Reviveng a Relic

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  • Dewidmt

    Sharpshooter
    Rating - 100%
    24   0   0
    Mar 27, 2008
    705
    43
    South of the Muscatatuck
    Thought fellow INGO'ers might be interested in a little project I've been working on the past month. I found this about a month ago in a Southern Indiana Bait/Fishing/Guns/Camping store here in Washington County.



    I usually don't get fired up about older guns (unless it's a nice S&W revolver) but this just spoke to me. It is an 1883 Webley Metropolitan and Police revolver. Yes, that is a factory 2.5" barrel.
    This is the gun the fictional Sherlock Holmes carried in the novels. This is the gun the London cops would have been wielding while attempting to run down Jack the Ripper. So it has some coolness factor built in! As far as I can tell, it is unmolested. Screws aren't even buggered up! Horrendous double action pull, probably in the 20# plus range, but single action is around 7-8# and crisp. Very little play in the cylinder when full cocked. Only missing piece is the actual ring to go through that lanyard on the butt. No chips or cracks in the walnut stocks. Nice brown patina all over, with only a few little patches of surface rust. Bore was dirty, but a patch and .45 brush and it is clean and non-pitted. Cylinder chambers the same. Very shallow rifling for those old, soft lead slugs.

    Now for the bad part. Caliber was the almost unknown .450 Adams. Also known as .450 Revolver, ,450 Short or .450 Corto. And I wanted to see if it would shoot. So began the search.
     

    Dewidmt

    Sharpshooter
    Rating - 100%
    24   0   0
    Mar 27, 2008
    705
    43
    South of the Muscatatuck
    Google Fu showed me that .450 Adams went the way of the Dodo bird about 1920. Originally it was a black powder round with a 226 grain hollow based lead slug miking .455". Extra large rim, using a large pistol primer. So I gets to thinking, how about .45 Colt or .45 Auto rim for brass? Well, cutting the .45 Colt down to 0.69" in length was okay, but the very base of the brass jams up and I don't own a lathe to knock a few thousanths off. >45 Auto rim chambered, but the rim itself is too thick to allow the cylinder to rotate. No problem, I've got a file and I'll just knock it down. That works, but the resulting base is too thin to allow a primer to be seated. Hmmmm, what about using cut down .455 Webley brass? Should work right?

    Yes it does...unfortunately, .455 Webley ammo is almost non existent also. But I did find some from SWFA in Texas. Also found 25 pieces of VIRGIN .455 brass made in England on Gunbroker. No, you don't want to know what I paid for either of these items! And wonder of wonders, fellow INGoer AmmoManAaron actually had several boxes of the long discontinued Fiocchi run of .450 Corto stashed away! So I was set! Right?

    Not exactly.

    More Google Fu showed me that the Fiocchi .450 Corto and .455 Webley were loaded way to hot for this old revolver. So I thought about it a bit. I could use the original 13 grains of Black Powder, but that's messy. Or I could use reduced charges of Bullseye or Unique, they are both old, old powders. But I really want to keep all my fingers. So i looked at reduced power loads in .45 ACP and found that a lot of guys shooting Wild Bunch Cowboy shoots were using 3.5 grains of Trail Boss for a 650 FPS load.
     

    Dewidmt

    Sharpshooter
    Rating - 100%
    24   0   0
    Mar 27, 2008
    705
    43
    South of the Muscatatuck
    So yesterday, after receiving the .450 Corto from AmmoManAaron, the brass from Oklahoma and a box of .455 Webley from Texas, I experimented. Pulled the bullets from 5 rounds of Corto. Hollow based, like I said, but no big deal. Replace powder with 3.0 grains of Trail Boss. No flare die, so a steel ball bearing and a hammer shall suffice. No crimp die, but a .45 ACP die works, and the .45 Auto rim shell holder works, but is a bit loose. #5 shell holder for Lee primer works with .455 Webley and also with .450 Corto. I used my home cast 225 grain .45 ACP bullets instead of the original hollow based slugs. Everything loaded fine, but the crimp was a bit loose. It's a low powered revolver, so I don't think I'm gonna pull any bullets forward with massive recoil. Onward and upward we go!

    Set up the chronograph, place target at 7 yards, load one round. Double safety googles, heavy glove on shooting hand, cell phone on table for 911 if needed.

    Bang.....that's it? Little bang? Almost no recoil. Hole in paper plate at 5 o'clock. Chrono reads 475 FPS. Lock and load 4 more. 4 bangs, 4 holes distributed over 8" plate. Average for 5 rounds is 478 FPS.

    So it shoots! I'm happy. A 133 year old gun is brought back to life! I'm not gonna try anything hotter. I'll let my buddies shoot a few and then probably just enjoy looking at it. Also found out that those virgin .455 Webley cases, loaded with my bullet, will fit nicely in the cylinder and function as well.

    Anybody wanna buy a full box of .455 Webley?
     

    Bigtanker

    Cuddles
    Emeritus
    Rating - 100%
    24   0   0
    Aug 21, 2012
    21,688
    151
    Osceola
    Awesome job getting it to shoot. The history of this gun is way cool.








    And for the record, I thought this thread was about giving Churchmouse CPR.....
     

    King31

    Expert
    Rating - 100%
    2   0   0
    Nov 10, 2013
    827
    28
    Southern Indiana
    Awesome! My gun knowledge is small compared to many on INGO, but threads like these allow me to learn more and more everyday. When my work life settles down and I have more time it is one of the many things I plan on learning in depth about. I just hope that it is not too late :/
     

    Clay

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 98.8%
    81   1   0
    Aug 28, 2008
    9,648
    48
    Vigo Co
    Nice piece!! MAC just did a video on the Webly, and apparently you can use a .45 ACP if you machine the back of the cylinder a bit to clear the cartridge and needed full moon clip. Might be something worth looking into if this one will shoot .45 Webly.
     

    oldpink

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 0%
    0   0   0
    Apr 7, 2009
    6,660
    63
    Farmland
    Great work getting that antique shooting again, and big thumbs up to AmmomanAaron for doing you a solid to achieve that goal.
    Now, to see if you can outdo .44 Magnum.:runaway:
     

    jspy5

    Sharpshooter
    Rating - 100%
    6   0   0
    Sep 8, 2012
    563
    43
    Southern Marion County
    That's a great story. My question is, did you know what you were looking at when you seen it for the first time or did you research it first before buying. I'd say you did good.
     
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