9mm revolver moon clips
- Thread starter Pre-1898
- Start date
kschneider
Regular
- Location
- southern ontario
The gun is not nearly strong enough for the 9mm round.
The .38 S&W is a 13,000 PSI round.
The 9mm could be three times that pressure in certain loadings.
Also, the .38 S&W/.38-200 cartridge has a straight case, and a diameter in front of the rim of .386".
The 9mm has a tapered case that is .392" at the head and .380" at the front. You might get a round chambered in your conversion, but the chamber would be oversized at the front.
You may wish to reconsider, but this is just my opinion. Good luck to you.
The .38 S&W is a 13,000 PSI round.
The 9mm could be three times that pressure in certain loadings.
Also, the .38 S&W/.38-200 cartridge has a straight case, and a diameter in front of the rim of .386".
The 9mm has a tapered case that is .392" at the head and .380" at the front. You might get a round chambered in your conversion, but the chamber would be oversized at the front.
You may wish to reconsider, but this is just my opinion. Good luck to you.
I'm a little skittish on this idea. Regardless of being 9mm or .380 both the barrel and the cylinder would have needed to be sleeved with liners to make it work with this smaller ammo. If this was not done then it's going to shoot like a mess and be terribly hard on the brass. You may want to look into it a little more and find out more specifics. The simple fact that you can't even confirm if it's chambered in 9mm or .380 suggests that you don't have all the facts that you should have yet. Or if he did say 9mm is it a 9mm Makarov or 9mm Kurtz or some other flavour of low power level 9mm which isn't 9mm luger? That will all matter as well.
As for the right moonclips to use it will depend on the chamber spacing of the cylinder. It won't be a moonclip for a Webley. it'll be a moonclip for some other gun that uses .380 or whatever. The smith that did the job should darn well know which ones they are or clearly he did the job in isolation of any sample to work with. And I can't see anyone doing such a thing. So once again add this to the list of questions you should be asking him about this conversion. And if he already told you this imformation then it would help if you included it in your post.
As for the right moonclips to use it will depend on the chamber spacing of the cylinder. It won't be a moonclip for a Webley. it'll be a moonclip for some other gun that uses .380 or whatever. The smith that did the job should darn well know which ones they are or clearly he did the job in isolation of any sample to work with. And I can't see anyone doing such a thing. So once again add this to the list of questions you should be asking him about this conversion. And if he already told you this imformation then it would help if you included it in your post.
You are right BCRider ! I only saw it and was told it was converted to 9mm using moon clips. I did not take more info as I wanted to find out if moon clips are available for it. But I will have to get more info. to find out what it was chambered for exactly.
There's at least two styles of 9mm moonclips out there just for a K frame size 9mm revolver. And that's just between my Alfa Proj 9mm revolver and a buddy's older S&W 9mm K frame revolver. He tried one of my AP clips and it didn't fit his S&W.
And that assumes that the cylinder chamber spacing matches a K frame S&W. There's no guarantee of that. Again you'd need to find out from the smith which moonclip style he used as the basis of his conversion. Webleys never did use moon clips so you can't just go shopping for them based on "Webley"
There's at least one outfit in the US that sells a wide variety of moonclips and which will ship to Canada. I don't know of any domestic suppliers other than asking them to order them from Brownells the next time they put in an order. But first you need to find out from the smith which other gun the clip he used as a pattern is from.
Did you find out if this "conversion" included a new 9mm rifled barrel sleeve and sleeving and cutting new chambers in the cylinder? If these were not done and he simply modified the chambers to take the moonclips I'd pass on this deal. As noted before sleeving of the barrel and chambers is central to a PROPER conversion. And it's well recorded through history that some gunsmiths have a funny idea of what a "conversion" actually means.
And that assumes that the cylinder chamber spacing matches a K frame S&W. There's no guarantee of that. Again you'd need to find out from the smith which moonclip style he used as the basis of his conversion. Webleys never did use moon clips so you can't just go shopping for them based on "Webley"
There's at least one outfit in the US that sells a wide variety of moonclips and which will ship to Canada. I don't know of any domestic suppliers other than asking them to order them from Brownells the next time they put in an order. But first you need to find out from the smith which other gun the clip he used as a pattern is from.
Did you find out if this "conversion" included a new 9mm rifled barrel sleeve and sleeving and cutting new chambers in the cylinder? If these were not done and he simply modified the chambers to take the moonclips I'd pass on this deal. As noted before sleeving of the barrel and chambers is central to a PROPER conversion. And it's well recorded through history that some gunsmiths have a funny idea of what a "conversion" actually means.
Aside from the MANY obvious issues mentioned, why on earth would you even consider such a gun ? You can enjoy Webley's for what they are or buy a cheap Alpha revolver in 9mm. What's the attraction in this particular piece ? And furthermore, I cannot imagine any gunsmith milling out a cylinder for moonclips without having a pattern to follow which actually fits a specific moonclip. Thats kind of like machining a single shot rifle to fit a magazine but not really fit any magazine available. Thats funny.
I found out that the gun comes with two cylinder. The original in .38 s&W and the shaved cylinder. The gun is in really nice shape and I always loved the old webley. reason I was asking is that 9mm is way cheaper to shoot than .38 S&W and before I spend $$€ on a gun, I want to know if I am gonna be able to feed it.
Without a new barrel or sleeve this conversion is about as practical as re-barreling a Ruger Blackhawk with a 1/2" diameter pipe and calling it a shotgun. Come on, anyone here seriously believe a .355 bullet is going down a .360+ barrel and hitting anything but dirt eventually? I am glad April1 is long gone.
To the OP if you must have a 9MM revolver buy one of the Alpha's and go plink.
Take Care
Bob
To the OP if you must have a 9MM revolver buy one of the Alpha's and go plink.
Take Care
Bob
This does not bode well. If he is selling this gun with both cylinders it suggests that it is set up to shoot either. Yet we already pointed out that a 9mm traveling down the larger bore of a proper .360 size barrel for use with a .38S&W will produce dismal accuracy. The .356 size 9mm bullet will literally bounce off the sides of the bore and won't engage the rifling correctly. So accuracy will suffer badly when shooting 9mm ammo.
You also found out that the gun is set up for LIGHT 9mm loads. You don't buy such loads off the shelf. You MUST reload them yourself. ANY factory 9mm ammo is going to be too strong and have too much peak pressure for a Webley revolver. It will NOT BE SAFE to shoot any sort of factory 9mm through it.
I don't know what else it will take for you to realize that this is clearly a bad idea. First off this last bit suggests that the "conversion" is poorly done and is pretty well a hack job. The second thing is that you can not shoot it with factory 9mm under any circumstances. So you would need to bet into reloading to shoot this gun at all and to allow you to shoot it safely.
If you really like the Webley design then stick with shooting it with the proper ammo and simply get into reloading for it. It's not that big a deal to learn to reload and a basic press and accessories does not need to cost a whole lot of money.
On the other hand if you simply want to shoot a revolver that can be fed with easily bought cheap 9mm then buy one of the Alfa Project revolvers.
.38 WHAT? If the .38 cylinder is for .38 S&W again then it's got the same issues discussed here. The 9mm is going to suffer from poor accuracy and will require light reloads so he'd need to get into reloading to allow for shooting the gun safely.
Even folks that buy the Ruger Convertible chambered in .38Spl and 9mm with separate cylinders talk on the forums about how the guns are only really accurate when shooting the .357 size bullets from the .38Spl rounds and how lead 9mm loads are OK but how jacketed rounds are not as accurate as they get with the .38Spl loads. And how we're talking about another .004?
This all just sounds like a horrible idea on any level.
