Finally have everything to reload 44 Webley, now what?

Fox

Fox

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I have the FFFg powder, I have the 44 Special brass, I have the 44 Webley custom trim die, I have the 200gr soft lead .430 bullets with BP lube and CCI LP primers, now what.

Anyone here develop a load for BP and or this round specifically?

I know that the original was 15-19gr BP with a 200-220gr bullet but we all know that the original powders are not the same as the modern stuff and the case wall thickness was probably not the same either.

I wanted to ask how you guys normally go about these type of loads to make sure you do not just create a grenade.

I have been told to fill the case and then seat the bullet to give a compression of about 1/8in but since the case is so short that 1/8in seems like a lot.

I was going to start with 10gr of FFFg, measure down to the top of the powder and then make sure that the bullet is down into the case further than that, is this a good starting point?

This is an 1878 revolver.

Thanks a lot, excited to get this thing running again but iffy about loads that don't exist.
 
You have the idea: Fill enough for 1/8" compression sounds right, you can pack it right down - the main thing with BP is to leave "no air space".

It measures by volume so "xx" grains is a ballpark only - for consistency (accuracy) purposes, yes you can weigh BUT it also has to be a "weight" that has enough volume to fill that case with some compression.

Double check for high primers after compression using the bullet, I have them move sometimes. Make sure you do crimp these to keep the bullet from moving out. Taper crimp (if possible with your dies) will extend your brass life... IMHO
 
I have 44 Spl dies, I was told that they will be fine to drop that far down, I have made an insert so as to load the bullet that far down and they resize the brass just fine.

Maybe I will load up the whole cylinder and shoot one shot then check to make sure nothing has moved.

I will put in 10gr with the dipper and see where that comes to on the case and go from there.

I guess there is not really any building up a load on these, should I be concerned at all about the pressure on the cylinder?

I had it in to a gunsmith and he said it is as good as it was coming off the line, it has some play in the indexing but also a huge .440 throat, so I would take it from the gunsmith that it was designed like that.
 
Considering that Webley's used in WW1 were likely shot using the early smokeless ammo you are going to be more than fine with black powder loads.

To stress the fact about compression on the powder to avoid any air gap it's very likely that you'll find that you get better consistency and thus accuracy with the loads being packed more on the firm side than towards being at all loose. So while there's not really any building up of the load such as with smokeless powders you may find that there's still a sweet spot when you hit just the right amount of fill with the powder that produces the optimum charge compression

To aid with this a lot of black powder loaders use a drop tube. This is nothing more than a long pipe with a funnel at the top that slightly separates the powder as it's poured through the pipe. This aids in the powder filling the case in a more compact manner. Often copper tubing that is roughly 3/16" to 1/4" ID and about 16 to 20 inches long is suggested from what I've read. Other options would be brass tubing you can find in 36" lengths at some hobby shops. In particular those that cater to model railroad fans.

If you can find copper tubing in coils you might be able to straighten it using the same tension and twisting idea that works so well for soft wire. The idea being that curved and even lightly kinked wire can be pulled straight between a vise and a hand drill and the drill run to put a few turns of twist into the metal. The result being that the wire ends up very straight. I've not tried this with tubing so it may simply collapse. But if it doesn't collapse it might produce a nice straight drop tube for you to use.
 
This is not the 455 Webley used in WW1 but rather the 44 Webley inside lubricated based on the 44 RIC.

I have heard of using a drop tube but the case length is 0.65", is it really needed for such a short case?

I know that for BP powder compression is so that it does not blow up, BP is an explosive and not a propellant so any air space can cause it to blow up rather than push the bullet out.
 
Personally, I use a drop tube for rifle loads (.45-70 & .45-90) but not for pistol loads. Especially if I'm loading a lot of pistol rounds at a time, I just compress with the bullet & call 'er a day.

