By Jim
It’s no secret that I like the old antique firearms. Half the fun of having older guns is the research involved and making the ammunition to get these old smoke wagons working again. So in the case of two of my antique revolvers, I have to make my own ammunition.
The first one I load for is a Scottish copy of the Webley RIC made by Mortimer of Edinburgh. The caliber is .450 Adams.
The second one is a Belgian copy of the British bulldog developed by Webley in 1872. The caliber of this revolver is .442 Webley.
I trim the cases for each revolver from nickel plated .44 magnum cases, and from 455 Webley cases respectively. Since both cases are similar in size I chose the nickel plated ones for the .442 to eliminate guess work as to which cartridge fits which pistol.
As with all antiques, I recommend that you do NOT use any smokeless loads in them despite smokeless data available. The reason behind this is the difference in the pressure curve between the two types of powder. Smokeless generates gas pressure to launch the projectile, while black powder is a low grade explosive.
Since I’m using modern solid head cases instead of the old ballon head cases, I’m able to trim each case slightly longer than the originals and still fit the chambers of the revolvers. Slugging the barrel on the .442 Webley shows that I need a diameter of .436”, and the .450 Adams needs a .454” bullet. They are NOT interchangeable. The .442 gets standard lube grooved bullets, while the .450 gets a powder coated bullet with no grease. A thin card wad with lube is seated under the base of the projectile on these. The bullets weigh 200 grains each pushed by a 13 grain charge of powder.
I’m currently working up a load recipe utilizing Triple 777 powder substitute because of the ease of cleaning and the fact that Triple 777 has about 15% more power than standard black powder. Using this powder I should be able to achieve the listed velocity of 650 - 700 feet per second. The bulldog does have the much shorter barrel so I doubt this velocity is obtainable with the gun.
I’ll be setting up the chronograph to test the loads and see what the loads do. At any rate, it should be fun firing these old guns.
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