Peaky Blinders Brit revolvers

[krinko]

This thread MUST have proper photos!

Webley Mk IV, .455...



Webley Mk VI, .455...



The Norwegian lion sold out of service mark on the Mk VI...




So the Norwegian Army liked 'em.

As for the .455 being weak, this unhappy event occurred August, 2005 in Albuquerque, New Mexico...

"Five people were killed in less than 24 hours Thursday— two of them Albuquerque police officers who had recently come out of retirement to serve the city again.
Bullets found at the scene where the officers were shot matched those found at the motorcycle shop, according to the complaint. The bullets were "consistent with a Webley, six-shot revolver."
Both officers were wearing their bullet-proof vests."

I read about this at the time and I remember the coroner tied the Webley to the murders by the peculiar shape of the .455 bullet.




-----RC aka krinko

 

[Gordon]

My Mark V .455 , Mark VI .45 auto Rim and the little ex Hong Kong Police very late 1961 .38S&W with the cross bolt safety

 

[kBob]

Krinko and Gordon,

Nice pictures.

"Mark VI .45 auto Rim" Nice shot Gordon, you got them on the rise.

I wonder what the Reds did with all the Hong Kong .38 S&Ws and such.

-kBob

 

[Nathan Detroit]

I remember that during the discussions about the .455 stopping power, the concept of dwell time was advanced by the Brits as a contributing factor. The longer the dwell time in the body, the better the stopping power. A silly concept I admit, especially if taken to the logical extreme as the velocity gets lower and lower.

 

[chrisbailey]

Peaky Blinders

Hi From England,
Glad you enjoy the program. Surprised you can understand the Birmingham (Brummy) accent.
You may not know the origin of "Peaky Blinders". The gang members had razor blades sewn into the peaks of their caps, they would take their caps off and slash the opposition across the face/eyes with the peak.
Chris

 

[Ron James]

My take, British junior officers ( Captain s and below ) led from the front and died with their men in mass sucide charges conceived by senior British officers in the rear. Russian juniors officers led from the front also, they were told that if they come back alive with out obtaining the objective ( true ) they would be shot.

 

[Bama Drifter]

Hey Chris b,
I have no issues with accents. Probably from growing up on Britcoms like Fawlty Towers, Are you being served, Monty Python, Red Dwarf, and the action stuff, too. Even after soaking in everything from Connery 007 to modern day Jason Statham I didn't care for Webleys until Peaky Blinders.

Sent from my HUAWEI G620-A2 using Tapatalk

 

[Gordon]

I like the revolving magazine of those Lewis guns ! Rather have one of them than any number of Webleys

 

[Elm Creek Smith]

Always favored those Mk VI Webleys...

Sent from my QTAQZ3 using Tapatalk

 

[jim goose]

In other words driving his men forward from the safety of the rear. A time honored European military tradition. Maybe that is why in the US whose military officers led rather than drove their troops like cattle is the reason the British and French were losing in both world wars until the US came to their rescue. In WWI the German, Russian, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian armies were no better led or more appropriately driven. But the Germans by WWII had come to not regard the common soldier as cattle but was regarded as being able to think and trained to take independent action within general scope of orders and experienced their surprising results early in the war. The US training was also similar. The reason the Russians won on the eastern front was the infantry was driven by a massive force of KGB who would shoot anyone who would hesitate going forward. The sheer weight of numbers won out, not any brilliant battle strategy.

Seriously ignorant.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

Hi From England,
Glad you enjoy the program. Surprised you can understand the Birmingham (Brummy) accent.
You may not know the origin of "Peaky Blinders". The gang members had razor blades sewn into the peaks of their caps, they would take their caps off and slash the opposition across the face/eyes with the peak.
Chris

Welcome to The High Road.
Yep, we do enjoy the show but in all honesty we have to watch with the closed caption on due to my poor hearing. This helps a lot to understand their accents.

 

[Onty]

I urge all of you who own 455 Webley converted to shoot 45ACP with clips, NEVER SHOOT STANDARD 45 ACP AMMO. Although, many did that without problems, never forget that 455 Webley ammo has about 13 000 PSI, while 45 ACP ammo has max. pressure 21 000 PSI. So, just looking those numbers, you could see that 45 ACP pressure level is more than proof load for 455 Webley.

Unfortunately, real situation is even worse than what you could see from those numbers. As some of you know, 455 Webley has cylinder bore .449, while bullet is normally about .455" . The logic behind this is to get some resistance to make powder burning better. That is the reason why 455 Webley bullet is normally made from soft lead and have hollow base, that will later on expand and grab the rifling in .451" barrel.

Now, if you shoot jacketed 45 ACP ball amo, rated at 21 000 PSI, squeezing solid, jacketed .451" bullet into .449" cylinder bore might get pressure even higher than max. 21 000 PSI.

