.455 Webley bullets in ROA?

Brutus

Brutus

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I found a couple of bags of cast Webley bullets purchased from jethunter IIRC, some time back.
My idea is to load these 265 grain 'manstoppers' inverted in my Ruger Old Army. Outside diameter .454.
Wrong lube maybe? Front blade sight height all wrong??
They look really neat with the cavernous hollow point and the full diameter flat, but heck....will they be trouble then they are worth compared to .457 roundball?
In they end, all these ideas could be ridiculous in a range use only firearm.

opinions or shared experiences???
 
You really DON'T like that piece of paper, do you? ;)

Anyhow, you go ahead - it will be really interesting to see how you mamage to push that vast and fragile open base with the loading lever, and even more interesting to see how it goes on through the forcing cone...

tac
 
tacfoley said:
You really DON'T like that piece of paper, do you? ;)

Anyhow, you go ahead - it will be really interesting to see how you mamage to push that vast and fragile open base with the loading lever, and even more interesting to see how it goes on through the forcing cone...

tac
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You bring to light some very valid arguments tacfoley.

Pause for thought at least.

Cheers!
 
It is not something that I would try with an open top Colt .44 (1860 Army) but the Ruger frame is much stronger. I was wondering if the bullets will clear the loading lever and fit into the chambers without too much force being applied.
Are the bullets soft lead or hard cast??
 
Lee makes a bullet mold specifically for the Ruger Old Army. It is RN, flat base, .456", 220 gr IIRC. I have used it in 455 webley. It was a nice shooting bullet.
 
Brutus said:
I think I opened my big mouth without thinking first off guys.
sorry to waste your time......
Click to expand...
Don't worry, there are no bad questions! BTW, I would not do this. That open base is for expanding the bullet against the rifling... not for pushing downrange like an open umbrella. :)
 
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analogdino said:
Don't worry, there are no bad questions! BTW, I would not do this. That open base is for expanding the bullet against the rifling... not for pushing downrange like an open umbrella. :)
Click to expand...

One man's hollow base is another man's hollow point. In this particular pistol seating those bullets backwards might be a slight challenge but otherwise it wouldn't make such a big difference which direction the pointy end gets loaded.

It is my opinion based on some experience and experimentation that the HB is not actually of much practical use for the purpose of expanding to fit the bore, as we have been told for umpteen generations. I believe that the War Department designed the HB bullet for the .455 webley to increase powder capacity. Most soft cast flat based bullets will outshoot the HB "webley" bullet easily, but they can't match the velocity at the same pressure level.
 
Even with soft lead I would think that the large size driving bands would produce a LOT of shearing resistance. Or if the mouths are flared a LOT of swaging resistance. It'll be like trying to load a .475 to .490 round ball and shearing off a 1/16 or wider flat off the waist. Only worse since the bullets likely have TWO wide riding bands.

Then there's the issue of the ram sitting into the hollow and forcing the lip outwards and again forcing the chamber mouth to either shear off MORE lead or to swage it inward.

And all of this is even assuming the bullet will drop into the mouth far enough to let the wide open nose pass through the arch of the loading area.

Brutus, I know you already admitted defeat on this idea. But I'm curious if it will even fit under the seating arch and if it does how wide the bullet's riding bands are on these things.
 
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