Really depends on your end game though, with pistols I myself am normally just shooting IDPA style targets and steel, I don't bother much with groups. If you're going for accuracy and consistency then you should experiment with a drop tube, different lubes, hardness/alloys, etc. If nothing else it is good practice for loading larger cartridges. No room in that tiny cartridge case for fillers but if you find yourself playing around with other bigger cartridges in the future then you can try that out, with those.

Because Black Powder is more of an explosive than a propellant (the latter being smokeless), if you have an airspace the sudden "blast" can cause damage to your chamber, in a revolver it can blow out a cylinder or ring a chamber. All that said, I've always been careful not to leave that gap so I've never witnessed that phenomenon first hand although it is well documented.

BCRider said:
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If you can find copper tubing in coils you might be able to straighten it using the same tension and twisting idea that works so well for soft wire. The idea being that curved and even lightly kinked wire can be pulled straight between a vise and a hand drill and the drill run to put a few turns of twist into the metal. The result being that the wire ends up very straight. I've not tried this with tubing so it may simply collapse. But if it doesn't collapse it might produce a nice straight drop tube for you to use.
Click to expand...

Nice tip on the straightening! And yes the hobby stores are GREAT for the brass tubing. It usually is not expensive either.
 
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That is what I was thinking, if I ended up using BP for 30-30 or something like that then a drop tube would be good.

I will toss some BP in the case and see how much weight I end up with, I do not want to load full power at the moment.

As for accuracy, it is an antique short barrelled gun, not known for accuracy, just for fun.
 
Fox said:
That is what I was thinking, if I ended up using BP for 30-30 or something like that then a drop tube would be good.

I will toss some BP in the case and see how much weight I end up with, I do not want to load full power at the moment.

As for accuracy, it is an antique short barrelled gun, not known for accuracy, just for fun.
Click to expand...

.30-30 isn't an ideal BP cartridge (it was Winchester's first commercial smokeless load when it was introduced in 1895). The small bore will foul very quickly. Compressing the powder in a distinct bottleneck cartridge like the .30-30 can be challenging too. That said, it has indeed been done before; the Winchester 1894 (in case that is what you have) though can be a REAL pain to strip down for cleaning (and if you don't clean right away you WILL get rust). But it's all a journey, not trying to discourage anyone from trying anything! Can't learn without trying.

Yes, if you want to download (for instance, full power .45 Colt loads HURT my hand in a plowhandle type SAA grip) then I use cornmeal filler on top of the powder.
 
Fox, to go along with NorthCoast's report on full power BP .45Colt I can add that .357Mag casings full of BP with a 130gn bullet kick about the same as a stout but not +P .38Spl.

In your case the relatively heavy bullet will make the kick from the small amount of powder seem like a bit more. But I can't see it feeling like anything more than around a "soft" .38Spl sort of kick.

And yes, I did get all confused with the .455 guns.

Best of luck and I hope you post up a video. I'd love to see and read about what it handles like.
 
I just did some test black powder reloading for my Webley MK I. I was using .45 Auto Rim brass, Hornady .452 Lead SWC 200Gr bullets, and CCI Large Pistol Primer. Here are the results,

14Gr FFFG Black Powder, Average Velocity 561.0 fps, Barrel Pressure 7838psi.
13Gr FFFG Black Powder, Average Velocity 507.6 fps, Barrel Pressure 6417psi.
 
Which 44 Webley is it? Because an F & W is a whole different animal than Belgian or British...just saying. Normal BP advice probably doesn't ' just fit ' those lil jems.
And guessing here; guy's, this is a pocket pistol ( ?)...not a full size 455. Way different animal entirely.
 
Guys, it is not a 45 it is a 44 Webley.

The pistol is an Iver Johnson first model with a 1 3/4in barrel, built no later than 1878.

There is a huge difference between a 44 Webley and a 455 Webley, I am making brass with trimmed down 44 Special as the web of the 44 Mag is too high to be able to seat a bullet in the case if I were to use 44 Mag brass.

Like I said, this is American, not British or Belgian, very few people shoot these as it can be seen here as most people think I am mis-typing by putting down 44 instead of 455, ha ha ha.

