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Thread: Fun with a Webley Mark IV 38/200 AKA 38 S&W AKA 380 Rimmed

  1. #61
    Boolit Grand Master Outpost75's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LouisianaMan View Post
    Any problems with those chambering in the Indian Contract Ruger? The 178g should be perfect for the sights, and of course I have a soft spot for the 200g bullets. The chambers in my Ruger are so darned short that I wonder if those bullets would chamber!
    When seated and crimped in the crimp groove, these all fall into and out of the cylinders of both revolvers of their own weight.

    Throats of my French contract-era (1984) 9mm cylinder are .358", the .380 Rimmed cylinder was simply a "French contract" 9mm cylinder which was rechambered to .38 S&W to lengthen the chambers, and it has the 9mm clip clearance around its outer circumference, whereas the extractor star enables .38 S&W rounds to headspace. That particular gun will eat 9mm with clips or .380-200 without clips.

    The purpose-built 9mm cylinder does not require clips to headspace, but does require them to eject the empties. If you will note on the bullet drawings, "front band tolerance negative" - therein lies the clue!

    When ordering you can specify different diameters to fit your throats if required.
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  2. #62
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    More good stuff, gentlemen! Thank you.

    I remain amused that NEI #169A for the 38/200 is longer at .810" than the case it gets seated into (.775"). This--the great SMLE rifle--and their 1960s automotive technology leave the impression that most things British were designed by committee.
    I don't paint bullets. I like Black Rifle Coffee. Sacred cows are always fair game. California is to the United States what Syria is to Russia and North Korea is to China/South Korea/Japan--a Hermit Kingdom detached from the real world and led by delusional maniacs, an economic and social basket case sustained by "foreign" aid so as to not lose military bases.

  3. #63
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    The Webley is weaker in the frame than solid frame revolvers, but I think the cylinder of either would be at risk before the topstrap. It is stronger than most American top-breaks, for surfaces at an angle to the bore axis meet at the top rear, one on the frame and one in the rear of the topstrap mortice into which the former fits. Because they are angled, an extreme overload can make them slide, bending or breaking the topstrap and breaking the latch. But it would have to be extremely extreme. The latch normally bears little load. I have seen Webley .38 barrels seectioned when full of jacketed bullets, and they were ripply with obstruction bulges but not burst, and the topstrap was intact.

    I would suspect that the first round, and perhaps other tales of .38/200 being underpowered, originated with rounds degraded by the ingress of oil or (I jest not) Brasso metal polish, a staple munition of the British army. The example given was a rear window, not a windshield, but sloping automobile glass is surprisingly good at deflecting any conventional pistol bullet. The British army intelligence operatives who worked under cover in Belfast were instructed, if things went wrong, to fire through steel, not glass, and everybody designed a "window" in his door Kevlar to his own taste.

    It is surprising how much recent discovery about handgun stopping power is actually old discovery. One of the best books I know was by Surgeon Lieutenant-colonel La Garde, of the Chicago stockyard trials, which led to the introduction of the .45ACP. He was disappointed by the poor performance on steers of smallbore jacketed rounds such as the 7.65 Luger and the previously highly regarded 7.63 Mauser, although the latter might be fine for an officer caught out by riflemen at a couple of hundred yards. He claimed that no conventional pistol had reliable stopping power unless it hit part of the central nervous system or broke one of the long bones of the leg. In the latter case a small, hard bullet could simply pierce the bone, or make a small X-shaped fracture which could give someone a great deal of trouble after your demise. He considered that to break bone a bullet should be of large diameter, heavy and soft, so that it didn't glance so easily from the bone, and velocity mattered a lot less.

    He didn't, in fact, get quite the .45 he would have liked, for he would have preferred a heavier and much more thinly jacketed bullet than the now familiar GI hardball. At one time the .45ACP, although extremely effective at making an assailant desist and go home to take his pension, was said never to have been proven to kill an enemy in combat. I don't know how early in its service history that was. I used to know an ancient Saudi falconer who assured us that his falcon was faster than any aeroplane, which was obviously true, since his father had told him when he was a boy.

    The Second World War saw very little use of pistols as a prime combat weapon, but the First did. The standard trench-clearing team was the bomber and the bayonet-man, but they told me in my youth that the latter was really a misnomer, since the bayonet was rarely used. A subaltern often took this role, since although they were expected not to engage in long-range musketry, trench clearing was leadership. Although plenty of them found a rifle from somewhere, the revolver was often used, and found effective.

