The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Blue Dot works fine.

I would caution against using Alan's wadcutters as they are hollow base and it seems that there is a fine line between
Not enough powder to ensure the bullet exits the barrel
And
Too much powder that blows the skirts of the bullet off.

In terms of bullets I use .357 sized wadcutters from Dodgyrog on here that work well.

It's important to use pure soft lead as though you can use hard cast Alan expressly advises against it. Sizing is important as the cylinders are tapered at the bottom (apparently to stop bullets falling out) From pressing one of my hollowbase ones in most of the way then pulling and mic'ing the skirt I'm guessing that the cylinders are 357 with a step down to about 353/354. This means that you can push .357 bullets about 3/4 of the way by hand then use the press to push them home. Hollow base are easier here as the base squeezes down more easily but Rogers .357's are absolutely fine.

If you do get a bullet stuck in the cylinder apparently an ezy-out works well.

Alan reckons a max of 5.3gn Blue Dot with solid base bullets. I find 4.5 works pretty well but I haven't done much load development yet.

With hollow base Alan said to start at 3.5.
Try reducing if group opens out try increasing. Max 3.8gn

Remington primers fit well though as a previous poster said the primer pockets do coke up relatively quickly. I had a few slightly squibby primers so now keep them in a bag with a silica gel pack and all seems well

I made a few notes from a phone convo I had with Alan to pass on to another owner (below) do bear in mind, I'm not saying this is gospel, just what he told me so I'd be interested to hear other members thoughts.


Are cylinders tapered?
A: The cylinders are tapered to grip the bullet. Otherwise they can be shaken free as the other cylinders are shot.

I told him I was finding up to 20 flakes of powder unburnt in cylinders and barrel after some shots.
A: Essentially he said not to worry as long as accuracy was acceptable. It's due to the powder not being compressed as much as it might be and the 4inch barrel not being long enough to get a full burn.
(On this, I do wonder if I was seating some bullets flush rather than below the top of the cylinder which coupled with the hollow bases maybe gave a large space for the small charge to rattle around)
He couldn't quite fathom why I was concerned about all the powder burning!

Why use relatively slow Herco/Blue Dot rather than more standard powders and load data for .357 pistol loads (I.e. A faster powder)

A: You need slow powders with these sorts of guns despite the fact they have short barrels. The reason being, that in a cartridge gun, the bullet is crimped into a brass case which itself is loose in the cylinder but expands as the powder burns, freeing the bullet and allowing the pressure behind to push the bullet forward. In these revolvers the steel cylinder walls replace the brass case and cannot expand so instead the pressure must build up enough in the cylinder to get the tightly fitting bullet moving. Due to this, with a fast powder, the pressure can spike, either blowing the skirt off a hollow base bullet or even damaging the pistol.

Why pure lead bullets?
A: It allows them to squeeze into the tapered bottom of the cylinders.
Always resize bullets as even if sold as .357 they can come out of the molds slightly different sizes and/or shapes

He also mentioned
Pressure indication from primers:
If after firing they are still rounded but with a dent from the firing pin all is well.
If they are flattened the pressure is too high (they have been pressed back against the cylinder rear)
If they only eject the middle and leave the sides of the primer in the gun, pressure is far too high.

Interesting ... I've had awful problems with my Alfa but I'm now getting there. Had mine for 6 months now.

My findings so far ;

Bullets - Alan's hollow base bullets work fine. I also use 105gr swc cast from lead, sized and lubed with Alox. These are a plain base bullet but as they're only 105gr, they are quite short. They are shorter than Alan's hollow base and when seated into the cylinder, are gripped nicely and sit at the correct depth. Every bit as accurate as the hollow base bullets at 25 yards.

Powder - Using Blue Dot, loads from 3.2gr to 4.5gr tested OK with those 105gr SWC plain base bullets. With the hollow base I had a couple of skirts tear off above 4.2gr.
I have a tub of Herco to test soon, though I doubt results will be any different.

