The diagrams posted above are in fact scanned from
The Webley Story (first published 1962) which has long been considered the "bible" relative to Webley handguns. I have a copy, of course, and it is chock full of information ...... although it is written in a rather pedantic style which can be difficult to follow. Also. it is not terribly well illustrated by "modern" standards ..... in the sense that the numerous photographs are collected together in sections of "plates" printed on glossy paper scattered in separate groupings interspersed throughout the volume in the "old style", so that one must constantly be flipping back and forth between text and plates. It is also not infallible .... for example, Dowell can possibly be credited with being the origin of the very incorrect term "Webley-Green" in relation to Webley's "WG" models. At any rate, he says that is what the abbreviation means without citing any authority whatsoever for the assertion, which is entirely incorrect. The "Green" in question was a rival gun designer who was never associated in any way with the Webley company .... and contemporary Webley records and promotional materials make it clear that the abbreviation in fact stands for "Webley Government" ..... However, most people today still refer to these models as "Webley-Greens" ....
Actually, an arguably better book is Bruce and Reinhart's "Webley Revolvers" ..... which they themselves acknowledge is essentially an update of Dowell's work, rather more concise and readable, with corrections and additional information, and better illustrated, with new photographs printed right on (or very near) the same pages as the related text .... in the more modern style. Unfortunately, this more recent work (1988) is also out of print, and thus quite expensive when you can find a copy ..... (Would I be correct in assuming that the book you currently have is the recently published
"The Webley Service Revolver" by Robert Maze?)
Yes, about the only .455 brass currently available is Mark II - either once-fired Fiocchi cases, or the cases currently made by Hornady. Either way, I understand that it is difficult to locate .... although not impossible. I have a fair quantity of old Dominion .455 Colt cases (equivalent to the Mark I service cartridge) which I use for loading that length of round (e.g. when I want a full black powder load) but for the most part do my smokeless loads in Mark II cases. As mentioned above, the shorter length will work just fine in any .455 Webley revolver .... Mind you, you may be able to find Dominion .455 Colt cases at gun shows in Canada, if you have any hankering for the "original" cartridge. They are the older "semi-baloonhead" type of case (rather than the modern type with a solid web of brass surrounding the primer pocket) so they are a bit less durable .... but I have used mine for numerous reloads without many problems, other than a very few "head separations".
The ideal bullet for loading .455 cartridges is a hollow-based one, cast fairly soft. Webley service revolvers usually have a chamber throat diameter which is actually less than the true bore diameter .... meaning that the bullet exiting the chamber is rally a bit undersized for the bore .... which is where a hollow base and soft composition come in handy, allowing the the base of the bullet to expand again for effective engagement of the rifling. This seems to have been an intentional design characteristic, not accidental. My own pet theory of the reasoning behind this relates to the relatively light powder charges of the .455 revolver cartridges - for example the Mark I .455 cartridge had a powder charge of only 18 grains of black powder, pushing a 265 grain bullet .... compared to the contemporary american .45 Colt cartridge, with a 40 grain charge of black powder and a 250 grain bullet. It is surmised that the oversized bullet needing to be forced through a tight chamber throat forces the most complete and efficient combustion of the powder charge possible, thus increasing the pressure and velocity .... but by then the bullet has been "swaged down" below bore diameter, so the hollow base and relatively soft alloy are needed for bullet expansion into the rifling, for accuracy. Whether that is the really what is happening or not, the fact is that such .455 revolvers, shot with that type of cartridge, are very accurate and have excellent "stopping power" .... (I am also a great fan of the .45 Colt cartridge . which is what I use exclusively in cowboy Action shooting - but in my view a full charge of black powder - limited to about 35 grains in modern solid-head cartridge cases - is in fact rather excessive, resulting in incomplete combustion of the powder charge, and altogether too much recoil .... as well as excessive gas leakage at the cylinder/barrel gap, smoke and flash .... for the actual effectiveness of the cartridge.)
If you want to get into casting bullets, a mould which produces an excellent bullet of the "original" design - i.e. a 265 grain hollow-based bullet with the traditional "long pointy nose" - essentially a copy of the .455 Mark II bullet shown above - is the RCBS "45-265-RN-HB" mould. Here is an image of the mould cavity, with the base-forming plug in place -
This is not a "cheap" mould - a set of mould blocks are running about US$120 nowadays, and you must also buy separate handles for the mould blocks .... unless you already have the right size of handles for other mould blocks. However, a decent set of steel mould blocks like this for
any bullet will be
at least US$60 or so, anyway. This is a "limited production" mould, with the added complication of a hollow-base forming plug, hence the high price. Lee Precision produce a decent set of economically priced loading dies for .455 Webley, which is what I in fact use. Initial cash outlay for the moulds, dies and such for such an "obsolete" cartridge can be fairly high ... but in reality is the only feasible way to go if one wants to shoot the .455 with regularity. When one realizes that a box of 50 bullets of this type, sized and lubed, will likely cost $35 or $40 - if you can find someone producing them - and 50 loaded cartridges - if you can locate any - will probably cost in the range of $100 or more, the outlay for casting and loading equipment doesn't seem so bad!
Here are bullets cast in the above mould; the loaded cartridges in the lower image are as follows (left to right) -
- factory loaded Mark II .455 cartridge
- factory loaded .455 Colt (i.e. Mark I) cartridge (Dominion)
- hand loaded cartridge using Dominion .455 Colt case and the bullet from this mould, and the Lee dies
- hand loaded cartridge using .45 Colt case shortened and modified to .455 Mark I specs, with the same bullet
In response to your final question, Mk. II (or Mk II) is simply an abbreviation of "Mark II" and the terms are properly interchangeable ..... although the author of your current work may have intentionally used the two different forms that way - i.e. one form to refer to the revolver and the other form to refer to the cartridge - as a matter of convenience. As you likely know, the term "Mark" is simply British War Department terminology to refer to successive versions of something, where the differences are considered sufficiently significant to warrant calling them separate "models", so to speak. Relatively minor variations in a "sealed pattern" which warrant some sort of differentiation in terminology, but which are
not considered sufficiently significant to warrant calling something an entirely new "Mark", are denoted by "stars" shown in written form as asterisks - as in "Mark II**" Thus, for example, you have a "Mark II" or "Mk II" revolver and
also a "Mark II" or "Mk II" cartridge ..... but that does not necessarily mean that they are related to one another chronologically (or in actual use) - it just means that the particular "sealed pattern" being thus referred to is the second version of each item which was officially adopted. (In our current discussion, for example, the .455 Webley Mark II revolver pattern was adopted in 1895, and was really designed (and proofed) only for the black powder Mark I .455 cartridge ..... and, technically at least, was probably inadequate in strength for a steady diet of the smokeless Mark II cartridge (1898) ..... even though many such revolvers were very likely shot with the newer cartridge (with a somewhat higher "failure rate", no doubt, than if they had been shot only with Mark I cartridges .....
