Beware Fiocchi .455 Ammunition

Had a lovely experience today with some .455 ammo in my Webley-Fosbery which has established a pattern for me.

A couple months ago, I had a .455 round which came apart in the cylinder of my Webley. The bullet fell out of the casing and jammed the cylinder. The round was primed, but no main charge was present.

Again today, I had another round that was a squib. Primer detonated properly, but no main charge was present. The bullet jammed halfway down the barrel and had to be pounded out with a dowel. Both were from a case of Fiocchi ammunition. Two such rounds in about 200 rounds fired demonstrates a pretty abysmal level of QA. Beware!

Attachment 138589Attachment 138590Attachment 138591Attachment 138592

Definitely could have been a disaster in such a rare revolver.

Thanks for the heads up. I don't have a lot of that, but I'll be sure to check it.

My dream gun. :)

Glad you are you.

Later 42rocker

Did some further *careful* experimentation with the W-F and a Mk VI. In about 24 rounds fired in the Fosbery, 3 bullets came unseated in the cylinder and dumped powder. I then switched to the Mk VI and shot my remaining ammo (about 120 rounds) and had no issues.

My theory is that Fiocchi minimally crimps their rounds and that crimp is overcome by the recoil and movement inherent to the Webley-Fosbery design. The rounds performed fine in the more traditional Mk VI. This is further backed up by the few thousand Fiocchi .455 rounds I've put through my other Webleys without incident. I would evaluate that Fiocchi ammo is fine in traditional revolvers, but unsatisfactory for Webley-Fosberys.

Yes...recoil can pull bullets. I had a man that wanted the harshest .44 mag ammo I could assemble. It was all about recoil. He told me some would back out and he could only load four in a cylinder. That made sence even with a heavy crimp. WF may have something special about the way it recoils when doing it's cycle that a regular revolver doesn't. Never fired one...yet.