Here is the result:






Here is the thread, please read it carefully http://britishmilitariaforums.yuku....ALTERED-SHOOT-45-ACP-45-Auto-Rim#.V94CVTX6jCZ

To shoot modified Webley, I strongly suggest get 45 AR brass, and load it to Webley level, using hollow base bullets. I would never use 45 ACP brass. Going this method, you will avoid dangerous situation of using standard 45 ACP ammo in old Webley.

 

[Bama Drifter]

Wow! Thanks Onty for a very sobering post... all the more reason to look for UNmodified guns. Hope the shooter kept all his digits.

Sent from my HUAWEI G620-A2 using Tapatalk

 

[Kaeto]

I urge all of you who own 455 Webley converted to shoot 45ACP with clips, NEVER SHOOT STANDARD 45 ACP AMMO. Although, many did that without problems, never forget that 455 Webley ammo has about 13 000 PSI, while 45 ACP ammo has max. pressure 21 000 PSI. So, just looking those numbers, you could see that 45 ACP pressure level is more than proof load for 455 Webley.

Unfortunately, real situation is even worse than what you could see from those numbers. As some of you know, 455 Webley has cylinder bore .449, while bullet is normally about .455" . The logic behind this is to get some resistance to make powder burning better. That is the reason why 455 Webley bullet is normally made from soft lead and have hollow base, that will later on expand and grab the rifling in .451" barrel.

Now, if you shoot jacketed 45 ACP ball amo, rated at 21 000 PSI, squeezing solid, jacketed .451" bullet into .449" cylinder bore might get pressure even higher than max. 21 000 PSI.

Here is the result:






Here is the thread, please read it carefully http://britishmilitariaforums.yuku....ALTERED-SHOOT-45-ACP-45-Auto-Rim#.V94CVTX6jCZ

To shoot modified Webley, I strongly suggest get 45 AR brass, and load it to Webley level, using hollow base bullets. I would never use 45 ACP brass. Going this method, you will avoid dangerous situation of using standard 45 ACP ammo in old Webley.

From the moment I got my Webley I have been loading for it. .45 ACP on moon clips, .45 Auto Rim, and thanks to a machined disc .455 Webley Mk II. All with a .454 dia projectile and 3.8 to 4 grains of Bullseye.

 

[Tallball]

I will have to watch that show! I also watched a lot of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Are You Being Served, etc as a teenager. One of my best HS friends, and college roommate, and close friend to this day is from Bristol, so I am very used to British English and generally understand it easily enough... though occasionally a Scotsman will stump me for a moment or two. The diversity of British dialects is fun and amazing. I enjoy showing examples to my students (I am an English teacher.) I found a fun one recently of a Liverpudlian girl that quite a few of them had trouble understanding.

I would love to have a Webley, particularly a Mark VI. They cost more than I am generally willing to pay, though, and I would have to rack up a seriously large amount of SiL points before I begged my FiL to start reloading 455 for me.

I read and collect memoirs, including at least a dozen from WWI, mostly British (it is probably closer to two dozen, my wife calls me a "book hoarder"). It sounds as if the casualty rate among junior officers at the front lines was very high. There was more going on than just massive attacks. You could be sniped or shelled randomly on any given day. Night time "trench raids" by either side were not uncommon in different times and places. Both sides often sent patrols out into "No Man's Land" at night. IIRC the typical German night patrol was larger and led by an NCO. The British ones I have heard described were generally just a few men led by a junior officer. One term that I recall for casualties not related to large battles was "normal wastage".

If the TV show is "dark" enough my wife will probably watch it too. That would be good. We have run out of things to watch together lately.

 

[Gordon]

For those of you with cut for .45 acp Mark V and later revolvers : I stopped using acp in clips in my cut Webleys decades ago, allthough with no problems experienced. I switched to .45 Auto rim loads which work fine mechanically, use a soft lead bullet and the old Saami pressure data for .45 AR was 3000 psi less than the 18,000 for GI ball .45acp so was about 15,000 psi which is just a little over the 13,500 psi of .455 Kynoch .

 

[Archie]

I have one of the early (bird's head grip) versions. It has already been cut for .45 ACP; so I load a rather light load for it. I use the 255 grain .45 Colt bullets - the original bullet was 260 grains- and a light to moderate dose of Unique. It shoots to the sights (I think, the sights are somewhat vague by my standards) and extracts easily. Cartridge of the World has information.

As someone has mentioned, these revolvers were transition arms from black to smokeless powder. And frankly, a 260 grain lead bullet moving at 650 fps will penetrate one's cloak and bend the heck out of one's dagger. Only 200 fps less than .45 ACP and more bullet weight? No, it's not a long range revolver, but it was designed for personal defense at need.