The British Bulldog Vintage Revolver Review. 44 Caliber Black Powder Cartage Gun.

Today we take a look at and shoot a vintage piece of Americana. A old Black Powder 44 Cowboy Gun Made by numerous manufactures for the American & European market. The design was introduced in 1868, The name British Bull Dog was trademarked by Webley in 1857 (after that they were all known as British Bull Dogs) and last know production of this classic revolver was in 1917. Due to this revolvers Cast design and age, we shoot the weakest of the chambered Cartage's the 44 Bull Dog.
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45 Alfa Charlie Papa

[@parallel-knight]

You guys are so lucky my dream is to collect, shoot and build classic old firearms like these but I live in the UK where if you like firearms something is wrong with you. :( one day I hope I can make to America and do what I’ve always wanted

[@45AlfaCharliePapa]

Thanks for watching. Good luck on your dream.

[@paulmazan4909]

Common over, we can always use another gun nut

[@parallel-knight]

@@45AlfaCharliePapa I appreciate it man and cool video

[@parallel-knight]

@@paulmazan4909 I’m gonna try to would be so amazing

[@paulmazan4909]

@@parallel-knight I was stationed in the London Area from 67-69. Nice people, great history, made some good friends but all have passed on now.

[@kenibnanak5554]

I have a few clones of that pistol. Some Nickel plated, and some in blue. In Europe they did not fire the .44 Bulldog cartridge. They fired the .442 Webley (an ancestor of the S&W .44 Special). About the size of the .44 Russian. Like all of them a .429 bullet works just fine. In the 1870s there were no smooth double action revolver pulls. .44 Bulldog was an American cartridge invention designed for people who felt the .442 Webley had too much recoil in the Bulldog guns it was made for. The American .44 Bulldog is (as you show) a laughably short cartridge (as you say it was analogous to firing a .22 short in a gun chambered for .22 Long Rifle) with a minuscule loading of black powder. One of my older videos show the velocity and wood penetration differences between the two cartridges. The Bulldog (and the similar RIC revolvers) are a black powder gun made with low carbon steel and should not be used with smokeless powder. At least 40 gun shops made and sold different variations of them. The Bulldogs were made in England (the Webley's (who both designed them and distributed samples and parts drawings to dozens of gun makers all over Europe and the US), Spain, Belgium, the US (Forehand & Wadsworth), France, Afghanistan and the Orient. Well over a million of them were made and sold. The original loadings for both .442 Webley and .44 Bulldog used balloon head construction cartridge brass with thinner rims, but no one has made that since the 1940s. Today's pistol brass is made with solid head construction which greatly reduces the interior space for a powder charge which is why historical loadings for .44 Bulldog say 14 grains, but with today's brass 10 grains of FFF is all it will hold. .442 Webley (which has a stouter recoil with more velocity) cartridges can be made by shortening .44 Special brass and also thinning the rim (from front to back) so the cartridge won't bind up on a trigger pull while also providing the head space the gun makers envisioned. It is possible the .44 carried by Billy the Kid was actually one of these. A famous tombstone reads, "Here lies Lester Moore, 4 shots from a .44, no less, no more."

[@threecrownsantiques9376]

Very informative comment thankyou!

[@oddballschtuff]

I’m a big fan of oddball junk myself!

[@45AlfaCharliePapa]

Thanks for watching.

[@josephlahood4647]

Buffalo Arms has black powder ammo

[@gabecarter]

Do you think it would be best to carry these with an empty cylinder under the hammer??

[@blindfredy6128]

Love the old bloke not sure about the young bloke.

[@josephlahood4647]

Ive had mine at a gunsmith for 6 months. First he said come get it after 2 months so I said he could keep the Iver Johnson .32 he said screws rusted in if hed consult with an old Smith and fix it. In really hoping he can fix it. Mines a nickel .38 want to renickle it too.

[@45AlfaCharliePapa]

Good luck, thanks for watching.

[@josephlahood4647]

@@45AlfaCharliePapa i guess he's slammed so I'm patiently waiting. Don't want to call him and have him say come get it. In his mind hes doing me a favor. Ill let you know. Want to refinish it after

[@richperdue9344]

To bad they don't make those anymore they are sooo cool. For concealed carry they would be great. Probably won't have time/need for a reload on a revolver anyway.

[@josephlahood4647]

In making my pretty. Maybe deep blue Cerakote with gold cylinder hammer and trigger

[@blazeiscrazy8737]

Got an original one of these at an auction for ten bucks. Was missing cylinder pin, trigger guard, and ejector pin. In fairly okay condition with some wear and tear and a little rust but otherwise it works. Is it worth restoring?

