Crimping 442 Webley

[Tokarev]

http://www.tallmanindustries.ca/images/442web_crimp.png
Experimental brass machined from 303 Brit and crimped in a collet die. :bigsmyl2:
I think I should reduce the load from 4 to 3.6 gr of Unique with crimp.
Uncrimped 4gr kicked like a mule fired from a RIC revolver. Anyone has experience with these guns?

[1874Sharps]

Now that is a cute little round! I was just looking for my "Cartridges of the World" book but cannot find it -- darn! I do not have a gun that shoots the 442 Webley, but I wonder if the 44 Russian might be a good starting point to make some of those 442 Webley rounds. One thing about the short little cartridges -- there is not much volume, if any, above the powder, under the boolit. This can make for a faster and greater rise in pressure with smokeless. Often times those BP era revolvers do not have very thick walls in the cylinders and are not the strongest. You may consider shooting BP if your revolver is not from the smokeless era and if it is nitro proofed, I would approach loading for it with about 3.0 grains of Unique.

[Tokarev]

Those cases could be made with two methods. First is to shorten 44 rem mag and trim the rim a bit. Second is to use 303 british, turn down wall thickness on a mandrel and trim the rim considerably, which is much more work.

The walls of the RIC cylinder are thin indeed.

Also, even if you have no access to the COW, there is a wonderful web site, unfortunately only in Spanish, but still very useful: www.municion.org

[perazzi]

I'm playing around with using .45 special (cowboy) cases. My .442 has bored thru cylinder that accepts .45 acp resized .45 special cases. I've got to trim them another .200 and take about .005 off the face of the rim. the bore appears to be about .436.. I'm thinking about bumping up and swaging existing .44 spl bullets...

[Springfield]

Keep the load light and preferably BP, or you might get one of these. I used the Fiocchi ammo made for the caliber, by the way. Still too hot. This one is now encased in resin and a reminder of what not to do with rare old guns.

[perazzi]

I saw that!!

Not what I had in mind when I say I want to hear it go "BANG" lol

using holy black only in this one...

[perazzi]

I've been working on getting this old belgium .442 Webley copy shooting again.



http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i303/BigM-Perazzi/GUNS/photobucket-22589-1319760608688.jpg

I've found that .45 special (cowboy) can be cut back to .690 and .005/.010 trimmed off the inside of the rim.

I had an old Clymer .44 mag swaging die that I honed out to .436 (the bore diameter).

I had a bunch of .38 spl HB wadcutters in soft lead that I swaged up to make a nice 148 gr button wadcutter.

I put .7cc (Lee dipper) of FFG and seated the bullet with firm hand pressure.

I found that a .38/40 sizing die (sans knockout pin) used as a crimping die, sizes the case to .468 from .475

The bullets are .436, so I'm thinking this will give me a suitable crimp for the bullet.

I'll check for bullet movement when I finally pull the trigger.;-)

[Tokarev]

These are some very cute 442 short rounds. I see you are not using heeled design. Do the boolits seal the bore?

May I ask you for a favour, Perazzi? Can you post a picture of trigger return spring from this gun?
I own 2 Forehand and Wadsworth bulldogs and both are missing trigger springs.
Tried making several replicas from leaf spring but none worked yet.

[perazzi]

These are some very cute 442 short rounds. I see you are not using heeled design. Do the boolits seal the bore?

May I ask you for a favour, Perazzi? Can you post a picture of trigger return spring from this gun?
I own 2 Forehand and Wadsworth bulldogs and both are missing trigger springs.
Tried making several replicas from leaf spring but none worked yet.

I'll see what I can do.

I would try the heeled bullet if I had some. Those cylinder holes are BIG!, but, the bore slugged at .436 so these work. I just hate having a gun that won't go bang!!

[Tokarev]

perazzi, sorry to be a pest and follow up re return spring picture, but I am so eager to get the little gun shooing again!

[perazzi]

sorry, I'll pull the grips and see if I can get the pic tonite!!

[Tokarev]

It's the one under the trigger guard, not grips.

The one under the grips is the main spring, and the one missing in my guns is the trigger return spring, in front of the trigger and right under the trigger guard.

[perazzi]

yep, but you have to pull the hammer to get to it...basically, disassemble everything...



http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i303/BigM-Perazzi/GUNS/photobucket-21548-1330133424278.jpg

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i303/BigM-Perazzi/GUNS/photobucket-21673-1330133424589.jpg

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i303/BigM-Perazzi/GUNS/photobucket-21936-1330133424420.jpg

[perazzi]

here it is installed..

