Webley 455 "shaved" cylinder

Shaved so ACP moon clips will fit the cylinder. However, the ACP doesn't use the same bullet as a .455 Webley.
"...NOTHING "always" works...." My plans always work. Not always the way I intended though. snicker.
Oh and Watson was an Army doctor. There was no RAMC(Royal Army Medical Corps) until the Boer War(1899). No coordinated army medical service until 1873. Prior to that it was very much haphazard. No 'Officer' military ranks either. So Watson could have carried any revolver he wanted, provided it was chambered in the current calibre for when he served. No such thing as .455 Webley until 1887. Means it had to be a .450 Adams or .476 Enfield.
 
Very true, but the British Army medical officers had all advantages and privileges accorded to an officer, just not the official badge of rank.

Based on Doyle's writings, Watson would have entered the Army right around the time the Army Medical Service was established in 1873.
 
Sounds like you had one done by a crappy gunsmith.
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Or, looking at it another way, he took off just enough metal to get it to work, and no more. I would point out that its quite possible the point was to get it to work with ACP brass and a supplied clip.
Possibly, the idea of having it work with 45AR brass wasn't even considered. Auto Rim brass isn't exactly common, either. And it does still fire .455 ammo.

If I remember right, 45Auto Rim brass didn't come out until several years after the 1917s, were in use, and the rim was made as thick as it is, to fill the space in those guns.
 
OP, Webley's were also made in .38 S&W (yes S&W, not .38 Special) which is a very low pressure cartridge and they were never modified to shoot anything else. Can't say that .38 S&W is common, but it is available, but it'll run you about $30/50 rds. Reloading can drop that to about $9/50 rds.

It's something I've thought about doing myself. I feel that the .38 S&W Webley's will hold their value, if not increase in value because they've not been modified.
 
Imported Webley and Enfield revolvers in .380 Revolver were quite the different animal.

Again, there wasn't much ammunition available surplus from Britain, for the reasons I mentioned, but .38 S&W was, after WW II, still very commonly available and S&W was still chambering revolvers for the round, and would for another 20 to 30 years.



"Or, looking at it another way, he took off just enough metal to get it to work, and no more. I would point out that its quite possible the point was to get it to work with ACP brass and a supplied clip.
Possibly, the idea of having it work with 45AR brass wasn't even considered. Auto Rim brass isn't exactly common, either. And it does still fire .455 ammo."

I simply can't fathom why it won't work with AR brass, given the design purpose and specifications. But, whasevah.
 
I simply can't fathom why it won't work with AR brass, given the design purpose and specifications. But, whasevah.
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It doesn't work with AR brass because not quite enough metal was removed from the cylinder to allow it. The gun will close with AR brass in the chambers, but they are tight against the recoil shield, and won't allow the cylinder to turn.

I have no idea who did the work, or when, of course, but if there is one, there could be others.

I have been able to look at other shaved Webleys, and if you can put them side by side, its easy to see the difference, due to the numbers on the cylinders.

In other shaved guns, numbers like 3, 6, and 8 on the cylinder have their bottoms clipped off, on my gun only the outside edge of the bottom curve is clipped off.

Perhaps the guy who did the work simply set his cutting tool slightly wrong...perhaps every Webley he did is like that, perhaps, only the one I've got. No way to know.
 
Which, given the purpose for the existence of the .45 Auto Rim in the first place makes no sense.

If it doesn't work with the ARs, it shouldn't work with clipped .45 ACP ammo, either, because the the AR was designed to emulate the headspace created by use of .45 ACP ammo in clips
 
cj, My Mk VI is "shaved"/rear of cylinder machined, and functions fine with both moon clips with ACP brass, and with Auto Rim Brass. I would not attempt to shoot .455 Webley ammo in my gun due to the grossly excessive headspace my gun would have with the original ammo....ymmv

Judging from some informal measuring I've done, it appears the cylinder throats and groove diameter of my example are a lot tighter than .455". Closer to .450". Must be why .451" and .452" bullets work so well in my old (1918) gun;) I wasn't sure if the old gun would even stay on the paper at 15 yards, but was pleasantly surprised;)
 

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My S&W HE2 has had a M1917 cylinder installed in lieu of shaving.
The cylinder will accept ACP cases loaded with 260gr., .456" bullets, and the gun is reasonably accurate with that bullet.
It will just barely stay on a paper plate at 10yds shooting .45 hardball.

I've read Webleys do not have such oversized bores as the S&Ws, but don't know.
I'd become all excited when I'd discovered .45 Schofield cases chambering perfectly in my Webley Mk. I, but the rims are just thick enough to rub on the standing breech.
 
The .455 Webley was considered a devastating manstopper. It would pick a man up off his feet and knock him down with authority. The later .38 Webley's were a peashooter by comparison, barely more effective than a .22.
 
The original .455 was loaded with soft lead bullets. There was for a time, a "H" mantle bullet which was reported to be a devastating stopper.

Later FMJ slugs, not so much, but still a .45, and better than the .38 that replaced it. The British .38/200 is/was a .38S&W loaded with a 200gr bullet (and later a lighter FMJ to comply with the Hague accords), moving at about the speed of an arthritic turtle. Ok, maybe a healthy tortoise...:rolleyes:

Not considered a good manstopper in the US, and not well thought of by the line troops who had to use it.

Since Europeans essentially consider war a sporting event (and personal self protection is simply never even considered), the governments has no trouble agreeing to ban things that actually worked effectively.

The .455 Webley worked tolerably well in its military role, and reasonably well in the role of personal self defense, so of course, it had to be replaced by progressive small caliber advocates. 9mm was enough for the Germans, so surely .38 would be enough for the British...

The "barbarous colonials" in the US held on to our .45 because it worked well in both roles. it was only a political decision in the 50s that caused the replacement of the .45 with the 9mm in the 80s.

There are some, still, who think that was a poor decision.
 
There was a British theory on "stopping power" that the revolver bullet should be tuned to the resonant frequency of the human chest wall. A relatively slow heavy bullet was the best match and would beat that Fuzzy Wuzzy like a drum. The Manstopper bullets of wadcutter or hollow wadcutter configuration probably hurt even more.
 
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