doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT: Webley pistol

I recently stumbled in to a Webley revolver, a Mark II, .455 caliber. Apparently this gun was born between 1894-1897. That's about all I know about these guns. It was sold to me with 14 boxes of shells, each box contains 12 cartridges and date circa 1943. These shells were all made in Canada. The boxes all say .455 DCM VI. They all have date stamp Dec 13, 1943. I guess they are safe to shoot, but they are almost 75 years old. Are they safe? The gun itself is in very good shape. I've read many were converted to accept .45 ACP. This gun appears unaltered. Anybody know anything about these guns who cares to enlighten me? I'm a shotgun guy and am pretty ignorant re pistols....a gun like this. Thanks for your opinion.

Thanks skeetx. As usual, you know how to find useful information. The gun is pretty neat, being 120 years old. Fiocchi doesn't make the ammo anymore and Hornady used to as well but doesn't either anymore. Ammo appears difficult to find for this particular gun.

A warning about the .455s converted to 45 ACP, the 45 ACP exceeds the pressure limit of the .455, so if you have one that has been converted please use 14000 psi loads. Some say factory 45 Auto Rim may be used safely, however I would not recommend the practice.

buzz: webley's are neat old revolvers and very well made...

however, as yours was made prior to ww1, i would be careful shooting it with ammo made during or after ww1, as pressures may be to high...

mild, black powder pressure handloads sound like a good idea to me...

here is some reloading info:
http://www.tactical-life.com/tactics/reloading-the-webley-revolver/#ms16-webley-lead

check the proof, see if it was reproofed or had nitro proofs.how many of the rounds like you received with the gun were fired in it before you received the firearm?

ed's article references Blue Dot as a suitable powder.

That's a curious choice for an antique revolver.

Were it mine, and I wanted to shoot it....

I would disassemble the factory rounds with an inertia bullet puller, fire the primers and reload the cases with Trail Boss and lead bullets.

This is assuming the cases are Boxer primed, and I have no clue if they are.

This gun does have the NP stamp, so original nitro proofs.

Those WWII ctgs. may be pretty valuable in themselves. I'd look around for a broken box of Fiocchi if you just want to make it go bang a few times and save the originals. (I did shoot up a bunch of Australian-made .455s in a 1918-vintage MKVI and a Colt New Service back in the 1960s when these guns were pretty close to free and ammo was cheap. A local gunshop in Berkeley, CA (!!!) had a case of ex-Irish Army--not IRA--MKVIs and the the owner told me he'd give me my pick of them if I'd clean 'em all. So I did).

I had no problems with the Ozzie ammo except that they were so slow that I could see them in flight!

I'll look at my manual "Cartridge Conversions" to see if my memory is right and you can make .455 cases by thinning the rims of .45 Colt (NOT ACP!) and shortening them.