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i303/BigM-Perazzi/photobucket-4078-1330135171323.jpg

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i303/BigM-Perazzi/photobucket-2383-1330135170855.jpg

[Tokarev]

Thanks a lot, perazzi, appreciate the measurments!
Wow, your revolver is of a different design than mine, though similar.
The cavity for the return spring in mine does not open into the cylinder frame.
I naively assumed that Forehand and Wadsworth bulldogs were identical to Webley bulldogs.

[perazzi]

belgium crude copy here...

on pg 110 of laymans "British Bulldog" book, is a picture of an exploded view of the F&W...

[perazzi]

One issue I'm having is the cylinder exit is .465!!

The barrel groove dia. is .436!!

I wonder if it's a .45 cylinder, or, the Belgiums were pretty crude craftsman...

[Tokarev]

Same story here - the barrel on mine is .410 and the cylinder chamber mouth is .439 IIRC.
I ended up casting 41 cal bullet and seating it upside down very deep in a 44 rem mag case.

[superc]

First, I should point out if you can find a box, Western Scrounger did make .44 Bulldog ammo. Here is a box with my own little .44.

156642

That being said, I would totally avoid smokeless powder in any of my reloads for this caliber. The fastest way of making the brass is to trim down .44 Special or .44 magnum cases and thin the rim. Yes, .303 can be used, but it requires a second step of thinning the case.

What you say about the cylinder mouth diameter worries me. The Bulldog revolvers were made in something like 20 different calibers, which ran all the way from .20 Velo Dog to .450 Adams. Blank unbored cylinders were purchased wholesale in lots, then bored out to different calibers and mated to frames and barrels of that caliber by whichever maker was turning them out that week.

Most of the shops in Belgium, France and Spain turning these things out did fairly good work and the guns were usually (considering their intended purpose of fairly decent quality.

Experimentation has shown me if I take the .320 cylinders from one of my Bulldogs it fits quite nicely into a .442 revolver from the same maker, also the reverse is true. I am now wondering if your cylinder is from a .450 Adams or a .455 Webley (Mk I) pistol and someone did a mix and match before you purchased it. I did a little experimentation on my own .44 and no way it accepts .45 anything brass. I have tried .455 Webley, .45 Colt, 450 Adams and 45 acp. None of them fit into the cylinder of my 44. I would strongly urge miking the dimensions of your fired cases and comparing those readings to the various pistol case dimensions given in Cartridges Of The World. Since those gunmakers were not as sloppy as the dimensions you quote imply, I suspect someone just stuck a .450 cylinder into a frame (and barrel) designed for a .442 so the gun would move out of their store.

[Tokarev]

I suspect someone just stuck a .450 cylinder into a frame (and barrel) designed for a .442 so the gun would move out of their store.
The serial # of the cylinder matches the frame in my particular case of the Webley RIC.
As are the cylinders of 2 other supposedly 442 guns made by Forehand and Wadsworth.
That rules out cylinder swap.

[superc]

Ah serial numbers. I have heard of them. LoL not so my little Belgian .44. No external markings at all besides the proof marks. So okay yours was not a mix and match. Sadly though that throat vs barrel gap is rather large and you will pay in the accuracy department.

I have been playing around with making full size .442 brass here this week. I found out I can get away with a 0.9" casing and have cut .44 Magnum brass down to that. My chamber throat is .448, but I haven't miked the barrel yet. As soon as I do I will make a sizing die and squeeze some .452 bullets down to the proper bore diameter and heel them. I haven't yet decided if I will want to hollow base them or not yet. I guess I will first see how well they shoot. I think heeling them and making a crimp groove in the heel (modifying a set of lineman's pliers to be my crimping tool) will be quite enough work. If when fired they turn out to not also need a hollow base then I will skip that step. I know, why not just buy a mold for them? Simply because I don't like the original bullet shapes. I prefer an SWC design for my revolver bullets. I also anticipate even after heeling and or hollow basing the bullets will probably still top 230 grains and no mold I have seen for that caliber comes that heavy and SWC as well. I figure about 15 gr. of FFF will be a good starting load with solid base. If I hollow base it then I will probably go a little heavier in the powder charge.