    The .455 Webley was effective, but it took a lot of practice to shoot well beyond the shortest of ranges. WW1 had brought increasing reliance on conscripts and duration-of-hostilities enlistees, with a drastically increasing need for technical training. In trenches heavy weights often had to be man-carried, including by specialists, so a saving in weight would be useful too. The .38/200 was found to fall short of the Webley in stopping power, but by surprisingly little when the original 200gr. bullet was in use. It undoubtedly did tend to tumble, but I think that probably affected stopping power less than it does with higher velocity bullets. Shortly before the war, though, a perceived need to comply with the Hague Convention produced a heavily jacketed 178gr. bullet, with a greater loss of stopping power than the weight would suggest. Personally I think not expanding in soft tissues should have sufficed, since just about any rifle bullet is liable to deform or break up on heavy bone. I have dug up the 178gr. bullets on old military ranges, and found them far less deformed than 9mm.

    The military .38/200 round was initially intended for a firearm we don't now call a Webley. Webley were invited to design a new revolver, which in some ways was a considerable improvement on their commercial products. It had one improvement the French had insisted on only sixty years earlier, a removable sideplate, so that the internals were exposed but couldn't fall out unless you wanted them out. There was an improved cylinder bolt, and it did away with the long-term British tradition of a long lateral groove in the cylinder for each chamber. But Webley, who expected the production contract as well, were disappointed when production went to the government's own Enfield factory. They ended up suing and receiving a fairly modest award, but fences got mended when Enfield production couldn't keep up in wartime and Webley ended up doing a very good thing in sales of their own MkIV, on a frame very much like their earlier pocket and police revolvers.

    A good peacetime Enfield is a far better pistol than many people think. But wartime production was placed in the hands of contractors unused to making firearms, with inadequate guidance. Albion Motors of Glasgow might have produced some good ones, but you would be beating the odds if you found one. Also from 1938 they were double action only - a rather good double action when they were well made (some of the others having a pull only a gorilla could appreciate), but unpopular with military and civilian users.

    Webley made many .38s up to the MkIII for the .38S&W cartridge before the Enfield misadventure, but I think most, up to the MKIII, were for the light bullet. Some commercial MkIVs were made for both, with two detachable front sight blades supplied. The only one I have owned was bought by the Metropolitan Police at some time before they abandoned "cording" of the trigger and backstrap in 1961. They decided it was obsolete, said "Oops" and and put it away, boxed and unfired, until the mid-90s. As I got that same primer-piercing problem, I know it is built in, not due to pressure as primer failure around the edge of the pin could be. It should be curable by light stoning of the pin. Yours is also about the right age, since production standards deteriorated, with the use of castings, before the end of Webley revolver production in the 1970s.
    Last edited by Ballistics in Scotland; 08-22-2015 at 03:52 PM.

  4. #64
    Boolit Buddy LouisianaMan's Avatar
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    Ballistics in Scotland (=BIS, change to "Bisley" for reasons clear to this audience...); oh well, what do you prefer to be called?

    I knew much of that info already, but a LOT of it was utterly new to me and VERY interesting!!! Bravo! Yours is the most interesting post on this topic I've read in a very long time--perhaps ever.

    As to the tendency of the Enfields and Webley ".380 Rim" to suffer the BIB, or "bullet in bore" syndrome, this link has what I think may be the definitive explanation: http://www.castbulletassoc.org/forum...he+.38+Special

    Take a look and see what you think.

    I've done a lot of shooting with the .38 S&W, much of it with loads that very closely replicate the .380 Rim Mk. 1/1Z service ammunition.



    Have also gotten a nice little stockpile of 178g FMJ Mk 2Z service ammo made by CIS (Singapore) and by FN. I've been favorably impressed by it all.


    The 200g soft lead bullet can do a lot of damage with its combination of terrific sectional density and a pronounced tendency to tumble violently. I haven't been able to test it in ballistic gel, much less against malefactors, but it seems likely to have far more pronounced target effects than most would imagine. I suspect it was/is a different approach to wounding than a hollowpoint, but perhaps similar in its tendency to inflict a "permanent crush cavity" that would be quite respectable by modern standards of measurement.

