.455 Webley bullets

[RGRWJB]

Can anyone tell me where I can buy some of these bullets sized and lubed. I'm getting frustrated in my search.

TIA

[ddixie884]

If you don't find anything you like better, Hornady sells a swaged .45 hollow base hollow point at 285gr. They call it a Great Plains bullet.

[carlv]

Remington 45 Colt bullets (.455 diameter) work about as well
as you can expect from a store-bought bullet. Available here :
http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?productnumber=1601446981

A close approximation of the original hollow based bullet is available here :
http://www.huntingtons.com/bullets_leadcast.html

Don't expect great accuracy out of the British revolvers.
I have often found that the bore and throat sizes are dreadfully mismatched,
producing correspondingly poor accuracy.
Colt New Service and S&W Hand Ejectors can do much better.

Best of luck.

[klcarroll]

............Don't expect great accuracy out of the British revolvers. I have often found that the bore and throat sizes are dreadfully mismatched, producing correspondingly poor accuracy. Colt New Service and S&W Hand Ejectors can do much better...........


Every Military .455 Webley I have ever examined featured tight chamber throats. It is clearly intentional engineering, .....and while the original designer has not answered my emails, I have read two plausible independent theories for this design:

1) The tight throat promotes tight sealing and some running resistance during the "Initial Burn" which elevates pressures somewhat and improves the efficiency of a relatively small powder charge.

2) The tight chamber throat creates an undersized bullet which stays that way until it is safely into the barrel: ......Thereby creating an alignment relationship that is somewhat more tolerant of sand and dirt induced mis-alignments between the cylinder and the barrel.

In any event, ....the design RELIES on the skirt of the hollow base bullet to expand and fill the rifling.

Given the correct bullet and load, a military .455 Webley (in otherwise good condition) will stand on the line next to your Colt New Service or S&W Hand Ejector and apologize for NOTHING!


Kent


BTW: If the shooter plans on feeding his Webley a steady diet of "plain base" boolits, there is no reason not to have the chamber throats reamed to more standard "American" tolerances.

KLC

[GabbyM]

I've a 200 grain RNFP BB that drops .457" x .458" slightly out of round. From 2/6 alloy.
.454" is the largest size die I have. If you could chamber and shoot those as cast they could be pan lubed or Lee Allox coated.

Also have a Saeco 230 gain rnfp that’s cast about 454 or 455. And the 255 grain Lyman 454190.

Don’t know enough about the Webly to know if any of those would work. I’ve a couple tons of pure pb and could cast that 200 grain from pure. May work best that way and would be smaller by almost .002”. I really don’t know what works in a Webly.

I’ve a 2 ½ gallon bucket full of the 200 grain I cast up Tuesday sitting in the shop right now. So there’s no shortage of them.

[RGRWJB]

Good info. I wish I knew someone that cast the original 265 gr .455 HB bullet.

[klcarroll]

Good info. I wish I knew someone that cast the original 265 gr .455 HB bullet.

I have often thought about just spending the money to have one made; .....but being a Hollow Base design, it would pretty much have to be a single cavity design. ......And I have been really spoiled by my six cavity molds!:Fire:

I am quite sure that Boolit design is one of the reasons that the .455 Webley and its .380/200 little brother received the favorable field reports that they did, in spite of relatively low velocities.

Both rounds featured excessively long boolits, and both rounds were inclined to tumble after the first few inches of penetration. (......probably VERY unpleasant!)

Kent

[BCall]

RCBS makes a 250 gr RNHB mold for this use, but it is a "special order" mold and kinda pricey. Might still be cheaper than a custom one though.

[RGRWJB]

It would be nice to get a group buy for something like this. I'm sure there are other uses for the original .455hb bullet.

[dkdelta]

Bernie at Old West Bullet Mold told me that he recently made a solid base 265gr. with the general shape of the original bullet; you might contact him for details.

He recently made a custom mold for me to feed the MkIV 380/200: 200 gr. RN patterned after the H&G 138 with details from original British cartridges and American 38 super police ammunition. I just started working with these, but so far so good. 

I have found that you really need to keep the bullet weight on both 455 and 380 close to standard to keep POI and POA in line with the fixed sights on the Webley revolvers.

