MoscowMike
New member
I have a Webley Mk VI top-break revolver, 1916 vintage, which was shaved to shoot .45 ACP. When I got it the hand was chipped and it wouldn't reliably rotate the cylinder into a tight lockup. Couldn't find a replacement hand, but a local gunsmith tig welded the end, fought with it and finally got it locking up tightly. He then put together some very light handloads behind .452 lead bullets and tried it out - no problem but not very accurate.
I know you need to keep to low pressure, so I built some medium loads, 4.9 gr Unique in .45 AR cases behind a 265 gr LRNHB bullet. With those hollow-base bullet I got pretty good accuracy, 2.5" at 15 yd single-action off the bench. Ran about 6" high. Two of the chambers were tough to extract. The cases came about half-way out easily, but stuck and I had to work to remove them. The other four were no problem
A machinist friend of mine checked the chambers on the Webley. The four which didn't have problems were about .484 from the mouth of the case on towards the forcing cone. The two that had extraction problems were also .484 at the mouth, but opened up to .487 and then back down towards the forcing cone, as if the cylinder ballooned a bit.
The gunsmith said the cases he used (.45 ACP in half-moon clips) came out easily but were sooty on the outside. Light loads behind smaller diameter bullets hadn't really expanded.
The cylinder walls look really smooth, no machining marks. Hard to say what would have caused the interior expansion. I assume that if it had been fed a steady diet of hi-pressure 45 ACP loads it might have stretched things a bit, but just two chambers, and just 3 thousandths? Could have been careless machining, I suppose. I could try to polish the mouths on those two chambers, but I'm thinking taking them out to .487 would be asking for trouble.
So - unless .487 is safe, or there's another solution it looks like I'm looking for a replacement cylinder. Any suggestions?
I know you need to keep to low pressure, so I built some medium loads, 4.9 gr Unique in .45 AR cases behind a 265 gr LRNHB bullet. With those hollow-base bullet I got pretty good accuracy, 2.5" at 15 yd single-action off the bench. Ran about 6" high. Two of the chambers were tough to extract. The cases came about half-way out easily, but stuck and I had to work to remove them. The other four were no problem
A machinist friend of mine checked the chambers on the Webley. The four which didn't have problems were about .484 from the mouth of the case on towards the forcing cone. The two that had extraction problems were also .484 at the mouth, but opened up to .487 and then back down towards the forcing cone, as if the cylinder ballooned a bit.
The gunsmith said the cases he used (.45 ACP in half-moon clips) came out easily but were sooty on the outside. Light loads behind smaller diameter bullets hadn't really expanded.
The cylinder walls look really smooth, no machining marks. Hard to say what would have caused the interior expansion. I assume that if it had been fed a steady diet of hi-pressure 45 ACP loads it might have stretched things a bit, but just two chambers, and just 3 thousandths? Could have been careless machining, I suppose. I could try to polish the mouths on those two chambers, but I'm thinking taking them out to .487 would be asking for trouble.
So - unless .487 is safe, or there's another solution it looks like I'm looking for a replacement cylinder. Any suggestions?