    My crude tests against water-filled milk jugs, overcoats, and pine trees--sometimes in combination and even at distances just shy of 60 yards--have indicated to me that the Mk 2Z ammo's woeful reputation is due almost entirely to the fact that it was mismatched to the Enfield/Webley revolvers. I suspect that anyone using it in a Smith & Wesson, Colt, or Ruger revolver had far more satisfactory results. The Colt and Ruger generate significantly higher velocity, though, due to bores that run from .3545" to .3565". That extra velocity probably tends to over-stabilize the bullet and cause it to drill holes, rather than tumble, except at ranges much farther than are typical for a sidearm. The S&W's .359" bore seems to allow for more pronounced tumbling, due to lower velocities and thus a greater tendency to destabilize when penetrating a soft target, even at close range.

    The Mk 2Z's metal jacket is indeed tough. I've recovered bullets fired through water and bundled overcoats that were engraved by the rifling, but othewise unmarked. I'm sure they could be reloaded and fired again. See:

  5. #65
    Boolit Buddy LouisianaMan's Avatar
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    Well, the end of that post was annihilated, but here's the photo at least:


  6. #66
    Boolit Buddy LouisianaMan's Avatar
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    Here are some bullets made from a group buy mold meant to replicate the Mk1 / Super Police bullet closely:



    Bullets on left and right are from the Mk1 mold; the middle is from a group buy 358430.

  7. #67
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    A simple "Hey, you" will suffice, but thank you for those kind words.

    That website is certainly interesting. I would think the tightness of the chamber throats was more significant than the tightness of the bore. The reason the Enfield revolver was termed No2 in the military was that there was an earlier and generally unloved .476 Enfield of 1879, before any Webley revolver became a standard service weapon. The designer worked in the belief that revolver velocity is achieved entirely in the cylinder. It is untrue, of course, but clearly what happens there is of great importance.

    Many (all?) .455 Webleys apparently violated a fundamental of handgun design by having a throat considerably smaller than the bullet or groove diameter. Excellent accuracy was nonetheless achieved, due principally I think to the hollow based bullets, although generations of users have found solid-based ones acceptable if they were soft. I have measured a commercial Webley-Fosbery at .448in. This brings us to a possible danger with .45ACP conversions.

    Some of these work well, but my guess is that many converters reamed the cylinder throatws to suit the bullet diameter. There were a lot of gunsmiths and amateurs doing this work, though, and no doubt many didn't. Without doing this I think soft lead bullets or .45 Auto-rim would be safe, but I wouldn't like to fire them with GI hardball.

    A similar situation exists with the French M1873, which was surely the best military revolver in the world for a short period, although usually supplied with needlessly underloaded ammunition. Some were rechambered (a very slight difference) for .45 ACP, both by the French resistance and by civilian users. But they had a tendency to break the topstrap. I have seen calculations by a French engineer which suggest that the standard GI powder charge with a lead bullet would have been safe. The culprit appears to have been the extra resistance or forcement exerted by the hardball bullet engraving in the rifling.

    I have never understood why the .38S&W fell out of favour for small pocket revolvers which aren't loaded to very high velocities. It strikes me that quite a bit of cylinder and frame metal is devoted to getting powder space which isn't used.
    Last edited by Ballistics in Scotland; 08-23-2015 at 07:02 AM.

  8. #68
    Boolit Grand Master Outpost75's Avatar
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    I agree that the .38 S&W in a modern, strong, solid-frame revolver would have great potential. Personally, I would like to see something like a Ruger LCR, but with a 3-inch barrel, chambered for the .38 S&W. Of course the factories would never make a modern defense load for it, but based on my experience loading for the .32 ACP and S&W Long, I don't think that you could put enough of a slower burning powder, such as #2400 in the tiny case to get into trouble. It would require pressure testing to be sure. But I have found that 5.5 grains of #2400 in .32 ACP with Accurate 31-087T, or 6 grains in the .32 S&W Long with Accurate 31-134D to be accurate and powerful with no signs of pressure.

    I also use the 36-201D in .38 S&W brass trimmed to .750" with 6 grains of #2400 in my 9mm Ruger and it works very well. Velocity is around 700 fps. But, of course, I have no plans to try it in my 1924 Colt Police Positive in .38 Colt New Police... But if somebody cares to run it on QuikLoad I'm curious...
    Attachment 147276.32 ACP
    Attachment 147246.32 S&W Long
    Attachment 147247.38 S&W
    Last edited by Outpost75; 08-23-2015 at 11:34 AM.
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  9. #69
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    How do I miss a thread like this until it's over a year old and undergoing resurrection???

    Webleys. . .I love 'em! Like most gun nerds, I have my theories on the "why" behind a lot of the choices the British government made about them.

