo was very simple: .45ACP uses a bullet of .451" or .452" diameter. The very deep rifling of the Webley allowed a lot of gas to blow by the bullet as it moved down the bore, keeping pressures relatively sane. The problem with this is that the windage (gas blow-by) destabilises the bullet on exit from the bore. Webleys can be VERY accurate revolvers..... but the revolver has not yet been made which will be accurate with the WRONG ammunition...... which is what the ACP round is to the Webley.

The proper bullet for the Webley is a 265-grain lead slug with an extremely deep base cavity and a long, semi-pointed round nose. Looking at a section drawing of the thing, one would think that it could not POSSIBLY balance properly..... but it does. RCBS makes a mould for a Webley-type bullet and at the present time there is a group buy which has not closed YET over on castboolits for a 4-cavity CNC-built brass mould for this exact bullet. I am ordering one myself, as I have two .455s which need to be fed: a Webley Mark VI and a Colt New Service which we purchased during the Great War.

Interesting point: General Hatcher worked out a scale of Relative Stopping Power of bullets. On the Hatcher Scale, the .455 scores a 74. This is ABOVE the .45ACP in stopping power, owing to the very heavy bullet. At the same time, it still is a pleasant cartridge to shoot and the big old Webley revolver just "hangs" so beautifully in the hand that reasonable accuracy is almost impossible NOT to achieve.

With the correct 265 bullet, MV of Service ammo was about 630 ft/sec. Barnes (COTW-6) gives a 260 with 5 (FIVE) grains of Unique at 610, 6 (SIX) grains of Unique for 710, which is a mite too warm. Both of these were in short Mark II cases, so pressures should be a bit less in the longer Auto Rim case although this should not be relied upon too heavily: the Auto Rim cases I have here are somewhat robustly constructed. Essentially, stick with BOTTOM loads for the .45ACP and the proper 265 slug and you should be in business. Likely you WILL have to bevel the insides of your AR case-mouths and possibly expand a tad in order to get a fat Webley bullet in; once it's in there are no problems.

Hope this helps.
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Note that most of the above is written assuming that you do get the revolver with the altered cylinder.

Most important point: have fun!
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Quote:

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Originally Posted by smellie

Note that most of the above is written assuming that you do get the revolver with the altered cylinder.

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Nope, deal fell through. The seller is too lazy to call up my FFL who is more then willing to provide the information they need if they call. The seller tells me I should find a more cooperative dealer in the future. Go figure.

Believe me, friend, I sympathise!

Right now, I am in the middle of Month 19 of waiting to bring my new 1913 J.P. Sauer pistol home. We have universal licensing here but I am papered for anything that doesn't go pukka-pukka-pukka, so that is not the issue. Besides, I already HAVE a 1913 Sauer, so that's not the issue, either.

As with you, the issue is that the Dealer will not be bothered to make a telephone call in order that the gun be released.

For me, this is a real tick-off, being that the one I am waiting for is a genuine World War I capture/bringback which has a high probability of being TRACED to a particular troopie on whom the original records still exist.

MOST Dealers are pretty good, but I am really glad that this particular one doesn't advertise on this Site!

Better luck next time, friend!

BTW, why not put a "Want to Buy" ad up on the board here? There must be SOMEBODY in our little community with a decent Mark VI (in the USA) at a sane price!
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