OT 455 Ely?

[20cows]

I have friend looking for 455 Ely ammunition to use in Colt revolver chambered for it. I'm not having much luck finding information on it.

[2ndovc]

Try Grafs & Sons.

Hornady made a special run of obsolete militay cartridges and the .455 Eley was one of them.
I bought several boxes when it came out.

Fiocchi makes it too but it's a little harder to find. My opinion it is a better load. The Hornady ammo is
on the feeble side. Mainly shot it up so I could reload my own. Was cheaper than buying brass at the time.

jb

[20cows]

Grafs no gotty now.

[2ndovc]

Midway and Cabela's are out too.

Someday they'll catch up.

I hope!

jb

[adirondakjack]

A few years ago I bought a full box of Canadian made .455 Eley dating to the 1920s? at a local auction. I paid $30 for the box, and it went on auction arms for $85. The buyer only wanted it for the brass. He sold the empty BOX for $40.

[20cows]

I looked at Steve's Pages cartridge dimensions and some info on the 455 Colt Ely and found out the 455 Webley Mark I is apparently the same. I then found 455 Colt brass at Buffalo Arms. From what I can tell, this may be the beast.

[jd45]

How about The Old Western Scrounger? Just a thought, jd45

[John in MS]

I helped a friend wrestle with this same question a while back. As it turned out, he wound up buying Hornady-made .455 Mark II brass which was plentiful and cheap at Grafs. It is a bit shorter than .455 Eley, IIRC, but the rim diameter is apparently correct and it should work. To get proper-length .455 Eley brass, he was going to have to shorten .45LC brass quite a bit, and then turn the case rims to a smaller diameter, etc. Discretion was the better part of valor...
He also was able to buy .455 MK II dies from Graf's at the same time as he got the brass.

One thing I do recall was that in his research, he found that his minty Colt New Service built c. 1916, while on Colt's
large frame, is not heat treated like guns built later. Thus he has to load it very mild to keep from loosening up his
pistola, even though the New Service as a species was chambered for some much more powerful cartridges later on.
I'd be careful not to over-stress whatever .455 Eley you're loading for.

hope this helps,
John