Aguila Blanca
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Or an inside micrometer.Unclenick said:
Revolver Repair
- Thread starter Derilas
- Start date
Unclenick et al.,This post says the Cartridges of the World numbers are wrong. He says the chambers in his three Belgian guns chambered for this cartridge are about 0.451" at the back at most. Indeed, the photos of the cartridge in Wikipedia and in that post show the bullets (0.436") and cases to be close in diameter. I wouldn't be surprised if the original drawings called for the case diameters to be 0.442", given when the cartridge was introduced and named.
Wiki-photo shared under their rules. Citation: .442 Webley. (2023, June 7). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.442_Webley
That link is worth a read-through, as he describes his setup for thinning the case rims, and he describes thinning the web of 44s to fit and then sizing the case body down. He also names some tools.
Given the above, I would advise the OP to start by measuring the IDs of his chambers at the back end. If you use the inside jaws of calipers, then you may be off by a couple of thousandths. They aren't very good with holes. Using a round lead ball to slug the back of the chamber would be better, as would the use of pin gauges or small hole gauges if you have them.
OP here, I bought an original remington umc factory loaded cartridge to measure, and I'm pretty certain the author of Cartridges of the world must have been relying on someone else's measurements for the 44 Webley entry. Even though I made my measurements with a cheap electronic caliper, I came up with substantially different results, especially with the base diameter. Barnes says that the 44 Webley has a base diameter of .472, my measurements are .453 for the base, for the neck, he got .47, I got .447. My OG case length is .674, Barnes' is .69. Good thing I did this investigation, otherwise I would have made ammo that didn't fit!
RC,
The 44 mag rim is .055 inches thick, the 44 Webley is .0505 inches based on the factory cartridge I am measuring. .0045 inches is a miniscule amount, just a few kisses on the lathe. My thinking was that the 44 mag rim thickness can just be kissed ever so slightly on a lathe until it fits, making it a tight seal. Seeing that the base gun is made with soft iron, and the cartridge is black powder, I am pretty sure that this will probably not be super significant. Just in case, my plan was to face the side of the rim toward the front of the case and not the back, so I don't have to think about facing the whole back of the case and hence run into primer seating issues.