Question for the experts

[franklyn]

Having no equipment to test my webley juniors output I wonder :-
If some expect, knowing his guns output fired a known pellet at point blank range agains a solid steel target then measured the resulting diameter of that pellet and quoted it on Airgun BBS.com could a novice like myself check a similar pellet fired in the same fashion? A micrometer would be handy, of course. Sorry if this sounds stupid, but I hope someone may know the answer.
Franklyn

[RobinC]

This is a joke isn't it?

[Rutty]

This is a joke isn't it?

Well, it's not a million miles away from the method of measuring breech pressure by using a copper crush disc. If you measured the thickness of a pellet fired from a series of guns of known power and then did the same for the unknown one the I guess that you could come up with some sort of correlation. However it might be easier to construct a Ballistic_pendulum. OTOH you could just buy a chrongraph and scales.

Rutty

[RobinC]

Firing an air pistol point blank into a steel plate?

Safety?

Particles splashing back?

Common sense says this is Stupid!

[franklyn]

Thanks for the replies Gents.

I did mention my pistol was a webley junior, not the most powerfull airgun I imagine?

I have test fired the webley from a distance of exactly three inches. The pellet head unfired was .173 inches in diameter.
After firing at the steel block I recovered the pellet and the head now measured .238 inches diameter.

Had this test been taken on a 303, the only rifle I used so many years ago I would not have been too happy to be within a hundred yards. As Robin, as one of the experts who answered my query pointed out so clearly, it would have been very dangerous. I have to repeat however, the gun in question was a Webley junior. I have no ides what reading one can expect from this type of revolver.

Perhaps another expert could repeat my test and confirm my revolver is underpowered or not, providing he has a suitable suit of armour to keep Robin Happy?

[edbear2]

HI, despite some of the replies, this is a sensible idea in theory, and was in the past (in a simplified form) a common method used by many people without access to ballistic pendulums (we are talking pre electronic chrono obviously!), or who had not built a strawboard tester.....It is mentioned and illustrated in L. Wesleys "Airguns and Pistols" (1961) book as a simple guide to the health of a gun......A full size adult gun ie. Airsporter, Webley Mk3 etc. back then, should shatter a pellet leaving only a central cone at point blank range. As a nipper we would compare guns between mates by doing it on a concrete slab!

The Strawboard filled box was also a bit of an industry standard for adverts etc, going way back.........basically a wooden frame with slots routed in, and thin boards dropped in at intervals, the power of the gun being expressed in penetration terms by how many boards the pellet pierced before coming to rest.

Anyway, to keep the H+S nazis happy........you could put the plate in a cardboard box to prevent splashback, although a Junior Webley normally runs at around 2 pounds energy, so believe me you are pretty safe with just a face mask / goggles as a sensible precaution.

Using a 12 foot pound gun, I have been cut by fragments returning from a steel target 18 feet away, so I am fully aware of what is possible, and wear eye protection when shooting at any hard faced target (knock down etc.) under 20 meters.....P.S.......Do not shoot steel BB's at standard pellet holders either, as they have an uncanny habit of coming straight back at you along the sight line.

Where was I........Oh yeah, really, unless you have a chrono (which is an essential tool to diagnose problems and to keep legal), your only option is to find someone who has a healthy tested example of an identical gun, and to get them to fire a certain pellet at either a hard surface, or a ballistic medium (wax, soap, jelly, phone book etc. etc.) and to report to you the outcome, you then than replicate the experiment to see how yours performs .......maybe ask the question in the collectables section, as there are dozens of Webley pistol experts in there!!

(In fact I will do this for you right now!)


This may be of interest in the meantime.......


All the best and above all have fun.........Ed

[RobinC]

This is the target and competition forum, what has this to do with that subject?

For clarity a Webley Junior is a vintage spring air pistol not a revolver!

But Safety is relevent to all gun use, and its also vital to ensure that we continue to be able to shoot long into the future.

Even at ten mts with low powered match guns splatter from the edge of a flattened pellet against an angled steel backstop can come back fast enough to pierce the target card in front of it.

Gun safety effects us all, I'm sorry you take my interest in sensible safety with such a frivolous atitude, I as a serious shooter for 40 years shooting fullbore, smallbore and air, and with a considerble investment in seeing the sport continue I have seen the serious sport and its rights eroded not only by deranged madmen, but also by simple idiots who end up as safety statistics defined as gun related which effects us all. One simple acident by an idiot often ends up in the national press and then the H&S nazis come after us all.

Robin

[franklyn]

I am so pleased that my request for expert advice on a forum I assumed filled with such experts gave Robin C a chance to preach firearm safety.
I regret his keenness to do so prevented his ability to relate to a simple request about a definite article. The question I posed refered to low powered Webley Junior pistol and a possible way of testing its efficiency.
I feel fortunate that two experts, namely Rutty and edbear replied to my request and gave answers to my questions sympathetically displaying much knowledge of the subject.
I am happy to apologise to Robin C, my interest in engineering problems, after many years on diesel and machine tool design did not include, at this time, health and safety. His advice, after his forty years of gun interest led me to recall some sixty years ago having two visits to a 303 rifle range in the RAF, during my national service and the rigorous safety practiced there. Despite the noise I enjoyed myself and later received a pair of crossed rifle badges to sew on my uniform. Most regrettably, as a national serviceman, no increase in pay came with the marksman qualification. Robin C, I expect, would find it most disappointing I also failed to bother sewing them on.
Earlier this year I handed in my .22 rifle, ammunition, moderator and licence to the Sutherland police. Having held a gun licence for many years the bother of renewing and the fact that rabbits no longer roam in Achmelvich brought this about. Safety was always a question, but now I own a Webley Junior and am now over eighty I must try harder.
It is so good we are all not of the same mind. It makes for an more interesting world.