    Having two .45 MKVI's (one original and the other an ACP conversion) and a "WAR FINISH" .38 MKIV, I tend to agree with the the mindset of lighter to carry and better handling. The .455 is a big hunk of iron to handle - not from recoil, but in terms of weight and balance, it's a beast best suited to folks who really know their way around guns. Comparing to the .38, it's a much more pronounced version of the difference between a 1911 and a Hi Power. In automotive terms, the serious gearheads who know how to drive hard will gravitate toward the big block muscle cars, but those merely looking for transportation will find a Corolla less fatiguing and more within their skill level.

    As to the .38/200 or ".38/178" being "as good as the .455" argument, I tend to think the British were on a similar wavelength to where the FBI was in the early 1990's when they were working out what has become modern wound ballistic protocol. The short version of that is:

    #1 priority is to put the bullet in the right place. Inaccurate shooting does not solve your problem.

    #2 priority is that the bullet has to penetrate deeply enough to hit major arteries, organs, or nerve clusters. If the bullet doesn't make it to the Tootsie Roll center of the Tootsiepop, it doesn't solve your problem.

    #3 priority is the diameter and expansion are ONLY advantageous AFTER priorities #1 and #2 have been met, meaning that a big hole that is in the wrong spot or doesn't go deep enough doesn't solve your problem.

    This is being borne out today by the shift BACK to 9mm service autos in some departments, the notion being that if you design the bullet with those priorities in mind, the bad guys usually can't tell the difference when hit and the less dedicated shooters on the department are much more likely to meet priority #1 with a gun that isn't beating them up.

    I think the Brits pretty solidly understood this in the 1930's, and also understood that there probably wasn't a whole lot of difference between the wound made between a round nose .45 and a round nose .38. Might as well then go for the lighter gun. Before I owned my Webleys, I had the opportunity to test the .38/200 concept by shooting FBI gelatin with a 195 grain Lyman 358430 soft loaded to a mere 570 fps out of a .357 case. It penetrated 18" of the stuff in a perfectly straight line and was stopped by the hard rubber safety backstop behind the block. Penetration is not a concern. . .even at pokey .38 S&W speeds.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Here's a side by side of both rounds; the .455 loaded with the RCBS 265 grain HB in front of 4.1 grains of Unique, and the .38 with NOE's 200 grain RN sized .361" with 2.3 grains of Titegroup at 625fps. I gather the NOE turned out to be something of an error in that it's the weight of the older lead bullet with the rounder nose, but it has more the pointier profile of the later 178 grain FMJ. NOE has since come out with the rounder nose and is selling both, but this one shoots POA/POI for me at 25 yards, so I feel no burning desire to buy a new mold. It flips empty dog food cans around with great authority, so its current purpose is more than served.
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  10. #70
    Boolit Grand Master Outpost75's Avatar
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    I agree that you cannot permit any wounded dog food cans to escape! Cat food cans are just as dangerous!

    And if you don't believe it just ask the CAT!
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  11. #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by Outpost75 View Post
    I agree that you cannot permit any wounded dog food cans to escape! Cat food cans are just as dangerous!
    It could be argued that the cat food cans are MORE dangerous, as they are less than half as tall and are harder to hit. They are also evolved to be more cunning, as getting cats to willfully eat their contents is far more difficult. The dog food cans are of course larger and stronger. When you see ranks of 20-30 of them shining before you "in the wire", it can be very hard to maintain a cool head. Fortunately, I keep my Bobby's whistle on a lanyard at all times so it is handy to summon the stalwart SMLE-toting Tommies.

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    WWJMBD?

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    It's nice to see this thread alive and kicking. Since I first started this thread, I have solved the primer issue. CCI SPP hold up just fine. I also worked up loads with SRP.

    It is easy for me to shoot 50 rds from this gun at the range. It's just that fun.

  13. #73
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ballistics in Scotland View Post

    Many (all?) .455 Webleys apparently violated a fundamental of handgun design by having a throat considerably smaller than the bullet or groove diameter. Excellent accuracy was nonetheless achieved, due principally I think to the hollow based bullets, although generations of users have found solid-based ones acceptable if they were soft. I have measured a commercial Webley-Fosbery at .448in. This brings us to a possible danger with .45ACP conversions.

