One Shot Does Not a pattern Make, but...(Webley)

My junk-critter load for a good while was a .45 ACP pushing a 200 grain LSWC at a shade over 600 fps. It flat put a whack on them and was just as sure a killer as the same slug at 1000 fps.
 
"The "killing power" of the .38/200 in British service is a bit questionable since the British never used it in combat."

Never in combat against European enemies.

The round was used by British troops serving in Africa and Asia and apparently was involved in some action in Colonial activities.

But... I don't think anyone was talking about the killing power of the .380-200 round. Only its velocity in relation to other rounds in British service, so I'm not sure why you bring this up...
 
especially its killing power at close, trench hand to hand distances.
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Pretty much what I said about feet rather than yards.

British officers leading from the front depends on circumstance. They stood behind the thin red line and within the squares.
But, yes when it came to going over the top they were right in front. The toll on jr. officers during WWI was, as you know, horrendous. They did carry a Webley then, they also might have carried a swagger stick, a cane or an Enfield. Going over the top a British officer's job was herding the troops not taking snap shots at the Bosh.

I'm not saying that the Webley wasn't effective at putting holes in people. My point was more that it's given role didn't call for that high of a velocity comparable to American military handguns.

BTW Fiocchi says you should be getting ~655fps.
 
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One must remember that European ideas about stopping power, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th century, were quite different from American ideas. The .455 Webley was actually quite the powerhouse when compared to cartridges like the 8mm Lebel Revolver, 7.5mm Swiss ordinance revolver, and 7.62 Nagant. Even in the United States, cartridges like .32 S&W Long were often considered adequate and were the chosen cartridges of many large police departments (if the police were even armed at all). Even the .38 Long Colt was thought to be satisfactory until our experiences with the Moros. Even when the U.S. Army chose .45 caliber revolvers as their standard issue handgun, they chose to use either the milder .45 Schofield ammunition or, in the case of the M1909 Colt New Service, severely downloaded .45 Long Colt ammo.
 
Even when the U.S. Army chose .45 caliber revolvers as their standard issue handgun, they chose to use either the milder .45 Schofield ammunition or, in the case of the M1909 Colt New Service, severely downloaded .45 Long Colt ammo.
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Huh? The Colt Single Action Army revolver of 1873 was chambered for .45 Colt. It was standard issue until 1892. By 1911 the equally powerful .45 ACP had been adopted as standard.

I do understand that the Smith & Wesson revolver was chambered for lesser rounds, but even in the final ".45 Schofield" adaptation it was nearly as powerful as the .45 Colt.

If the contention is that American .45 caliber military handguns of the 19th century were just as anemic as their European counterparts, well, that's just flat out not correct in my view.

Oly
 
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Even when the U.S. Army chose .45 caliber revolvers as their standard issue handgun, they chose to use either the milder .45 Schofield ammunition or, in the case of the M1909 Colt New Service, severely downloaded .45 Long Colt ammo.

Huh? The Colt Single Action Army revolver of 1873 was chambered for .45 Colt. It was standard issue until 1892. By 1911 the equally powerful .45 ACP had been adopted as standard.

I do understand that the Smith & Wesson revolver was chambered for lesser rounds, but even in the final ".45 Schofield" adaptation it was nearly as powerful as the .45 Colt.
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While the SAA was indeed chambered for the .45 Colt cartridge, the army chose instead to issue either .45 S&W ammo or a shorter cartridge known as the .45 Government. The reason for this was that the army had also ordered a fairly large number of S&W Model 3 Schofield revolvers to test for cavalry use. The .45 S&W and .45 Government ammo was issued out of fear that the wrong ammunition would wind up in the hands of a soldier with a S&W. The SAA could easily use both cartridges. While the .45 Schofield and .45 Government cartridges were indeed more powerful than their European competitors, they were not as powerful as the original .45 Long Colt loadings. Even .45 Long Colt ammunition wound up downloaded from its original specifications due to what was considered at the time to be excessive recoil. In its original loading, 40grn of black powder could propel the 255grn bullet of the .45LC to over 1000fps from a 7 1/2" barrel.

Also, the .45LC revolvers were re-adopted as standard issue prior to the adoption of the 1911. Due to the percieved inadequacies of the .38 Long Colt, the army adopted the Colt New Service DA revolver in .45 LC in 1909. The ammunition issued for this was severely downloaded as it was feared that the new smokeless ammunition would wind up in an old black powder revolver. If memory serves, the specified velocity of the 1909 spec ammo was somewhere in the 700-750fps range.

Finally, one must remember that a handgun was intended for different purposes in the U.S. as opposed to Europe. When we adopted the SAA, M1909 New Service, and even the 1911 we envisioned the primary users of the gun to be cavalry. The revolver was often the cavalryman's only weapon and had to be effective not only on people, but on horses as well. Europeans, by comparison, still placed much more stock in sabers and lances as weapons of the cavalry. Even in the hands of an officer, the handgun was really more a badge of rank than anything. A good illustration of this is the French M1892 Lebel revolver which had a cylinder that swung out to the right rather than the left. This was not because the French had an over abundance of left-handed officers, but because at that time the saber was still viewed as the officers primary weapon and thusly the revolver was intended to be wielded in the left hand.
 
Hate to burst the bubble but my ex NWMP .455 New Service

has been used to put down quite a few animals a lot larger than an average man of the 1890s-1940s. That old slow bullet is deadly. It either goes right on through or, if bone is hit, expand a lot.
Compare it to a Colt 44 percussion Army that seemed to work okay in The War of Northern Aggression. Might be illuminating.......
 
Back to the OP... it might just be that it's Fiocci.

I ran a box of 148grn .38 spl wadcutters through my j-frame a few weeks ago. It was advertised as being around 800fps. Out past 15 yards, they were tearing holes in the target and leaving the impression of the front of the wadcutter on the paper. When I say "tearing," I mean it looked like they were keyholing because they were going so slow they weren't making a hole in the paper.

They make a zippy .32acp and somehow gained the reputation for being "hot," but my experience with their ammo has been just the opposite.
 
Just to clarify on the .45 cartridges. There was really no ".45 S&W" as distinct from the ".45 Government." Both names were used for the round that could be used in either the Colt Model 1873 and the S&W Schofield.

Nor did the government make or issue any .45 Colt ammunition after about 1874. All the ammunition issued by the Army from then until the end of the SA era was made at Frankford Arsenal and all was the shorter ".45 Government" cartridge. (So, contrary to some stories, Custer's troops did not have ".45 Colt" ammunition, even though they had Colt .45 revolvers.)

Commercial ammo was made, and that is where there is confusion, as rounds were headstamped ".45 S&W", ".45 C GOVT", and ".45 COLT" by the different makers. I guess it was up to the owner of a Schofield to make sure that he got the right ".45 COLT" cartridge.

Jim
 
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