Firehand
Member
I'd bought a Mk VI Webley last year at the Wanenmacher show, with a cut cylinder like most unfortunately, but mechanically very good.
(If you're not familiar with this, early in WWII when the Brits were desperate for anything that would shoot they pulled a lot of these out of storage. But not being able to set up to produce ammo in quantity they wound up milling a bit off the back of the cylinder so they could load with .45acp ammo in moon clips. It works, but accuracy often suffers and case life is not good as the chamber/bore is a bit larger diameter)
While back I located a guy who had an uncut cylinder, and found a couple of weeks ago that Graf & Sons has Hornady brass and had a(ONE!) set of Lee carbide dies. Off went the order.
Dug around and found a starter load of 4.0 grains of Unique. For bullets, I cast some 230 grain .45 ball, same as I use in .45acp, but did not size them: used as-cast and lubed with Lee Liquid Alox.
Couple of days ago took it to the range to try out, and DAMN! what a difference. It shot OK with moon clips or .45 Auto Rim brass, but with the proper-length cylinder and .455 brass, it shoots very nicely: the difference in accuracy was striking.
Now I need to figure a way to make some 'Webley Patented Manstopper Bullets' to try out...
(If you're not familiar with this, early in WWII when the Brits were desperate for anything that would shoot they pulled a lot of these out of storage. But not being able to set up to produce ammo in quantity they wound up milling a bit off the back of the cylinder so they could load with .45acp ammo in moon clips. It works, but accuracy often suffers and case life is not good as the chamber/bore is a bit larger diameter)
While back I located a guy who had an uncut cylinder, and found a couple of weeks ago that Graf & Sons has Hornady brass and had a(ONE!) set of Lee carbide dies. Off went the order.
Dug around and found a starter load of 4.0 grains of Unique. For bullets, I cast some 230 grain .45 ball, same as I use in .45acp, but did not size them: used as-cast and lubed with Lee Liquid Alox.
Couple of days ago took it to the range to try out, and DAMN! what a difference. It shot OK with moon clips or .45 Auto Rim brass, but with the proper-length cylinder and .455 brass, it shoots very nicely: the difference in accuracy was striking.
Now I need to figure a way to make some 'Webley Patented Manstopper Bullets' to try out...
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