    Some of these work well, but my guess is that many converters reamed the cylinder throatws to suit the bullet diameter. There were a lot of gunsmiths and amateurs doing this work, though, and no doubt many didn't. Without doing this I think soft lead bullets or .45 Auto-rim would be safe, but I wouldn't like to fire them with GI hardball.
    It is indeed a part of the Webley picture I find puzzling. As I recall, both of my MKVI's gauged .452" on the throats, but larger on the bore (.455" IIRC). The scary issue of full-power .45ACP in these of course would be from the added pressure of the rounds, not the diameter. The moral of the story of course is to know the gun and load along the lines of what it was designed for, not what some profit-hungry importer said you could do with it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ballistics in Scotland View Post
    I have never understood why the .38S&W fell out of favour for small pocket revolvers which aren't loaded to very high velocities. It strikes me that quite a bit of cylinder and frame metal is devoted to getting powder space which isn't used.
    Absolutely agree. In fact, why not duplicate the .38/200 performance with the .38 Short Colt case, which uses the same body diameter and rim dimensions of the currently-far-more-common .38 Special and .357 Magnum? This would allow for shorter, lighter frames and cylinders that could still use existing extractors. No, Roy Weatherby wouldn't like is as it wouldn't be super fast or have a laser-like trajectory, but let's not lose sight of what these British service cartridges were FOR: they're for plugging an enemy in the face from 20 feet, not replacing an XP-100.
    WWJMBD?

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  14. #74
    Boolit Grand Master Outpost75's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bigslug View Post
    ...... why not duplicate the .38/200 performance with the .38 Short Colt case, which uses the same body diameter and rim dimensions of the currently-far-more-common .38 Special and .357 Magnum? This would allow for shorter, lighter frames and cylinders that could still use existing extractors.....for plugging an enemy in the face from 20 feet, not replacing an XP-100.
    Actually Charter Arms and Federal produced for a very short time, a cartridge called the 9mm Federal, which was essentially a 9x19mm Rimmed for the Charter Arms revolver. Unfortunately the Charter Arms revolvers did not hold up well and nobody else picked up the round, so it is as dead as the .35 S&W Automatic....

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    Interesting twists and turns on the subject, branching out in several directions. I think the FBI's recent "back to the future" experience with the 9mm is an excellent modern parallel to the British studies--and probable conclusions--of the 1920's-1930's.

    I still imagine that the Brits determined the original Mk1 blunt LRN might do as well or better against bone as the heavier, but pointier .455. Additionally, I've thought the tumbling action might have played a significant role in their decision. A question in that regard, however: since the .455 MkVI (?) 262g bullet is also heavy for caliber and loaded in that slowpoke 600 fps range, is it a tumbler as well? Or was its good reputation a result of the generally salutary effects of that huge slug whenever it hit (1) a critical spot; or (2) any bony structure, which it was pretty likely to shatter and render inoperable (pelvis, knee, shoulder, skull). If it hit a rib, it might be more likely than most to cause both "secondary projectiles" and a runaway 262g bullet tumbling around inside the target's ribcage.

    Nonetheless, it is interesting that they had earlier seen fit to adopt a 218g hollow-based cup point, the famous "Manstopper," to *improve* target effects. Perhaps luckily for the Kaiser's men, the Brits had pulled that round from service after a very short time, apparently because it was considered inappropriate for use against civilized troops. ("Savage tribesmen" merited no such consideration, of course. Highly interesting that the US military has only now decided to issue hollowpoints for general use in handguns...after a decade+ spent fighting the descendants of some of those same tribesmen.)

    I think the idea of a 2.5"-3" LCR or 637/642, shortened to fit a .38 Short Colt launching a 200g soft lead slug at 600+ fps, could be an excellent one. There are a LOT of people who dislike the blast, flash, and sharp recoil of +P ammo in those featherweights--enough for Hornady to bring out its pink-tipped 90g Critical Defense Lite, pronounced underpenetrator that it may be.

    Of course the plain-Jane lead slug would be a helluva lot cheaper than these increasingly sophisticated expanding whizzbangs that cost $1.25 a shot, and it would undercut a lot of that R&D and marketing expenditure. On the other hand, there are also a lot of people carrying .32, .380, and 9mm micro-autos who might be much better-served by a smallish .38/200, and you could cut into that market.

    Of course, we could give them that high-tech feeling by using a shiny (and unnecessary) copper alloy gas check, a slightly undersized bullet, and specially bonding copper jacketing material onto caliber-sized driving bands to prevent leading. (And port the barrel to make it recoilless--at 13,000 PSI or so, shouldn't be too loud.)

