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I've been doing a bit of work on reloading this cartridge and I've been writing it up as I go. As a newbie here I'm not sure how much I'm supposed to post at any one time. If I'm doing too much just tell me.

The Gun

I bought a 1902 falling block, single shot Webley which originally had a telescopic sight which has gone the way of all flesh over the years. I got a copy of Webley’s original sales day book and it told me that the gun was originally sold in 1904 to W.H. Milsted & Co, Colonial Agents in London. The gun is in sound mechanical condition and has been refinished at some time in the distant past. The auctioneer’s description was,

WEBLEY & SCOTT ARMS CO. LTD.
A .375 (EXPRESS) 1902 PATENT FALLING-BLOCK SPORTING RIFLE,
26in. blacked nitro barrel signed '.375 2 1/2IN. CASE / WEBLEY & SCOTT ARMS CO. LTD. 78 SHAFTSBURY AVENUE, LONDON, & BIRMINGHAM / 40 GRS CORDITE. 270 GRS NICKEL COATED BULLET', bead fore-sight, block-mounted rear express sight of five folding leaves each with platinum-inlaid centre-line and calibrated to 500 yards, the breech-end of the barrel and the rear of the sight-block fitted with telescopic sight bases, blacked border and scroll engraved action signed 'WEBLEY & SCOTT ARMS CO. LTD.' on the left side and 'WEBLEY PATENT NO. 6365 1902' on the right side, manual safety with gold-inlaid 'SAFE', 14in. figured pistolgrip stock, chequered grip and fore-end, horn fore-end cap and butt-plate, iron sling eyes (metal parts recoloured).

Dies

I discovered that they aren’t exactly common but RCBS will make you a set at an exorbitant price. I was complaining about this to a good pal who lives in California and he was sure there was a better deal than that and suggested CH. I established that they had what I wanted and 8 days after I e-mailed my credit card details across, a fine set of dies arrived here in the UK. It’s a three die set and, once adjusted, works perfectly. The only reservation I have is that the sizing die seems to be on the generous size for my chamber. This hasn’t presented me with any problems so far but running some old Berdan primed cases I bought into the sizer didn’t bring all of them down far enough to chamber in my rifle. The Kynamco cases I have seem to be sized sufficiently but as I’m only using moderate loads perhaps the die is only neck sizing them. If this becomes a problem I may need to seek a solution, perhaps with a custom made sizing die.

I didn’t buy a shell holder at the time because Cartridges of the World says that the case head is almost identical to a 303 British and I already had one of those. This was a mistake as the 303 British shell holder I’ve got is just a bit too big. This only really matters when I’m using my Lee Auto Prime II. This takes conventional shell holders and a couple of times I popped a case through the holder whilst seating a primer (more of this anon) with slight damage to the case rim. This was easily fixed with a fine file but isn’t a desirable state of affairs. The solution turned out to be a 44/40 shell holder which holds the Kynamco cases I’m using much more snugly.

Sizing the cases is much easier than say 303 British; I use lanolin as a sizing lubricant. The die sizes about the first 5/8ths” of the case neck with parallel sides and the rest of it with a gentle taper. I haven’t found it necessary to lubricate the inside of the case necks. Because I’ve got a single shot rifle I’m not crimping but I’m not sure crimping would be necessary anyway as the neck tension is quite good.

Brass

I could buy Bertram brass over here from Midway UK but they are incredibly expensive. I think there may be US laws that don’t allow your dealers sending formed brass overseas because nobody seemed to be interested in supplying me, even though I could buy them cheaper in the US rather than the UK.

I contacted Kynamco to see if they would sell me brass ( http://www.new-kynoch.apt-sites.com/ ). They are only about 50 miles away from here so I called them and asked if they had any cases to spare. They did and I bought fifty at about two pounds each including postage. They arrived within a few days. They explained to me that their willingness to supply depends on how many cases they’ve got in stock. They keep minimum number of cases so that they can load a batch of ammunition if they receive an order.

