I'm rereading "Bell of Africa." In the introduction and in the first chapters, he, and his editor repeatedly state that he used a 450 Winchester. Cartridges of the world lists no such cartridge. I'm thinking that maybe it was a 405 Winchester. The book was published after his death. Maybe his editor, being unfamiliar with firearms, made a mistake. Does anyone have any knowledge about this? Captdavid

This was his first trip, and it only had hollow points. It was a single shot. Captdavid

The Winchester single shot , Model 1885, was chambered for the excellent .45-125. In the UK,it was known as a .450.
Could this be it?
Cal

Way to go Cal!

I believe it was a Farquharson, but I had wondered if it was an U.S. cartridge with a Brit name. Captdavid

quote:

Originally posted by captdavid:
The book was published after his death. Maybe his editor, being unfamiliar with firearms, made a mistake. Does anyone have any knowledge about this? Captdavid

The book was compiled by Townsend Whelen as I recall. There may have been an editing error but I would be surprised if it was due to any unfamiliarity with firearms on Whelen's part.

I don't know what Bell was using but Winchester did chamber some 1885 singles in 450 and 500 bpe for the British market.

quote:

Originally posted by rglenz:
I don't know what Bell was using but Winchester did chamber some 1885 singles in 450 and 500 bpe for the British market.

Over the years I've seen a few in .577. I seem to remember Bell with a .45-125 but can't find the reference.
Cal

Winchester did ship 1885s to England that were chambered and marked 45 Eley and London proof marked as ".450 Exp.". The 45 Eley, 45 Eley Express, and .450 Exp." are the same and use the 3 1/4" case. (I would surmise these are the same as the 45-125, or 45 Express.)

Thinking Eley and Winchester had an agreement that Eley would manufacture ammo for this particular rifle so that's why they were stamped as such? Eley's cartridge was stamped "45 EX. WIN.". Both American and British loadings had the 300 gr. hollow point bullet filled with the copper tube that Bell found inadequate on large game.

Kinda surprising in itself as there weren't many 45 Eley made in the Model 1885 that one would wind up in Bell's hands.

Or hell, who knows, maybe Farquharson did make a rifle chambered for this round since ammo was available.

quote:

Originally posted by captdavid:
I'm rereading "Bell of Africa." In the introduction and in the first chapters, he, and his editor repeatedly state that he used a 450 Winchester. Cartridges of the world lists no such cartridge. I'm thinking that maybe it was a 405 Winchester. The book was published after his death. Maybe his editor, being unfamiliar with firearms, made a mistake. Does anyone have any knowledge about this? Captdavid

It could be a Win 1885 in .450 3 1/4"..?
http://www.gunauction.com/buy/13342127

The highwall is also encounted in another express cartridge called the .45 ELEY which is a `brother ` to the .450 3 1/4"express.(they both fit into the same chamber)

The .45-120Sharps may fit into a .450 3,1/4" chamber but not viceversa.

Or maybe Bell thinks of this one?.
http://www.cartridgecollector....5-winchester-express

From the photos provided by the above link. The 45-125 and 45 Ely are the same cartridge and bottlenecked.
Therefore, I do not think the bottled neck 45-125 is interchangeable with the straight 450 bpe 3 1/4 case/chamber.

I could be reading the link to the 45 Ely wrong, so someone tell me if I am.

Captdavid good catch. Good post.

My guess would have been .45-75. It was widely available. Eley and others loaded it. It was used by the RCMP for 27 years. It was an original chambering of the Winchester single shot. Ammunition was available from Winchester into the mid-1930s. It would explain Bell's opinion of it as ineffective, something it is less likely he would have said about the .45-125. The .45-125 was rather obscure and Winchester dropped it after only a few years. But, again, it's just a guess.

Page 16 of Bell of Africa, Karamojo's description of the rifle in question:

"Meeting one day a Greek trader at a common camp, we compared rifles. That of the Greek was a Winchester single shot black powder .450 falling block with a long, taper cartridge. (My emphasis.) Not exactly so modern a weapon as the beautiful Fraser .303, but still an accurate, hard-hitting gun, and above all a sure extractor. I offered an exchange after ascertaining that the count of ammunition was roughly that of the .303. Unfortunately all the cartridges had that abomination, the hollow copper-point bullet. But I knew nothing of this at the time, and as the Greek seemed dazzled with the .303, a trade was soon affected."

When I first read this book about 32 years ago, I made notes in the margins about Bell's cartridges.
Somehow I selected the identity of this ".450 Winchester" as the .45-125 Winchester.
It is a bottle-necked cartridge, but it also might appear to be a "long, taper cartridge" at first glance by Bell.

It surely must have been a Winchester 1885 High Wall.
Winchester chambered that rifle for over 100 cartridges, including the occasional, very rare, .45-120-3.25" Sharps.
But the 45-125 Winchester was a special-order chambering too, by Winchester, so pretty rare too.
Surely some British 450-3.25" BPE cartridges too, like Cal's .577.

Odds might be slightly in favor of the cartridge being what Cal said, and what I wrote in the margin of the book 32 years ago.
I don't know where I got that idea either, just like Cal.

".45-125 Winchester: 300-grain copper tube express bullet at 1690 fps, 1903 ft-lbs, 200 yard MRT = 9.3 inches."

Those ballistics were likely copied from COTW.
Yep, same MRT listed there to, in the old 5th Edition COTW.
Old 5th edition said the 45-125 Express Winchester continued to be loaded by Winchester until 1916.
Ditto latest 15th Edition of that not always correct source, but the MRT is no longer listed.

