Webley & Scott 450 Express

[lkydvl]

Acquired the above at an area gun show. Looked to have had some rust issues on the receiver in the past and there are some very fine pits and an appearance of being scrubbed. Left barrel has a pit in the last 1/4 length of the barrel. Right is perfect. Saw JJ Perodeau at the Tulsa show and showed him pics of the rifle. It only has the three early proof marks on it. He said the barrels looked like Nitro barrels on an older shotgun frame. With the scrubbing on the receiver and lack of additional proofs he believed it was done then left via the back door without being proofed. Something to do with record keeping and company not fully paid for the materials and labor, an inside job so to speak. He suggested the usual 40% of BP load using 48 grs of 4198 with a 300 gr. bullet.

I loaded that as he suggested. What a great experience! Recoil was not bad at all. Shot above POA at about 40 yds and the rounds crossed over. Kept moving in until at 15 yds the were both in one ragged hole. I'll try a lower powder level and see how that does.

All in all a great afternoon on my range.

Andre`

 

[degoins]

Lovely rifle!! Best of luck with it.

 

[Red Leg]

J.J. is a national treasure.

As he suggests, be very careful with that thing. As you can tell from the screws, someone(s) also has been digging around inside that action (whatever it is) who had no clue. You definitely want to keep loads on the very mild side - nothing like a nitro load.

Someone could have created that gun in shop and then avoided proof, but I also would not be surprised if it wasn't cobbled together on this side of the pond.

 

[spike.t]

Is it just me or do the holes look different sizes in the photo showing down the barrels from the muzzle...

 

[degoins]

Hmm...…...they do look like different sizes.

 

[lkydvl]

Poor camera angle on that pic. They are the same size.

 

[Sarg]

Nice looking old double to me @lkydvl, I like its classic lines, must have done some work or had leaky cases or some thing for that pitting on the action face ?

Did you get it for a good price ?

 

[lkydvl]

I thought it was reasonable. Even with issues it functions very well and I'm happy to have it.

 

[Red Leg]

I thought it was reasonable. Even with issues it functions very well and I'm happy to have it.

Just be very careful with it - and even more careful should you eventually sell it. You have a non-proofed action of unknown origin attached to a set of nitro rifle barrels. Firing nitro loads in it could lead to an unfortunate outcome. That is not obvious to the uninformed buyer in this country who would believe he had an actual Webley & Scott .450 NE.

Just a data point, but such a rifle would be illegal to sell in the UK. It would have to go to a proof house, survive proof loads, and be so marked on the water table of the action to be offered for sale in its country of origin.

 

[lkydvl]

Your remarks smack more of an uppity down the nose edification to a person who can't possibly know anything about a subject than helpful advice.

Its clearly marked "450 Exp" which is definitely NOT a Nitro proof. I don't plan on selling it but IF I did I'm certainly not going to promote it as anything other than a BPE gun.

As a final note...Why would I care about its status in the UK?

 

[Red Leg]

Your remarks smack more of an uppity down the nose edification to a person who can't possibly know anything about a subject than helpful advice.

Its clearly marked "450 Exp" which is definitely NOT a Nitro proof. I don't plan on selling it but IF I did I'm certainly not going to promote it as anything other than a BPE gun.

As a final note...Why would I care about its status in the UK?

You are correct it is an Exp - missed that on the first couple of posts. My apologies for overstating the potential issues. However, that only makes the "rifle" somewhat less problematic. If you consider my cautions "uppity" then fine. Though, I suspect I may be more informed than you might imagine. I have had the privilege to deal with doubles for a while, and I only tried to make you aware of the potential legal issues such a gun can entail. I also tried to do it politely.

But allow me to be more specific. You have a rifle that I would consider potentially dangerous. I would be very careful with the nitro for BP loads. I personally would not fire it. However, I hope you have great success with it.

Your final statement speaks volumes about many of the guns we find in this country. The UK would consider such a rifle unsafe to fire and thus illegal to sell. But here, we can pass it along to whomever is willing to write a check - or sell it to anyone else who doesn't know any better.

 

[Tanks]

Your remarks smack more of an uppity down the nose edification to a person who can't possibly know anything about a subject than helpful advice.

If you have been browsing the forums since June, 2020 I hope you realize that between @Red Leg and @cal pappas information about shotguns and double rifles is basically covered in totality. I don't see anything uppity about what was said.

 

[lkydvl]

Could be but I'll trust JJ Perodeau, if you don't mind. He believed it was safe fire using BPE level loads. If I wanted to load Nitro he recommended it be proofed. Which is good common sense. As my intended use is BPE loads I'll not pursue that at this point.