About one year ago I bought an old civilian Webley & Scott .455 Webley revolver.
The fact that I'm writing this post just now says something about shooting the .455: it ain't easy. The cartridge per se is a lot of fun to shoot (more soon), but it's quite difficult to find some. And if you manage it, they are collector's items. So you have to reload them. And to reload them, you need the cases.
You may make them by cutting 45 Colt cases, turning the rim to make it thin enough to fit into the narrow space between cylinder face and recoil shield, or you may buy them.
Actually there are only Fiocchi and Hornady that I know of. Fiocchi discontinued the manufacture of the complete cartridge a few years ago. Now they only make the cases, and only when they have enough orders to start a production run.
So, unless you get lucky and find some already for sale, you'll have to wait or you'll have to pool some orders together to speed up things.
I managed to find some Fiocchi cases in the USA and have them sent back here in Italy where they were made... And finally managed to find some reloading data for Vihtavuory powders.
I found a maximum load of 4.0 grains of N320 for a 230 grains bullet and 3.7 for a 260 grains bullet. I had 250 grains bullet so I sticked to the 3.7 maximum load.
My first and foremost worry was to contain pressures.
WARNING
A lot of people believe they can shoot 45 ACP ammo in webley revolvers, and a lot of perfectly fine Webley revolvers (and not a few fingers) have been destroyed in this way.
The Webley was proofed at six british tons, that is: 13440 psi.
A 45 ACP cartridge shoots at 19.000 psi and is proofed at 21.000!
So, each time you shoot a normal 45 ACP round in a webley, is like you are shooting a proof load! The fact that many of these guns go on taking this kind of abuse for thousands and thousands of rounds is a testament to the robustness of this revolver. But it's not a good idea to proof charge a gun every time you pull the trigger.
So, my reload was:
Fiocchi cases (small pistol primers)
250 grain LFN lead alloy bullets
3.3 grains of Vihtavuori N320
CCI Small pistol primers.
OAL 29.7mm (that is 1.169").
Note that the OAL is pretty long. I did this to leave extra room in the short case for the powder chamber, to help further reduce pressure. The size of the powder chamber has a great effect on pressures.
The bullet was inserted just above the grease band (with the case neck well below the cannelure).
On the range, the gun produced a mild report, a puny recoil (even with such a heavy bullet) and no muzzle blast.
The bullets grouped well at 10 meters, and did the same at 25.
At 25 meters it was possible to hear the bullet hitting the target just after the gun shooting.
The cases were extracted without the least problem, the primer showed no sign of overpressure (but then, while a squashed primer is a sure sign of overpressure, not always overpressure squashes primers, and it's sometimes possible to have dangerous pressures with primers that look just fine).
The bullets grouped well, but for a flier caused by a low load (it's difficult to throw perfect charges with an automatic powder measure on such small quantities).
But it was distinctly possible to hear different kinds of "bang", and there was a lot of unburnt powder on the bench, at the end of the shooting session, sure sign that something is not ok with this load.
The single action was crisp, if heavy. The double action seemed a finger breaker, such was its weight, but it grouped very well all the same. Seems the old brits knew what they were doing when they designed the Webley action. The double action is heavy, surely, but very smooth and constant, and the grip and the trigger seem to form just the perfect geometry for good shootig.
At ten meters six shot fired in about 4 seconds went all in a group the size of a small saucer.
So:
The 455 has a very mild report and very low recoil: just enough to remind you you are shooting a real gun.
The gun has a very smooth action that is designed to let you shoot well, even if it's heavy.
The bullet is SLOW. No point in trying to make it faster: the cartridge was purposedly designed this way, to have a slow bullet. You wanna something faster? Shoot a 45 Colt, a 45 ACP or a 454 Casull. The Webley is slow. Period.
But it's also very, very accurate and fun to shoot.
I'll try to slightly reduce the OAL to leave less room for the powder, to see if I get rid of the unburnt powder, or I'll try to rise the load a little, perhaps to 3.5, and see how it shoots and if I can get rid of the occasional flyer caused by imperfect combustion.
This is anyway a good starting load for anybody wanting to try to reload the 455 with Vihtavuori powders.
Hope this helps those wanting to let this old dog bark again, for I had to do quite a lot of research to find the correct data.
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) fire factory ammo as well, that is way, way too hot.
Originally Posted by O.S.O.K.
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