MAS 1873 range day!

[Darc]

I finally got around to taking the old french revolver out again...had to blow the cobwebs out of it lol. Its in rough shape...not a collectors piece but its fun to shoot. These were my groups with Fiocchi 455 at 10 meters offhand...not bad for a 140 year old revolver with a sewer pipe for a bore !

 

[Milanczar]

Its in rough shape...not a collectors piece but its fun to shoot. These were my groups with Fiocchi 455 at 10 meters offhand...not bad for a 140 year old revolver with a sewer pipe for a bore !

Its not really in such rough shape.

It looks really nice actually. Certainly on my list of toys to get!

Well done!

 

[1873shootist]

Interesting. I wasn't aware that the French had big bore revolvers.

Just curious, but did you need to ream out the chambers for .455 Webley? I looked up the dimensions for the French cartridge and the diameter is supposed to be .451 for both the bullet and case, because it is a heeled bullet design I suppose.

The .455 Webley round uses a .454 bullet in a .480 diameter case.

Also, is the smokeless .455 Webley round safe to use in a black powder revolver? The French BP round was pretty anemic, although the MAS 1873 is regarded as a "stout" revolver, so it says.

 

[NorthCoastBigBore]

With the right boolits even a sewer pipe can perform very well

nice example!

 

[anchor3593]

They all shoot high - but maybe with the old factory 11 mm they shot lower.

 

[Thenoobgunsmith]

Very nice. Seems pretty accurate.

 

[Still alive]

Is this thing anything like the Russian Nagant revolver? Do they have the same family tree? Sure looks similar.

 

[Darc]

Interesting. I wasn't aware that the French had big bore revolvers.

Just curious, but did you need to ream out the chambers for .455 Webley? I looked up the dimensions for the French cartridge and the diameter is supposed to be .451 for both the bullet and case, because it is a heeled bullet design I suppose.

The .455 Webley round uses a .454 bullet in a .480 diameter case.

Also, is the smokeless .455 Webley round safe to use in a black powder revolver? The French BP round was pretty anemic, although the MAS 1873 is regarded as a "stout" revolver, so it says.

Yes the chambers were reamed out for 455 webley. I didnt do it ...I purchased it this way. I know the original french round was anemic...I was told the fiocchi rounds as well light hand loads would be ok for this revolver. I did notice that sometimes it shaves a little lead off of the round when fired..could be the slightly bigger .454 bullet. After 200 rounds of fiocchi on multiple range trips everything is still good...Im saving the brass and may attempt to reload in the future.