[superc]

I miked the barrels of mine. 438 on one, 438 on the other. Why did they call them 442? I drilled a steel rod to 7/16 inch and use it as a swage. Shoving 45 balls down one end makes cute little button bullets at the other end. Seated round end down and tapped with a mallet they seat well, instant button wadcutters. On Noe's forum I put instructions on how I made a two piece mold for heeled hollow base wadcutters which seem to shoot well. Sadly they lack lube grooves. Another website has info on modifying a 44-40 collet type crimping die to work with 44 Special. I am hoping such a die can be shortened enough to work with the Webley or at least .44 American (0.9") brass. Dunno yet. Heeled bullet modes are easy enough to find online, the hard part was finding one that was also hollowbased with a less obsolete bullet shape than the factory round nose. I finally went with a 205 gr. 43 caliber Henry mold which I am awaiting the arrival of. I set up a 3/4" end mill and found it is a really fast way of trimming 44 magnum brass down to size at 500 RPM. 5/8" would work just as well of course, but in a mill the larger end mill bit gives more wiggle room on the X/Y than I would need in a drill press as I swap the brass out. Much faster with more uniform case length than a tubing cutter produced and none of the burrs a lathe cutter made. Nice 6" long, thin, wire chips too.

G. Longmarsh's book makes it plain it is very doubtful that any of the 44
Webley revolvers were made to use smokeless powder (since consumer interest in the caliber had mostly vanished by 1890 or so, with only the smaller 32 and 380 variants (with thicker cylinder walls) still being marketed in the 1900s, and no two of the Belgian (or Spanish, or Chinese or French, etc.) bulldogs standardized on things like frame size or lock work. F&W may be the only ones whose models had full parts interchangeability.

[superc]

I'll see what I can do.

I would try the heeled bullet if I had some. Those cylinder holes are BIG!, but, the bore slugged at .436 so these work. I just hate having a gun that won't go bang!!

In my experience the double 204 grain 44 Henry bullet mould from Old West Bullet Moulds (nullets pictured below) is perfect. It is a heeled bullet of 435 caliber. It has a nice meplat also which greatly increases the effectiveness of the round over the original pointy bullet Ely made.

In my 3 44 Bulldogs I set the cartridge case length of the trimmed 44 Special brass at 0.8" which is perfect for all 3 of them. Yes, the original was 0.7", but it was a balloon head case too. Modern 44 Special/magnum cases are of solid head design, so if you trimmed to that size you would be significantly diminishing your powder capacity. Increasing case length by 0.1" allows you to use the original volume of FFF powder.

Crimping was initially problematic. My solution, which solved the issues, was to obtain a Lee 4 piece 44 magnum die set with a roll crimp die. I ground off the smooth bottom of the crimp die stopping just short of the internal lip. I screwed the bullet seat down and crimp by feel. This modification allows perfect roll crimps in both 44 Bulldog and also 44 Magnum.

Be aware that in my 3 pistols Cartridges of the World contains an error when it describes the web (base) diameter of the 44 Webley round as .472. Not in my pistols. The actual rear chamber mouth is .452. For virgin 44 Special and 44 Magnum brass this is not an issue as they mostly mike at .451. However some fired 44 Magnum cases I was given miked at .454 web diameter. It was necessary, in addition to the normal thinning of the rim to .0.02", to thin their webs down to .451. This shows in the below photo as a shiny spot on their web. Don't worry. When you fire it the shiny spot vanishes.

I did some wood penetration test comparisons of both the 44 Bulldog and the 44 Webley rounds I made and videotaped it. You can view the tests at plimping.com under the appropriate thread.

In my opinion, based on the filmed results, the 44 Webley in a 5 shot bulldog is vastly superior to a 6 shot .380 automatic prone to jamming.

[Tokarev]

Nice rounds. It's not that difficult to get the old irons shoot again from the ammo point of view.

One nasty thing with Forehand and Wadsworth bulldogs that I have is weak hammer design - another hammer broke on me at the pivot from nothing more than some dry firing while working on the trigger return spring.
Hoping that one day my son finishes his re-enactment projects that never seem to end and welds the hammers up.
And if that never happens, I'll just dremel another up from a leaf spring.

[Kaiser Mike]

I realize this is an old thread but its helped me IMMENSELY! The pic of the trigger spring was a huge help. mine was busted in half when i got it.
Pistol had been hanging on a nail in my father in laws shed/man cave. Rusted all to ****. Finally got it off of him. No telling how long its been there.
I know at least 20 years. Its a FW in .445 i believe. Cylinder and frame match serials.
Muzzle opening is .40. Forcing cone is about .45. Chamber is .455 . 45acp brass will not fit. Cast 45 230 gr round nose (.455 powder coated) fits snuggly but will push through.
Muzzle being .40, thats weird.

[Kaiser Mike]

244417

244418

[onelight]

Thanks for posting the pictures those old revolvers and ammunition , always fun and interesting to see.
And makes me proud to be American we make the best looking revolvers .:bigsmyl2:

[Kaiser Mike]

Glad to help. Its been fun working on this with few resources.

[Tokarev]

Kaiser Mike,

Did you end up making a return spring for your bulldog?