British Service Revolvers - which one to collect or shoot?

[jonnyc]

All well and good, but once you shoot one of the .455s you'll start saving a lot on .380 ammo!

[DaveN]

Once you get it there is no cure......

[arado]

I have bought and used British pistols. Including one I have never found a cartridge for. I will take a picture of it. Maybe somebody has an issue round. gary

[arado]

here is the picture. anyone have an issue cartridge? Pistol is a Navy issue semi auto in cal .455, dated 1913. I made cartridges from .45 long colt. Gary.

[oldpaul]

Attachment 31871Attachment 31872Here is one from my box of miscellaneous ammo, the only one I have. Left to right, .455 Webley Auto, .45ACP, .455 Webley revolver. Wonderful pistol, I've seen photos of 1911s in .455 Eley auto but I don't have the coin for either. Regards, Tom

[sledge]

Well I got a Mk 1 in 38 S&W and the ammo is available at my local Lebarons shop for a respectable $28 for 50.
Have to say it was GREAT to shoot. I only bought one box but the next day I bought 4 and cannot wait to shoot it again.
Really liked the top break down and it was quite accurate in single action. My first revolver...and it looks like my Glock is going to get jealous real fast.
Now I have to get a .455.

[A square 10]

kinda figured that would happen , soon you will be looking for others , that singapore/toranto webly mkIV is a very good shooter as well - not war models tho

[CCAMERA50]

Recently ( five days ago ) i bought a revolver Webley 38 200 to put next my Enfield n.4 Mk1

I found a surplus of Israel army ( Israel six star and Tsahal marks on right side )

The rev. it is practically new ( very very nice , really in mint condition , all matching ) then my mind it is to utilize "her" ( sometime ) in the range.

First thing i "slugged" the bore and the cylinder and i seen the following meas. :

- barrel seven lands - groove .3630 / .3635 -
- cylinder chambers in the narrowest point .3615 /.3620

Waiting for the dies to start reload , i shoot a dozen of commercial Fiocchi 146 gr
FMJ ( .3565 ) and i seen , at 25 mt , a very poor accuracy , then i think i will shoot
only lead wdcutter HB bullets

Now i have the big curiosity to know the reason ( if there is one ) to make the chamber narrowest than barrel ( i think worsing the accuracy - i ever seen the reverse concept )

Having regard to the destination ( military ) , may be to shoot safely ammo produced by different factories ? simply a construction tolerance ? or to avoid problems in case of a
not perfect cylinder timing ?

any of you has some info in this regard ? may be Mr. Laidler ?

Thanks in advance for your answers

CC

[Patrick Chadwick]

- barrel seven lands - groove .3630 / .3635 - - cylinder chambers in the narrowest point .3615 /.3620 Waiting for the dies to start reload , i shoot a dozen of commercial Fiocchi 146 gr FMJ ( .3565 ) and i seen , at 25 mt , a very poor accuracy , then i think i will shoot only lead wdcutter HB bullets

Revolvers need to be fired with a round-nose lead bullet that can slug up in the forcing cone. As you have seen, modern 357 bullets, which tend to be too hard, will just scoot through the chamber mouth, cone and barrel while hardly touching the edges. The result is about the same as if you were to fire a smooth-bore muzzleloader without a patch - awful accuracy.

You need medium-hard (Brinell 10-15) not real hard, round-nose bullets that are a fairly close fit to the chamber mouth. On firing, the sheer inertia of the lead means that they slug up a couple of thousandths of an inch to fit the chamber mouth. When they hit the forcing cone, they slug up even more and are effectively swaged down lightly into the barrel.
All this assumes, of course, that the barrel diameter across the lands (not grooves) is actually tighter than the chamber mouth diameter. That is actually more important than the groove diameter. Please measure the land diameter and post the result.

[Patrick Chadwick]

not easy to find sources of bullets

Not so. Forget the misleading .455 designation.. They take common-or-garden .452 bullets. But NOT jacketed and preferably not hard lead. After all, revolver bullets are trundling along at black-powder velocities. So the revolver works best (at least, mine does) with medium-hard bullets (about Brinell 10-15) which are...
1) ...thanks to their inertia and (relative) softness, bumped up on firing to fill the chamber mouth, ensuring that they are parallel to the chamber axis.
2) ... swaged down by the the forcing cone to fit the bore.

1) and 2) are both necessary for best accuracy.

So you just need ordinary round-nose lead bullets. Or the wadcutters that look like a lead dustbin, with a slightly rounded nose - NOT those semi-wadcutter things that have a step. Best of all are the original form 255/265 gn bullets with a hollow base - rather like a Minie bullet - and they function very similarly. The Webley MK VI chamber is bored so that it can also take the Mk I cartridges (the old black-powder version) which is slightly longer. So there is a slight step where the mouth of the MK I cartridge would be, which is about 1/8" or so (someone else can dig out the data) in front of the Mk II case mouth, with the result that the step on the stepped bullets bangs into the step in the chamber. The bullet is skewed and accuracy is lousy.
The hollow base round-nose design is so long that the parallel portion reaches up to the step in the chamber, ensuring that the bullet starts moving properly centered on the chamer axis.

Get the original design of bullet if you can. Otherwise get .452 round-nose lead bullets. Hornady make excellent Mk II cases.