Primers - Using Remingon 209's, since that's all I can find locally. Now then, I have had problems with primers ... jamming the cylinder solid, binding on the back of the action. Cylinder has been back to Alan twice for checking and adjustment. As it stands now I have had to slightly deepen the primer pockets by a fanny hair (technical term) to stop the primers from binding. A very skilled friend of mine (Cheers Steve!) has done this with an end-mill, the primers now sit absolutely flush with the cylinder rear, previously they weren't all flush. I've still had a couple of binding primers from a batch and having measured the primer rim, they do differ.

The danger here is in making the primer pocket too deep - or I should say the 'shelf' in the primer pocket which the primer rim sits on - if the primers are too low then you will get light strikes. I have tested by making 6 primers inert, then dry-firing them to test for depth of firing pin strike and all looks good so far. Next I'll test a few other primer brands.

Bear in mind the same primers work perfectly in my other nitro revolver but that's a Remington 1858 action so different design.

You do have to keep everything clean, I now wipe the cylinder down before every reload, only takes a few seconds.

Action
The cylinder gap is - from memory - 0.003thou which is fine. Timing is fine. However with such a fine cylinder gap you've got to keep the cylinder front clean.
The revolver can be disassembled for internal cleaning though it's a bit of a bugger to get back together. The trigger isn't bad on mine so I'll not be fiddling with it.
What I do find is a problem is the cylinder crane. It's held in place by a screw and on my revolver it works loose. This allows the cylinder to come slightly off-line and won't help if you've got primer binding. To tighten you put a paperclip into the little pokey-hole next to the crane arm to hold an internal nut in place then tighten the screwn. (Thanks to Alan for the tip.) I nip mine up a tad every 3 cylinders or so.

The trigger pull can be adjusted slightly. Remove the grip panels and there's an adjustment screw on the right hand side of the frame, just under the top of the grip. It's attached to ovoid pin which moves an internal spring so 1 turn and you've gone through the whole adjustment range. Easy to adjust though.

Leading up and cleaning.
I have put 300+ rounds through mine and have no indication of leading up in the barrel. Very minor on the forcing cone, took 2 mins to clean. That's with about 100 of Alans bullets, rest were my lead 105gr plain base SWC's.

Ok so ... I've not quite got to the point where I can load *any* primer and get a full cylinder away without binding. I might have to modify the pocket flange depth before any primer will work. But considering I was getting binding issues *every time* before modding, there is some progress.

I should stress that although Alan has had my cylinder back twice, he's never had the whole gun for testing. It could be that my batch of Remington primers are particularly thick rimmed.

I'll get a Youtube video uploaded to my channel when I've got everything working properly.

Regards
Paul M.

Interesting, good to see more info on Westlakes work getting onto the web. Out of interest where do the skirts come off? I assume in the cylinders?

Just for the benefit of other readers I am discussing the Westlake Armscor- Westlake is making no more of these and has switched exclusively to the Alfas which PGUKs post above is related to. They are similar but are different makes and build.
The Alfas are better made, more consistent (and more expensive) though I seem to be lucky with my Armscor that has a great trigger and shoots to point of aim at 25yds with fixed sights.

From my experience the Alfas are rough as arseholes. They look good, and feel lovely in the hand, but the quality is very poor.

techguy wrote:From my experience the Alfas are rough as arseholes. They look good, and feel lovely in the hand, but the quality is very poor.

Have you seen the finish on the Armscors? It looks like I did it.
But then they are only circa £200 in the states if memory serves.

what price range are the alpha's as it doesnt say on the site?

4" and 6" Alfa MLRs cost £860.00 and an extra cylinder is £240.00

bloody hell, no wonder he isnt doing the others anymore!

Seen them? Yes, I have one. One of the guys in my club has an Alfa, so I've had hands on with them both.

The alfaproj is not worth the money in my opinion. It's worth the same as the armscor (to me). For a couple of hundred more, you could have a MLR built for you in a US custom shop, and given the same treatment as Alan does.

Once I've built my next 3 rifles, I might just do that..

Armscor just gone up for sale on ABBS for 450 with powder etc.