[GabbyM]

I make RCBS hollow base Minnie ball for my 45 caliber muzzle loader. They are only .445" dia and weigh about 275 grains. Not much of a fit for the Webly. Thing is it takes quite a while to cast a pile of them. That link to Huntington bullets with the 265 grain HB for $20 per fifty bullets is probably as close as you’ll ever get. IIRC the later bullets were more like 225 grains.

[BCall]

This is the RCBS webley mold. The boolits from Huntington's are cast from one of these molds. I wrote 250 at first, but it is 265. Mike V. wrote about it in a recent Handloader article about RCBS special order molds. Too bad RCBS doesn't give much info about those molds.

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct/default.aspx?productNumber=195619

[Wayne Smith]

Check with the BullShop and see what they have. I know he has had some hollow base molds.

[Good Cheer]

Oh boy howdy...
Just recently had a 454613 modified by Erik at www.hollowpointmold.com that would be just exactly what you need. It's adjustable to out to about 325 grains. The lube grooves are really big but that's part of the reason this old mold was chosen. So, if you need a .455 265 grain hollow base then I'd sure have to recommend his services in modifying an old mold.
Here's what it looks like.
http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy192/SNARGLEFLERK/454613modified.jpg

[The Virginian]

Is the RCBS mold the only one available commecially or does NEI make one too?

[10x]

Slug your bore and measure your chamber mouths.
I shoot a hollow base sized to .455. I have also had good accuracy out of plain base bullets meant for the .45 colt.

[The Virginian]

What size bullets did you use that were plain base meant for the .45 Colt? What alloy did you use?

[10x]

What size bullets did you use that were plain base meant for the .45 Colt? What alloy did you use?

I use 8 lb wheel weights with 1/4 oz tin and 2 lb pure lead for an alloy.

One hollow base mold is .457 193 (ideal), they are run through a .454 lyman H.I. Die and come out at just under .455

I have a second lyman 45499 mold that is hollow base as well - I haven't tried that one yet but will probably shoot those as cast depending on the diameter.

I use a 454485 (ideal) gas check mold and size them (with gas check) to .455 as well. These seem to shoot reasonably well too. - out of the 45 colt and the S&W.

The plain base bullets are from a Lee ruger old army mold that come out 0.456" - I started out by using those lubed and unsized as my 1917 third model S&W seems to have a .457 bore. They are fairly accurate with 4.5 grains of Unique.

I have yet to shoot these in a break top webley.

[Uncle45Auto]

I molded a bunch of .455 hollow base Webley bullets with an RCBS mould which I obtained about six years ago. The bullets were used right out of the mold, lubbed with Alox and a Kake cutter. 19 gr. FFG.

All of the above was loaded into .45 acp brass for use a couple of Webleys with cylinders which had been modified many years ago to shoot .45 ACP in half moon clips.

In an ealry MK I Webley service revolver the above rounds tended to shoot about 8 inches high at about 20 feet. The group was about six inches in shooting without a rest. In a six inch Webley MK V the above rounds tended to shoot to point of aim. There were a few flyers which may have been due to errors in casting, although the most obvious errors were rejected and tossed back into the pot.

The RCBS mould is well made, though it does produce a number of rejects because of the hollow base.

[Dead Dog Jack]

It would be nice to get a group buy for something like this. I'm sure there are other uses for the original .455hb bullet.

I would really like to see this. Can one of the mould makers duplicate the RCBS 455-265-HB mould with multiple cavities? I'd join that group buy in a heartbeat!

[MtGun44]

Contact the Bullshop and see what he has.

Bill

[dromia]

Slug your bore and measure your chamber mouths.


Absolutely, I've owned and shot dozens of Webleys in 0.455" over the years and the majority of them have had the chamber mouths enlarged so that flat based boolits could be used.

This seems to have been common with civilian target shooters so SoS pistol were more likely to have had this done.

Shooting the original boolits in enlarged chambers leads to serious lead spitting at the forcing cone.

[The Virginian]

Really? I have never encountered this when shooting plain base bullets in my Webleys or Colt and S&W chambered in .455. Usually they are sized to .455 or .454" to try to match the bore.

[The Virginian]

If you don't want to cast for the original shaped .455 265 LRNHB bullet, this guy does not do e-mail or use computers, but here is his contact information:

Bob Hayley
211 North River
P.O. Box 889
Seymour, Texas 76380

Ph: 940-888-3352

His price recently was $20/100 for the 265 LRNHB soft cast bullet with SPG lube plus shipping which the minimum was $15.00.

