An assortment of .450 Revolver cartridges..If you see one and are not sure

[Bob Riebe]

I have a revolver designed to shoot these, and have a lot , even enough of some for shooting.



 The first three cartridges are unnheadstamped; the remaining cartridges are headstamped as follows: #4 - Georg Egestorff, Linden (Germany), #5 thru #8 - Eley (London) #9 - Marcel Gaupillat (Paris),


 #10 (lower picture) - Gustav Genschow (Berlin), #11 and #12 - Kynoch (London), #13 and #14 - Remington UMC (made 1912 and later), #15 - R.W.S. (Nurnberg, Germany), #16 - Sellier & Bellot (Prague, Czechoslovakia), UMC (pre-1912), and  V.F.M & C A LEIGE (V. Francotte-May & Company, Leige, Belgium), a gun seller for whom  headstamped ammunition was manufactured, probably by one of the major cartridge makers.   


Here is a group of .450 centerfire revolver cartridges representing production over a number of years and from several different countries. The 1st, 5h and 6th cartridges in the top picture are early examples with two piece cases, the head and case body being riveted together by the primer. On the 1st cartridge, the head is made of steel; on the other two, the heads are brass. The two with the blunt nosed bullets are target loads, examples of which are shown in the Eley advertisement shown in the reproduction to the right.
 

[darkgael]

Bob: very nice collection. Do the bullets all measure the same or close?

[Bob Riebe]

Bob: very nice collection. Do the bullets all measure the same or close?

While I have most of these, the pictured ones belong to Mr. Punett, who I met at the St.Louis Cartridge show and In the past spoke to online.
He is VERY big on true .455 short cartridges, though due most people know little about British/European rounds he is very well informed on most all .45/.455 rounds as he is asked a LOT most with in that range.

(I used to have nearly all of them, and also U.S. .45 rounds lined up neatly and displayed with description on a case hanging on the wall; one day I opened it work on it, left door open, bent over, stood up and caught the open door with my head, all X hundred went tumbling down.
I was so pissed off, I never have spen the hour it would take to line them up correctly again.)

Technically they are all actually .455, though, Continental Europe cartridges called .450 (they rarely used the term .45 or even .455 ) can some times be off by ..002 to .010 usually tech. under sized.

Manual of Pistol and Revolver Cartridges by ERLMEIER Hans A., BRANDT Jakob H., MULLER Alfonse
List the range of bullet sizes and particular cartridge could be found in plus or mins.
I have the most recent version, all three volumes in one binding, but it is getting very, very hard to find.

I got it at the St.Louis Cartridge Collectors show twenty years ago. ----  (I paid by C card ... well he sent me an E mail some time later saying his C card machine screwed  up and the purchase was not received  {he kept paper records of all transactions , I may still have the hand written receipt } , could I call him or send a money order.
I mailed him a money order ... he sent me an E mail saying THANK YOU, YOU ACTUALLY PAID FOR iT.
 He had expected really that {his words} I would just act like his problem not mine like too many in the past.
He was very , very thankful, as 40 dollars back then was still a lot of money.) ----

Cartridge collectors are hoping a newer version, with errors (he made a few due to lack of ability to collect some data at the time) corrected.
Plus there are more physical examples of many now than there were twenty plus years ago.

I belong to the International Ammunition Association, so I get discount deal on hotel room but simply cannot afford to go at this point.
I used to belong to the European version of said same but paying for yearly membership is out of my pay scale now.