  16. #76
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    Quote Originally Posted by LouisianaMan View Post
    I still imagine that the Brits determined the original Mk1 blunt LRN might do as well or better against bone as the heavier, but pointier .455. Additionally, I've thought the tumbling action might have played a significant role in their decision. A question in that regard, however: since the .455 MkVI (?) 262g bullet is also heavy for caliber and loaded in that slowpoke 600 fps range, is it a tumbler as well? Or was its good reputation a result of the generally salutary effects of that huge slug whenever it hit (1) a critical spot; or (2) any bony structure, which it was pretty likely to shatter and render inoperable (pelvis, knee, shoulder, skull).
    All of these questions are worth looking into.

    I doubt very much that the MKI .38 would do anything more than punch a straight hole. At 600~ fps, I think even asking for significant deformation is a bit much. The 358430 I Jell-O tested years ago was HARD, but as it is basically a blunted cylinder, it showed ZERO sign of trying to deviate off course. The MKI is basically the same bullet up-sized for a .360 bore with a different groove configuration, so I wouldn't expect much difference in behavior.

    The .455 MKI and MKII conicals MIGHT be tumblers, but then again, because of the hollow base, they may actually be pretty well balanced to keep moving through tissue point-first. That's one I'm in a position to test the authenticity of. I have a veritable army of well-disciplined milk jugs willing to make the supreme sacrifice. I'll get back to y'all on that. One thing I have noted in my execution of the dreaded dog food cans is that the nose profile tends to cause it to skip. I set the cans up some yards in front of the berm, and have found a large percent of my .455 slugs laying on the berm with skid marks from where they passed the can and bounced. I'm probably running a little harder than Queen Victoria's original spec, but at 700-ish FPS, I doubt it would pancake much unless you cast it from marshmallow cream.

    As to my NOE 200 grain RN, it might be a tumbler with its longer nose, but as it technically isn't an authentic bullet, we'll only gain insight into what might help us today, not what the Brits had in mind 80 years ago. I suppose the truth is in the milk bottles. . .
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  17. #77
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    Bigslug et al--

    The NEI #169A that purports to copy one of the British 38/200 service bullet designs showed occasional tumbling when sent at 600-700 FPS, as did Lyman #358430. This was versus jackrabbits over a couple varmint seasons in the East Mojave. Entries were round, exits ranged from round to stellate to ripped. Speeding them up to 850 FPS caused them to bore straight through, and that behavior continued to and through 1300 FPS. I'm assuming the velocity increases enhanced flight integrity. I'll add here that black-tailed jackrabbits can be tough customers, but the 200 grain-class bullets anchored them decisively......a behavior that Dr. Fackler's pet 9mm sub-sonic 147 grain JHPs strayed from when hits weren't in the boiler room. I still don't trust those weak-sistered sissy-la-la 9mm downloaded wunderpatronen he cobbled up.
    I don't paint bullets. I like Black Rifle Coffee. Sacred cows are always fair game. California is to the United States what Syria is to Russia and North Korea is to China/South Korea/Japan--a Hermit Kingdom detached from the real world and led by delusional maniacs, an economic and social basket case sustained by "foreign" aid so as to not lose military bases.

  18. #78
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bigslug View Post
    It could be argued that the cat food cans are MORE dangerous, as they are less than half as tall and are harder to hit. They are also evolved to be more cunning, as getting cats to willfully eat their contents is far more difficult. The dog food cans are of course larger and stronger. When you see ranks of 20-30 of them shining before you "in the wire", it can be very hard to maintain a cool head. Fortunately, I keep my Bobby's whistle on a lanyard at all times so it is handy to summon the stalwart SMLE-toting Tommies.

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    Have the lads fix bayonets--the long pig-stickers used with the No. 1 Mk. III, not the spike bayonets used on their WWII No. 4 Mk. I rifles, and all will be well vs. the mass attacks by cat food cans. (I hope I got my numbers, marks, and asterisks almost correct--that identification system damages my brain, and at 0200 I'm not looking it up!

    I am also prompted to write this simply to comment on that beautiful photo of your .455 and its gear. Buy a Wilkinson sword, a smartly-tailored uniform, get a good batman, and you're ready for the trenches. In Hollywood, you'd also be fit to stand next to Michael Caine and repel Zulus.

    I can't believe I find a Webley "beautiful," practical gun though it was/is, but this photo does the trick. Perhaps I'm a victim of gun porn addiction, or perhaps it's simply the time of night "when all cats look grey in the dark," but that is a nice-looking selection of ordnance.