I did not get a chance last night, I will take a dipper and see how things fit with the 10gr that I want to use, I will take some photos when I do have the time, hopefully before the weekend.
 
Hi Fox,

Not sure if this will help (i think this is what you are looking for);

From Barnes Cartridges of the World book - 44 Webley/442 RIC original load was 15 to 19 grains of black powder for 200-220 grain bullets.

2nw37l2.jpg


Not sure if I agree with his Remington load.

What I would do in your place is get a chronograph and use slow powder like Unique. Start at (for example 2.0-3gr) and work my way up till you get a load you are satisfied with.

Good luck and keep us updated how it goes!
 
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I have that info too, from the Cartridges of the World, but I am going to start out with less than that.

I will not touch this thing with smokeless, my hand means too much to me for that.
 
Your hand/your gun. :) Do what you are comfortable.

Only reason I mentioned it.... a lot of people have used unique powder successfully in blackpowder pistols like Webley 455 for example (without losing fingers/toes).
 
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It's blackpowder - hard to make a grenade unless you really try hard. Make sure you don't have airspace, and use the right powder. The 44 webley would have been loaded with fffg.
 
IIRC I used 10 gr in my F & W, but as I said " It's a different animal altogether ".
10 seems like a good start. Use a little cream of wheat or a greased felt wad if 10 gr seems to be short of a full case.
Fox, you have no luck sourcing 44 Russian brass? They work really well in F & W's
 
I actually thought I may get something in 44 Russian so I wanted to use 44 Special brass and trim it so that it is very obvious it is not 44 Russian.

I did a test tonight, I took pics but will not get them up tonight.

0.7cc dipper of GOEX FFFg drops about 11gr of powder. In the case this gives a space to the mouth of 0.170in, this is where the top of the grease groove is of the 200gr bullet I have. There is another groove further to the tip of the bullet, this is approx 1/8in away from the top of the grease groove. With this dipper if I load 0.7cc of FFFg and seat the bullet to this higher groove I will have compression for sure on the powder.

I went up to the 1.0cc dipper, which drops right around 15gr of FFFg and the case is full. I am not a huge fan of this as I want to have the powder consistent if I can get away with it. If I were to make my own dipper to hold about 13gr I may have the sweet spot where the grease groove is just covered.

These rounds are shorter than the originals that I have but that should not matter much.
 
Fox said:
I actually thought I may get something in 44 Russian so I wanted to use 44 Special brass and trim it so that it is very obvious it is not 44 Russian.

I did a test tonight, I took pics but will not get them up tonight.

0.7cc dipper of GOEX FFFg drops about 11gr of powder. In the case this gives a space to the mouth of 0.170in, this is where the top of the grease groove is of the 200gr bullet I have. There is another groove further to the tip of the bullet, this is approx 1/8in away from the top of the grease groove. With this dipper if I load 0.7cc of FFFg and seat the bullet to this higher groove I will have compression for sure on the powder.

I went up to the 1.0cc dipper, which drops right around 15gr of FFFg and the case is full. I am not a huge fan of this as I want to have the powder consistent if I can get away with it. If I were to make my own dipper to hold about 13gr I may have the sweet spot where the grease groove is just covered.

These rounds are shorter than the originals that I have but that should not matter much.
Click to expand...

Original cases would have been "balloon head", with space around the primer pocket for powder. Modern cases are of course solid in that area. One doesn't notice the difference that much in a larger case, but it ought to be more noticeable in a smaller capacity case. That probably accounts for the difference.

Regardless, sounds like you have 'er figured. Let us know how she shoots!
 
Good call. I've a Frontier Bulldog of some ungodly rare unknown case. 44 Magnums work but balloon. The fellow was shooting it like that.
I've a 44 magnum (at that time ).
So, TOTALLY not doing that. Potential hand grenade? No thanks.
Went with 444 Marlin cut down. Looks to be something along the lines of a 45 LC ( but smaller of course ) viewed at a glance.
 
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