The cases are headstamped Kynoch and I’ve been told that they are sourced from Bertram. I’ve also been told that Bertram source their brass from India. This could explain a lot! I discovered three minor but irritating problems with the cases. Firstly one of them was about 1/5” short; so short that it would have meant completely readjusting the dies to reload it. Consequently I only got 49 usable cases. Secondly the flash holes are very tight. On my first go at reloading the cases they kept pulling the decapping pin out of the die (it’s a straight pin held in a collet with no head). I cured this by substituting the shank end of a 1.5mm drill for the CH decapping pin. I don’t like opening up flash holes but running a 2mm drill through them would have solved the problem. On all the 303 British cases I’ve got a 2mm drill will easily pass through the flash holes so it’s the 375 brass that has the problem. Lastly, the primer pockets seem shallow. I’ve tried several brands of large rifle primer and they all require some force to get them to seat flush with the case head. I don’t like crushing a primer but it’s better than leaving it proud. This was how I discovered the shell holder problem mentioned above. I’ve toyed with the idea of using magnum large pistol primers. As we’re operating at a lot less pressure than a 44 Magnum the capability of the primer cup to stand up to the pressure wouldn’t be a problem but I’m not sure that they would have sufficient brisance to kick off 40 plus grains of powder. As soon as I can cadge a few I’ll try this. One of the cases split on the first reload.

I’ve considered forming cases from other brass. The two I’ve tried are 405 Winchester and 9.3X74. Both formed perfectly satisfactorily in the CH sizing die and then needed trimming to length. The only, rather fundamental, problem was that they wouldn’t chamber. They appear to be slightly too wide across the base of the case and even forcing the case right into the sizing die with no shell holder and then tapping it out didn’t solve this. I feel there may be some rim dimensional problems as well. As this involves lathe work I’ve shelved this for the time being. I recently had another think about this and decided that there just had to be a sizing die out there that would bring the case head down the few thousands of an inch I needed. There is and it’s called a 44 Special (or Magnum). Again I passed the cases into the die without a shellholder and tapped them out. The result is cases that have the correct head diameter but still won’t chamber. This needs more work as I now think the taper on the case is incorrect for my gun. You would think that my sizing die would solve this but it doesn’t.

I did have one other flash of inspiration. Why not fire form a 303 case for a 375 short? I loaded up some Winchester Western 303 cases with 8 grains of an old Nobel powder roughly equivalent to Bullseye, pushed down a pinch of kapok to hold the powder in place, topped off the case with semolina (cream of wheat?) and a 1/8” wax plug in the end of the case just to hold it together. I took these down to the range, fired them vertically into the air and wound up with perfectly formed cases. One out of the five I tried split at the neck. The body of the case is fine but the neck is now only about ¼” long. There seems to be no reason why these cases couldn’t now be loaded with light loads and shot, I just haven’t tried it yet. I have been told that the same process can be applied to 30/40 Krag cases and this will produce a slightly longer, although still short for the calibre, case.

I wasn’t really happy with any of the above and so continued to scour the Internet and finally discovered Herr Horneber.

http://www.huelsen-horneber.de/frame_engl.html

He allegedly makes all sorts of obscure cases and so I e-mailed him with an enquiry. He replied to the effect that he will do a run of 375 X 2½” cases early in the New Year (although he didn’t say which one as I placed the order in 2008 I assumed he meant 2009) and if I would care to forward 187 Euros he will send 100 to me. I’ll leave you to work out the economics of this but even with the exchange rate against Sterling as it is, they looked to be cheaper than Bertram or Kynamco. Sadly after 18 months he has taken my money, failed to deliver the cases and no longer replies to my e-mails. If you choose to deal with him then caveat emptor because I’m down 187 Euros on the deal and feel pretty sore about it.

I picked up a good supply of old Berdan primed original Kynoch cases and a small supply of recently manufactured primers. I hydraulically de-capped some of the cases and successfully reloaded those that would size sufficiently. My experiments are limited by the fact I can’t obtain any more primers.