    You fellows are going to make me go back and obtain a .38 Webley or Enfield once again, I can tell. Since our cat decimates dry food purchased in bags, rather than canned food, it may make it tough to justify to the Quartermaster/Commissary Officer, ahem, if you know what I mean. She may insist that edged weapons in current inventory are quite sufficient for bags....

    Having quickly reviewed much of this thread tonight, I am also bound to (1) dig out some of my separate posts evidencing the .38/200's tendency to tumble violently when loaded down to original MILSPEC 590 fps or a bit more; (2) the .38/178's (ok, the Mk 2Z) inspiring tendency to do the same, but NOT in a tightly-bored Colt or Ruger, either of which generate higher velocities and greater stability than the design's intended 600-620 fps; (3) and a vintage ad showing the .38 Super Police, i.e. a .38 S&W with 200g bullet, advertised as a separate offering than the .38 Special Super Police (also with 200g bullet).

    Also, I am going to have to try some of Outpost's recommended Accurate 201g flat-noses, as I've been exploring numerous desperate options to get a slobber-knocking 200g flatpoint in my Indian contract Ruger Speed-Six. Since lightweight Terriers and the like are fully adequate for the 200 @ 600 LRN/tumbler role, I can't justify to my bad back that the grand Hunk of Steel Ruger is justified for carry with that load; but a large-meplat 200g @ 700 is a different level of lethality, methinks, not dependent on tumbling.

    Outpost, if you're willing and able to provide me a small sample of the 201's for testing in my Indian Ruger at a modest fee, please PM me or email at danamangham@hotmail.com. Failing that, I can always revert to bumping 358430's to a huge flat for straight-line penetration with a meplat that would inspire confidence.

  19. #79
    Boolit Buddy LouisianaMan's Avatar
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    Postscript to all: Ken Waters used a 4" Service-Six Indian contract Ruger with Blue Dot to generate **885 fps** with a 200g Markell bullet at 1.19"; he found it more accurate than a lighter charge of Blue Dot yielding 845 fps. He preferred a charge of Herco yielding 784 fps and outstanding accuracy. The Markell seems very similar to the 358430.

    What does this thread's unofficial Small Arms Committee think of me working up to duplicate any of the above loads with a bumped 358430 (or an Accurate 201) in my Speed-Six Indian Ruger? Assuming, say, 40-60 fps velocity loss due to my shorter 2 3/4" barrel, any of these hell-on-wheels loads still would make the beefy Ruger a far more attractive carry option.

    Also, any suggestions to substitute for Waters's Blue Dot? Perhaps Outpost's 2400? Others?

    Finally, I have some of GTBullets 185g LHP's with a gaping hollowpoint. If the above loads are feasible with 200's, perhaps I could substitute the 185's and a tad more powder to have a heavyweight LHP at well over 800 fps? Sort of an FBI Load with an additional 25-30g bullet weight.

  20. #80
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bigslug View Post
    All of these questions are worth looking into.

    I doubt very much that the MKI .38 would do anything more than punch a straight hole. At 600~ fps, I think even asking for significant deformation is a bit much. The 358430 I Jell-O tested years ago was HARD, but as it is basically a blunted cylinder, it showed ZERO sign of trying to deviate off course. The MKI is basically the same bullet up-sized for a .360 bore with a different groove configuration, so I wouldn't expect much difference in behavior.

    The .455 MKI and MKII conicals MIGHT be tumblers, but then again, because of the hollow base, they may actually be pretty well balanced to keep moving through tissue point-first. That's one I'm in a position to test the authenticity of. I have a veritable army of well-disciplined milk jugs willing to make the supreme sacrifice. I'll get back to y'all on that. One thing I have noted in my execution of the dreaded dog food cans is that the nose profile tends to cause it to skip. I set the cans up some yards in front of the berm, and have found a large percent of my .455 slugs laying on the berm with skid marks from where they passed the can and bounced. I'm probably running a little harder than Queen Victoria's original spec, but at 700-ish FPS, I doubt it would pancake much unless you cast it from marshmallow cream.

    As to my NOE 200 grain RN, it might be a tumbler with its longer nose, but as it technically isn't an authentic bullet, we'll only gain insight into what might help us today, not what the Brits had in mind 80 years ago. I suppose the truth is in the milk bottles. . .
    About the best modern book on wound ballistics I knows is Vincent di Maio's "Gunshot Wounds", and although he wrote in the age of modern hollow and soft point bullets, he says the only way to be sure whether a bullet was of expanding design or not, is to recover the bullet. All of these, especially the hollow points, are irregular in performance, and even when they work as planned, aren't as incapacitating at handgun velocities as is sometimes imagined... or advertised. There is certainly some logic in not sacrificing, for that, the chances of reaching or shattering heavy bone.

