Webley VI, Question on 45 Auto Rim

[billybadmedicine]

So I have this old girl and have always used 45 ACP half moon clips. Seeing the other Webley thread got me thinking can I run full moon clips on her, 45 Auto Rim as well?, is it a try it and see or if it has been rebated and half moon clips work, so will full moon and 45 Auto Rim?

Thanks!

161334

[cainttype]

Typically, you should have no problems using either. The full-moon clips act like a speed-loader, but they are the same thin metal used for half-moons.
The 45AR was a solution/alternative to needing any clips. They should fit the extra rear-cylinder clearance, allowing you to leave the moon-clips for 45 ACP cases.

[Char-Gar]

So I have this old girl and have always used 45 ACP half moon clips. Seeing the other Webley thread got me thinking can I run full moon clips on her, 45 Auto Rim as well?, is it a try it and see or if it has been rebated and half moon clips work, so will full moon and 45 Auto Rim?

Thanks!

161334


Whatever case you use, these old shaved cylinder Webley's are black powder pressure revolvers. Load them to pressures greater than the original round and you are asking for trouble.

[Thin Man]

Since your Webley is already cut for the half-moon clips, cainttype gave you the correct answer. Either the full moon clips or Auto Rim cases will work well in your revolver. I have used the RIMZ polymer clips in my Webley MK VI and they fit well. Being polymer they are very user friendly for loading and unloading. Brownell's has them, Rimz model 25, stock #100-001-684. For Auto Rim brass, small lots come up on GunBroker but prices all up and down, plus older brass and much used brass may be offered. At this time I am going to order new brass from Starline. A friend and I will split a 500-round order. Since Starline pays for the shipping, this is our choice for quality brass at a very agreeable price. Perhaps you have a friend who would split a new brass order with you to lower your cost.

Thin Man

[Bigslug]

I would recommend getting some .45AR cases and loading exclusively for that gun in those for a couple reasons:

1. Like Char Gar says, you don't want to hot-rod that gun with .45 ACP loads. Developing the load in AR brass and sticking to it keeps your ACP in your autos preventing a potentially gun-damaging mix up.

2. Moon clips are a pain - the loading, the unloading, and transporting the necessary clips and tools. I tolerate them for the "cool factor" of a 1917 S&W, but since I found an uncut MKVI, my ACP one doesn't get a lot of love.

3. You could trim the powder-holding section your AR brass to the length of .455 MKII and have as close to the real deal as your altered gun will allow for. Trimming to the same OAL would not be quite correct due to the added thickness of the rim.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I would recommend getting some .45AR cases and loading exclusively for that gun in those for a couple reasons:

1. Like Char Gar says, you don't want to hot-rod that gun with .45 ACP loads.


Indeed you don't, and using the auto-rim brass to avoid confusion is indeed good advice, if you load for an automatic pistol. The auto-rim cases aren't easy to find, but I believe intermittent runs are made, and they should last a long time. Anything resembling a +P ,45 ACP load mustn't be used, and you lose nothing significant by dropping pressures a little from the standard military load. It isn't a good revolver for hunting purposes, and if you might need to use it defensively, the lead bullet, especially if flat nosed, makes it better than almost anything FMJ and rounded.

But I think the main villain of the piece when GI hardball was used in Webleys, was the heavily jacketed bullet. Many .455 Webleys, designed for a hollow based bullet, had cylinder throats smaller than the groove diameter, which may produce well over the published pressure for that load. I don't know if this applied widely, but I measure a civilian-manufacture Webley-Fosbery at .448in. This certainly produced good accuracy with the hollow base, and some people say the same with solid base, but they always mean really soft alloy.

Maybe some of the shaved-cylinder gunsmiths reamed the throats to bullet diameter, but I would be surprised if they all did. It is even possible that this was done officially in 1939, if they weren't too busy, with the adoption of a .455 jacketed bullet. While it would have made sense, I have no knowledge of this, and probably a small minority of .455 Webleys were in government ownership by then.

But reamed throats aren't a satisfactory answer to the use of GI hardball in Webleys. I have seen a French engineer's calculations suggesting that their 1873 ordnance revolver should give a good margin of safety with this load. But they break topstraps nonetheless. As there is nothing wrong with the 1873's throat or groove diameters, I believe this must be due to the impact as a heavily jacketed bullet hits the rifling.

But saying it is a revolver made for black powder pressures is an oversimplification. The first service Webleys were briefly use with a slightly longer-case MkI .455 black powder round. But all manufacture from the late 1890s was intended for smokeless powder in the shorter case of rounds from MkII onwards.

For many years the most powerful loading for the .45 Long Colt was with black powder, at around 910ft./sec., and this would be dangerous in the Webley if you could accommodate it. But you can't. I believe Elmer Keith blew up a Colt SAA (also a black powder design often and successfully used with smokeless) by using black powder and a heavy rifle bullet. Perhaps the best part of the Webley design is something people hardly ever notice, because it is hidden by the stirrup. An inclined planes on the frame contacts one in the topstrap slot, and the force exerted on the barrel by pressure starts out forward, not rotational. By far the most common .455 Webley, and the one illustrated by the OP, is the MkVI of 1915, and from the MkV of the previous year a thicker-walled cylinder had been introduced, with instructions that it would be used for replacements on the MkIII and MkIV.

It is much stronger than the break-open Smith and Wessons, and certainly doesn't have to be kept to the rather miserable performance black powder would give in the .455 cartridge. A modest improvement on factory velocity, with lead bullets, shouldn't be dangerous.

[Tackleberry41]

Star line has that 45AR brass I bought some not long ago for my 1917.

[billybadmedicine]

Thanks for the great info guys, I am aware that if I run ACP it needs to be in the powder puff target velocity range, I think there was a 3.8 bullseye recipe on a 230 Lee TL Boolit that I will try until I can find some Auto Rim brass, I have a hollow bass 45 mold but it's right around 200 grains, Not the 265 of the original Round.

Those of you running 45 Auto Rim, what weight bullets are you using?

[Bigslug]

Those of you running 45 Auto Rim, what weight bullets are you using?

Can't help you with the AR case, but 3.4 of Red Dot is getting me the regulation 620-ish fps with the regulation 265 grain HB bullet. Starting load claimed to be 3.0.

Having done a bit of testing with the original round nose, I can say that the terminal effect is not terribly impressive. If I was going to buy another mold for a Webley with it's potential for weird throat/bore diameter combinations, I'd jump on the 250 grain Keith hollow base offered in this group buy right here: http://noebulletmolds.com/smf/index.php?topic=1301.0 Swap in the solid base pin and you get a 276 grain SWC that's probably all the .45C bullet anyone would ever need.

[rintinglen]

I am currently running RCBS 45-230 CM boolits over a modest charge of HS-6