[Outpost75]

Dusting off this old thread, the two .455 Webley revolvers I have owned had cylinder throat dimensions which varied all over the map from .449 to .453" in the SAME CYLINDER with no two chambers being alike! Accuracy was VERY MUCH improved by having DougGuy hone the cylinder throats to remove old tool marks and pitting and to make all six chambers uniform so that all would smoothly accept a .4550" gage pin and none would accept a .4555" pin. Even when firing my "old" handloads with .452 bullets in the honed .455 chambers fliers were reduced and accuracy improved. Using unsized bullets tight clusters at 25 yards were obtained off sandbags and I could keep hits on a steel silhouette at 100 yards.

I then ordered new gang molds from Accurate http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=45-259H-D.png which drop bullets of correct size, from soft 8-10 BHN alloy, so that bullets can be tumble-lubricated in Lee Liquid Alox and be loaded as-cast, WITHOUT sizing. A charge of 3.5 grains of Bullseye is correct to approximate service velocity using the 240-262 grain bullets in Hornady or Fiocchi brass. The heavier 272 and 290-grain bullets can be loaded with the same charge in full length 0.87" .455 Mk1 cases available from Reed's Custom Ammo http://shop.reedsammo.com/455-Eley-455-Colt-Brass-455eleybrass.htm

Lighter versions of the in 240, 272 and 290 grains are also available see pgs. 12-13 of the online catalog. The proper weight for your revolver can be selected as needed to provide correct point of impact for its fixed sights. Tom also has the 45-245D ogival wadcutter version which shoots well:

18529318529418530118529518529618529718529918530018 5302

[whisler]

Good job on resurrecting that old warhorse. Old guns are fun.

[10x]

Dusting off this old thread, the two .455 Webley revolvers I have owned had cylinder throat dimensions which varied all over the map from .449 to .453" in the SAME CYLINDER with no two chambers being alike! Accuracy was VERY MUCH improved by having DougGuy hone the cylinder throats to remove old tool marks and pitting and to make all six chambers uniform so that all would smoothly accept a .4550" gage pin and none would accept a .4555" pin. Even when firing my "old" handloads with .452 bullets in the honed .455 chambers fliers were reduced and accuracy improved. Using unsized bullets tight clusters at 25 yards were obtained off sandbags and I could keep hits on a steel silhouette at 100 yards.

I then ordered new gang molds from Accurate http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=45-259H-D.png which drop bullets of correct size, from soft 8-10 BHN alloy, so that bullets can be tumble-lubricated in Lee Liquid Alox and be loaded as-cast, WITHOUT sizing. A charge of 3.5 grains of Bullseye is correct to approximate service velocity using the 240-262 grain bullets in Hornady or Fiocchi brass. The heavier 272 and 290-grain bullets can be loaded with the same charge in full length 0.87" .455 Mk1 cases available from Reed's Custom Ammo http://shop.reedsammo.com/455-Eley-455-Colt-Brass-455eleybrass.htm

Lighter versions of the in 240, 272 and 290 grains are also available see pgs. 12-13 of the online catalog. The proper weight for your revolver can be selected as needed to provide correct point of impact for its fixed sights. Tom also has the 45-245D ogival wadcutter version which shoots well:

18529318529418530118529518529618529718529918530018 5302

I have a Webley and a couple of 1917 S & W in .455 - One S&W has a 0.456 bore I will be shooting these this summer if time permits.

[Outpost75]

I have a Webley and a couple of 1917 S & W in .455 - One S&W has a 0.456 bore I will be shooting these this summer if time permits.

My S&W .45 Hand Ejector has .455 throats and also likes 45-262H in ACP brass with 4 grains of Bullseye, 700 fps. If you have not ordered from Tom before, you can specify your alloy and desired minimum diameter when you order, tolerance is +0.002 on diameters, so if you order 45-262H as drawn as-cast diameter in wheelweights will be .4555-.4560. The other designs which are drawn at .452 CAN be ordered larger. I usually specify my minimum diameter as 0.0015" under revolver throat size to let the normal tolerance work in my favor and load bullets as-cast and unsized, with Lee Liquid Alox or LSStuff 45-45-10