    The Webley manstopper MkIII bullet remains the only round with which I have ever achieved what the British army very reasonably terms not an accidental but a negligent discharge. When is a double-action revolver not a double-action revolver? When it is a Webley-Fosbery, so you can't keep your finger resting on the trigger... Fortunately I commit mistakes of that magnitude one at a time, and although it was inches from my knee as I squatted by the target, it was pointing in a safe direction. It makes you think, though.

    That bullet would turn itself inside out in four or five inches of water, without hitting rock only a shade deeper, and I have seen a very interesting experiment on TV, testing what was thought to be the Japanese myth of the arrowproof cloak. Astonishingly it was found that a thin silk cloak, billowing like a bubble behind a galloping horseman, could at least of the time stop the sharp-pointed Japanese cloak. I decline to imagine an Afghan's underwear, but the Queen's enemies would often have been wearing sheepskin poshteens or turbans. Even in Sudani attire it is likely that a well placed frontal hit cold have caused a tribesman to expire after contemplating your demise, which many of them would have considered a great consolation.

    The manstopper bullet was introduced in 1898, and withdrawn in compliance with the Hague Convention of 1899, the final removal from inventory being in 1900. As the Convention said "The present Declaration is only binding for the Contracting Powers in the case of a war between two or more of them", there is no truth in the often-repeated claim that primitives were considered different. The British like primitives, and feel guilty about half-civilizing them into some sort of Levantine. In fact the Scots like them more than the English - I can't imagine why.

    History, especially mythic history often overlooks the British achievement of making the Border tribes only temporary enemies. British soldiers generally liked them far better than down-country Indians, and they sometimes turned up after a Border war asking for the campaign medal, because they were British subjects and an extremely diverting war couldn't have been had without them. There are probably a few ancient Japanese left who get goose pimples at the memory of the many who gave good service in the British army.

    If there is any virtue at all in expanding bullets, using them in pre- and post-Hague Convention times are quite different phenomena. Do not forget Malala Yusefzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for going to school and has just achieved phenomenal exam results in the UK, and do not forget the rule that everything happens in India. Tribesmen are quoting the Convention to one another right now. You win a colonial war by being less trouble than you are worth, and not by calling the foe no better than your own criminal classes.

    I have a booklet written in the 1950s by Thurlow Craig (my favourite author on shooting, fishing and South American revolutions) and Eric Bewley of Webley. It contains a description of Henry Webley's demonstration of the .450 Metropolitan Police model to the force and to the press:

    In demonstrating to his police pupils the manner in which the revolver ought to be used, Mr. Webley fired five shots at nine yards at a target having a bull's eye two inches in diameter. The results were that the bullets were lodged in a space 2¼in. by 1¼in. Then the range was increased to fifteen yards and five shots were fired at a similar target, the bullets in this case being put into a space 2½in. by 1½in. The next move was made to a distance of twenty-five yards from the target, and at this range five shots were fired by Mr. Webley. The same undeviating accuracy was maintained, a space 2½in. by 3½in. being riddled. Having witnessed the expertness of their instructor, the police sergeants had a little practice to themselves, and soon satisfied Mr. Webley of their ability to make good use of their weapons at short and long ranges. The sergeants who took part in the experiment will act as instructors to other members of the force."


    The booklet confirms what I believed, that the RIC started out as a .442, and the pocket British Bulldog was a .442 and .450 before it was available in the smaller calibres, in which it was so much copied in Belgium. It also states that the RIC was available in .44 Winchester (i.e. .44-40) as well as .45 Long Colt. But I think this would be a larger, longer-cylinder version, the Army Express, which almost certainly was killed off by the top-break versions.

    Here are some Webley workers of the time. It is unlikely that Mr. Egginton jointed more than a few of the 100,000 MkIV revolvers they made in WW2, or the 300,000 .455s in WW1. But with a 1950s or 60s one it is very possible that he did. Mr. Siddons would have been an experienced gun (i.e. shotgun) finisher by the time of the amalgamation with W&C Scott and son, who brought a renewed interest in shotguns to Webley. So it is perfectly possible that he finished my 10ga Scott single, which is well up to best gun standards in everything but being a barrel short.

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    Last edited by Ballistics in Scotland; 08-25-2015 at 05:56 AM.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check