Bullets

You may know that in the UK our enlightened government won’t allow me to have expanding bullets for target shooting so I have a choice between jacketed and cast. Jacketed seems to be a good idea but try getting them. All the solids I can locate are either steel jacketed at a prodigious price or solid copper at even more. One will be hard on my barrel and one on my pocket. An alternative that I intend to try are the South African Frontier Bullets ( http://www.frontierbullets.co.za/gameranger.htm ). I don’t know if they are available in the US but I can get them here. They are not expensive and I’ve tried their 303 bullets with good results. They appear to have a very long bearing surface so loads may need to be adjusted accordingly.

To get shooting I had a rush of blood to the head and bought some Precision Cast 265 grain gas check bullets from Midway UK. These are intended for the 38-55 and are sized .379”; I sized them down to .376” (that’s how my barrel slugs out). Whilst the cost would indicate that they are pure gold they are really a hard alloy with a wax type lubricant. They are also absolutely brilliant. They shoot at 2,000 fps with no appreciable leading and are remarkably accurate. I’d use them forever except that over here they are rather pricey.

I have located two UK bullet casters that can supply me with a 280 grain gas check bullet from what looks like a Saeco mould. These are cast hard and dipped lubed with the Lee Alox stuff. I have no problem with this, it just looks untidy and I confess to re-sizing and lubing the bullets again myself. They shoot just as well as the Cast Precision bullets with full loads. The Saeco catalogue says these bullets weigh 265 grains but lubed and with the gas check the one’s I’m shooting are more like 280 grains.

As I cast bullets I acquired the Lee 38-55 250 grain plain base bullet mould and this proved to be a total dead loss. The bullet needs so much sizing down that it’s distorted and shoots around corners. Fortunately the mould cost me very little. Sooner or later I’ll buy a proper mould.

Loads

I was fortunate to pick up some Kynoch original ammunition in sealed boxes date coded 1938. In the interests of research I pulled one cartridge and it contained exactly 40 grains of stick cordite in a balloon head case. The bullet had a thin glazed card wad underneath it. The bullet weighs 270 grains and is stab crimped into the case very close to its base. Amazingly the bullet has the letter “K” embossed on its base. Heaven alone knows why they did that but it does look nice. As I had 34 rounds of this I shot five rounds over my chronograph to see what they do. They averaged 1958 fps and were very consistent. They are undoubtedly corrosively primed so I had to scrub the gun out well afterwards. A reproduction of an old ICI Sporting Ammunition Catalogue I have gives a muzzle velocity of 2100 fps from a 25” barrel but I can only report the results I got.

I borrowed a copy of Graeme Wright’s excellent book on loading double rifles and he gives several loads for this cartridge but I can’t speak for them personally. However he tells us that in working with cartridges that were originally loaded with Cordite the following factors can be applied:

1.19 X cordite for Reloader 15
1.33 X cordite for IMR 4831.

I could get Reloader 15 easily enough and so I tried 47 grains with the 265 grain Precision Cast bullet and hit pay dirt straight away. Over my chronograph this averaged 2,050 fps and was very close to factory ballistics according to the old catalogue.

I’ve recently bought some Accurate Arms 2520 and got good results with the Saeco bullet, although I haven’t chronographed them yet. I tried 43, 45 and 47 grains and the middle load, subjectively, felt about right. I had an old sealed can of Nobel No. 2 Rifle powder and found that 42 grains with the Saeco bullet provided a good load. I’ve also going to try IMR 3031, which I use in my 303. Wright doesn’t seem to recommend it for the larger British cases but in the 375 X 2½” it should perfom well.

For light loads I’ve experimented with Accurate Arms 5744. 26 grains gave about 1,600 fps and one of the tightest cast bullet groups I’ve ever shot. This worked with both the Precision Cast and Saeco bullets. It’s great fun to shoot too!

I hope the above helps and I’d love to hear from other users of this cartridge. Particularly from anyone who has managed to make cases from other commonly available brass.