From Jens' link:





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Riflecrank Incurable Permanente

Winchester had three long (3.25") cartridges for their single shot rifle: .38-90, .40-110, .45-125. In the lever rifles the .50-95 and .50-110 were express cartridges and also chambered in the single shot. The .50-105 is super rare and called express. The .50-100-450 was not called express due to the heavier bullet weight.

I'm sure Bell had a .45-125 (Note that Winchester made it with 5 grains more powder than the Sharps ctg.--the same as their .45-75 sounded a bit bigger than the common .45-70 even though it had a lighter bullet).

This historical stuff if fun, isn't it?
Cal

Mr. Cal;

I thought I had read in Handloader that the 45-120 31/4 was not a sharp's cartridge. That I was a Winchester cartidge. The Sharp's firm did not chamber the cartridge.

I know you use to collect Winchesters, so I graciously bow to you knowledge.

The Sharps .45-120-3 1/4 is a stgraight case with a thick rim.
The thick rim .45 Sharps were made in different lengths to accommodate popwder charges of 120, 110, 90, 70-grains.
The Winchester .45-125 is the same length but a bottle neck cartridge. 5 grains more powder but a lighter bullet of 300 grains.
Folks here who know more than I please chime in.
Cal

quote:

Originally posted by LHeym500:
Mr. Cal;

I thought I had read in Handloader that the 45-120 31/4 was not a sharp's cartridge. That I was a Winchester cartidge. The Sharp's firm did not chamber the cartridge.

I know you use to collect Winchesters, so I graciously bow to you knowledge.

Maybe the original Sharps factory rifles were never chambered for the 45-120 3-1/4", but they might have been planning to do it before they failed.
Whatever, there was such a cartridge so named, "Sharps," that other rifle makers got to glory in with their rifles. That included Winchester.
Like a dog rolling on a dead animal to apply perfume.
Eau de Sharps

COTW 5th Edition it was, in 1985 (Frank C. Barnes, edited by Ken Warner), that I referred to.
Excerpts from this book are presented for a book review.
Book review: Good book. It appears to be reliable on this issue, and does not contradict anything you might find in Frank Sellers' book Sharps Firearms.





Another book I borrowed from above gets full reference now, for a picture of what Bell's ".450 Winchester" might have looked like.
The Winchester Book by George Madis.
Book review: It is a great book, all 654-plus pages of it, first published in 1961, and my autographed-by-author "1 of 1000" edition was printed in 1985. I probably found that brand-new copy of it at the old location of Mountain View Sports before they moved downtown, in Anchorage, AK.
Pictures of a couple of 1885 Winchesters from the chapter "The Single Shot Model" are excerpted here for review purposes:



Above, from page 254 of Madis, is a most likely twin to Karamojo's ".450 Winchester" chambered in .45-125 Winchester.

But of course there were lots of other chamberings of "long, taper" .45-caliber rifles,
including British BPE and American Sharps cartridges of all sorts in the 1885 Winchester.
Madis also has a picture of a "45/3-1/4-Inch Sharps Straight" Model 1885 on page 256:



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Riflecrank Incurable Permanente

Mr. Rip:

The 450-120 31/4 is called Sharps, but I still honestly and in good faith do not believe Sharps had anything to do with the cartridge. I believe it was a Winchester caritdage that time bestow the name Sharps upon.

I do not have the Handloader article that I am recalling, so I cannot prove it. Respectfully, I do not think the name disposes of the inquiry.

I have read that the Sharps catalog listed 120 grain loads with the 27/8 case in the 1878 catalog. Sharps listed cartridges by case length. The 27/8 inch sharps case is referred to today as the 45-110.

Either way I believe the forum has answered a great question asked by Captdavid. That answer being Bell used a Winchester 1885 in 45-125.

OK, I get it.
COTW was misleading in the 1985 blurb, publishing hypothesis as history.

Winchester should have called their "long-taper" .45-chambering the " .45-120--3-1/4-Inch Eau de Sharps."

I can accept that the "real" 45-120 Sharps was actually the 2-7/8" case loaded with 120 grains of BP.

And Matthew Quigley used a .45-110-540-2.875" cartridge in a Sharps with a 34" barrel, because 2-7/8" was the biggest available in fictional 1874-1876.
Good ammo technical authenticity on that point.
Everybody else in movie used percussion guns ... Backward Aussies.


That had to be what Andrew Garcia wrote of using in 1878 Montana, in his book, Tough Trip Through Paradise, a good read.

And agreed, Bell most likely used a Winchester Model 1885 in .45-125 Winchester, bottle-necked case AND a full 3-1/4" long.
He did that for a little while, sometime in 1901 Africa, or shortly thereafter.
Bigger case volume than the straight-case "Sharps."
Yep, Bell said it was a good extractor.

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Riflecrank Incurable Permanente

Mr. Rip:

I do not have the article from Handloader, so I am going by my recollection. You may very well be right. I have stated my position. But I can clearly see I could be wrong.

I am not trying to be disrespectful; just trying to explain my position on the Sharps v. Winchester issue. You have demonstrated that you know more about building rifles on this forum than I have thought about. I am not trying to shout you done.

LHeym500,

Jeez man!
I am trying to agree whole-heartedly with you.
Your recollection must be spot on.
No emoticons ... if that is what is making it tough for you to allow me to agree with you.

There is more than one way to skin a wildcat.
Riflecrank Incurable Permanente

Ten four.