[@45AlfaCharliePapa]

If you can find the parts for the price you paid I would restore it. You may have to have a gunsmith make some parts for you and that may drive up the cost and that would have to be a judgment call. Just remember if you shoot it, it is a black powder only gun. Great find and thank for watching.

[@josephlahood4647]

I want one of these

[@josephlahood4647]

Dropped one off at a Smith. Having it rebuilt and plated or coated. I'm bringing it back for service

[@josephlahood4647]

Mines .38 just have to find some black powder ammo. Buffalo Arms makes it but won't ship to my state but ill figure something out

[@45AlfaCharliePapa]

Easy to get set up to load for this. Ask your smith he may be able to help, Thank for watching. Enjoy your pistol they are a blast and feel great getting the old girls back to working order.

[@AA-qv5vu]

How did you get the brass to reload it? Did you have to thin the rims of a 44 spl, or does something like factory 44 russian brass go in?

[@45AlfaCharliePapa]

Cut down 44 special cases. No other modification was needed. Thanks for watching.

[@kgpspyguy]

45 Alpha Charlie Papa What bullets did you use in the brass while reloading? And where did you buy them? I just picked one up along with 120 casings of bulldog brass and I'm itching to start reloading Thanks.

[@45AlfaCharliePapa]

@@kgpspyguy Just used some soft lead ball. Same stuff you would use for a cap and ball gun. Need to slug the barrel to find what size you need. Black powder only and the ball needs to be on top of powder, no air space.

[@josephlahood4647]

I'd want .38

[@HarryFlashmanVC]

Very interesting social history as well. Makes total sense that these would have been popular

[@45AlfaCharliePapa]

Hollywood does not know everything. Thanks for watching.

[@jeffadams9807]

My Chosen Revolver, Is The Ruger LCR In .38/.357, I Call It, "My Little Bulldog"....

[@CeltKnight]

I am an avid collector of the Belgian made British Bulldog revolvers. I have a pair in .44 that look, unsurprisingly, just like that one. It's really cool to hold one of these old guns and wonder what stories it could tell if only it could talk....

[@MorningMotivationChannel]

Where do you get these?

[@CeltKnight]

@@MorningMotivationChannel - Most of them I got through online auctions. I run across them at gun shows but they're nearly always vastly over-priced and often mis-identified. So, mostly via auctions.

[@MorningMotivationChannel]

@@CeltKnight any chance you could point the in the right direction for finding these auctions? I would love to add a few more of these to my collection but having trouble finding them

[@jamesluther3506]

I wonder how many British revolvers were sold in America during the 19th century?

[@josemariajimenez8400]

Hola buenas noches me gusta el vídeo, pero mas me hubiera gustado verlo mucho mas de cerca gracias

[@baptistesuars4186]

I have the same

[@dalroache]

Does 44 s/w Russian fit ie compatible!

[@45AlfaCharliePapa]

No, the Russian has a 10.9mm bore and the bulldog/webley round is 11.3mm bore. the rim on the Russian is to thick and the overall length is also to long. Thanks for watching.

[@davidabney7700]

If truth be known, the British Bulldog Revolver, of big bore caliber and 5-shot cylinder, was probably carried by more 1880's cowboys, including law enforcement, than the Colt Single-Action. As the narrator points out the cowboys average pay of 1-buck a day, made it difficult for them to purchase the 20-dollar Colt SAA, but the British Bulldog was a different story. The British Bulldog was a different price tag, which made it more affordable to purchase. The Bulldog was under 5-dollars compared to the 20-dollar tag of the Colt, it was also compact, lightweight, and came in several calibers, and much more easy to handle than the larger Colt. Ladies purchased the Bulldog, gentlemen from the East made purchases of these compact arms. This researched data of the old time Bulldog Revolver popularity of "back-in-the-day" times has recently been covered in a book on the British Bulldog Revolver.The author's opinion was the affordability of the Bulldog arm probably made this a handgun sought by those whose income for the purchase of a non-essential very limited. A nickel plated and engraved British Bulldog, with genuine pearl grips could be had for under 8-dollars. This compact handgun was a gun to be carried much and hardly ever shot. It was not built for lots and lots of shooting practice, it was made for that terrible moment that a deadly confrontation takes place! The Bulldog was chambered in calibers from .32 to .44 bulldog, with many women making purchases for self defense. There were some western lawmen that packed the Bulldog, with many of them owning two or more. More lawmen in rural western towns carried Bulldogs than Colts, because of the cost factor. They had to purchase their own sidearm for duty use and the 5-dollar Bulldog was the answer. Many newspaper reports of citizens and outlaws using Bulldog revolvers for the good and bad reasons and these articles in 1890's newspapers abound. Thanks for this video gents, a lot of history you have in your .44 Bulldog Revolver.