Bulldog

     Notes:  This is sort of a generic class of personal defense revolver originated by Webley in the early part of the century; the Bulldog was one of those, though they went by many names.  The Bulldog is practically a derringer in proportions, being a very small weapon with almost no barrel and very small butt.  The chamber, however, is full-sized for a revolver.  Most of these weapons were chambered for .44 or .45 Webley, though .380 Revolver or 10.6mm German Ordnance chamberings were not unknown.

Edgecumbe Combat Ten

     Notes: This revolver looks very much a Smith & Wesson Model 10 – with good reason, since it is based on an S&W 10 frame.  It is a competition revolver, with a heavy Douglas barrel, with square-notch rear sights and a ramp front sight, milled into the barrel with protective ribs.  The grips are Hogue rubber grips.  This revolver was introduced in 1961.

Enfield No 2 Pistol Revolver

     Notes: This weapon was designed in the wake of World War 1, where the British found that their standard sidearms, the Webley-Fosbery revolver, had such a large amount of recoil and muzzle blast and poor accuracy that considerable skill was required on the part of the user, which required much more training than the British had time to give the typical sidearm user.  They decided to adopt the Webley and Scott Mark III, which used a smaller cartridge.  The government bought the design and gave it to Enfield for improvement. 

     The resulting weapon, the No 2 Pistol Revolver, was an improvement of sorts; however, its trigger pull is so long and creepy (even with several improvements to the trigger mechanism) that the desired increase in accuracy among amateurs was never really achieved; and, though four different rounds were tried in the weapon, none of them ever really satisfied British troops.  In addition, the No. 2 went through several different versions (Marks), as additional deficiencies cropped up.  One of these was the large hammer spur, designed to allow single-action or double-action shooting, which had a great tendency to get caught on anything from pieces of the soldiers gear to protrusions inside vehicles – and that often caused the hammer to snap forward again, resulting in accidental firing. This problem was fixed temporarily in 1931, but the hammer stop that fixed the problem was again omitted after 1942 to simply wartime production.  Therefore, the accidental firing problem started all over again.  Eventually, this problem became so severe that Webley began to produce its own improved revolver, the Mark 4 (see below). 

     Though the No 2 Pistol Revolver was produced in large quantities, most of them ended up in Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations; in British service, they typically were in police service only.  By 2000, a surprising number of them remain in service, despite their shortcomings. 

Webley Pistols

     Notes:  These are not actually pistols, but revolvers.  They are top-break revolvers firing a large, slow bullet, the .455 British Service.  (It should be noted that the .455 British Service was never actually .455 in caliber, but rather .441.)  The Webley Pistols came into service in 1887 and remained in service until well after World War 2.  They went through a great deal of changes in this time. 

     The base Webley Pistol Mark 1 is a top break weapon with a hinged frame and automatic extraction upon breaking it open.  The grip is in a bird’s head shape, and a ring for a lanyard is at the bottom.  The Mark 1* is a Mark 1 brought up to Mark 2 standards.

     The Mark 2 has a hardened steel plate added to the breech to reduce wear, a strengthened hammer, a more rounded grip, a more reliable extractor, a spiral hammer spring instead of the V-shaped one of the Mark 1, and a smaller stirrup lock.

     The Mark 3 is a Mark 2 with the attachment of the cylinder to the frame made stronger, and a cam added to allow the cylinder to be completely removed to allow quicker reloading and more thorough cleaning.  Some were also fitted with longer 6” barrels.

     The Mark 4 is a Mark 3 made from better steel and with a raised trigger stop, wider cylinder slots, a case-hardened extractor, and a lighter hammer.  A number of these revolvers were also made with 6” barrels.  The Mark 5 is a Mark 4 with a heavier cylinder and frame. 

     The Mark 1** is a Mark 1 or 1* with a Mark 4’s better-quality barrel and a Mark 5’s heavier cylinder.  The Mark 2** is a Mark 2 with the same modifications.  The Mark 1**, 6in Barrel is the Mark 1** with (of course) a 6” barrel.  The Mark 2**, 6in Barrel is the same, but based on a Mark 2.  All these versions were made for the Royal Navy.

     The Mark 5, 6in Barrel is a Mark 5 with a 6” barrel fitted as standard, and the front sight made removable.  The Mark 6 has a 6 inch barrel, a more square-cut grip, and components modified to facilitate faster production.  This is the most common model of the Webley Pistol.  The Mark 6 .22 was a small-caliber version designed for practice and to introduce new shooters to the revolver.

Webley-Fosbury Automatic Revolver

     Notes:  This weapon is in a class of its own – a semiautomatic revolver.  The force of recoil actually drives the barrel back over the frame, which cocks the weapon and rotates the cylinder.  It was, unfortunately, a very complicated mechanism that was prone to jamming from dirt or simple lack of care.  It was a novelty weapon that was adopted by many British officers, who found them jamming at the wrong moment during the first year of World War 1, and was quickly discarded.  The Webley-Fosbuy was never officially adopted by the British Army and was bought primarily by officers as a sidearm; chauvinism made the officers’ corps feel that the Webley-Fosbury was too complicated for the enlisted man to understand. It should be noted that the US Army trialed the  Webely-Fosbury in 1907, but felt that it had so many shortcomings that it could not be taken seriously as a military pistol.

     The Webley-Fosbury came at an unusual, transitional period of handgun use in world armies. Some, like the British, were clinging to revolvers, while most were converting to automatic pistols.  The Webley-Fosbury took sort of a middle road in this development.  Its 6-inch barrel made is very large for even a revolver, yet the round used and the long barrel gave it exceptional power.  The Webley-Fosbury was simply too prone to dirt and had too complicated a mechanism that in practice took considerable user acumen.  Nonetheless, it had its strong points – aside from the accuracy and power, the break-open action with automatic case ejection could make reloading rather quick.  (To achieve full automatic ejection, the Wesbley-Fosbury had to be broken open completely; a “half-open” intermediate position was also available, allowing the user to load and reload cartridges individually.  This also allowed the shooter to check how full his cylinder was.) If a round turns out to be a dud or falls on an empty or fired round, the entire top frame must be pulled back to advance the cylinder to the next cartridge. The Webley-Fosbury is also single-action only, necessary due to the design of the weapon.

Webley Pocket Hammerless

     Notes:  Though the official chambering for this revolver was .320 Revolver, is could just as easily fire .32 Long Colt, .32 Short Colt, or .32 Smith & Wesson Long without any changes.  It is a nickel-plated inexpensive weapon designed to be slipped into a pocket for personal defense or concealment.  Though it was built at a slow rate for more than 10 years, it is probable that less than 10,000 were made.  They still show up regularly to this day, however.

Webley Pocket Pistol No 3

     Notes:  This was a far more popular weapon than the Pocket Hammerless; over 55,000 were built, and when introduced, cost British citizens a mere 3 Pounds to buy.  Government and police sales were also made.  Some had adjustable sights, shrouded hammers, and no trigger guards with folding triggers.  Small numbers of the Pocket Pistol were also chambered for .320 Revolver cartridges; these can be identified by the cylinder, which is smaller in the front than in the back.

Webley RIC

     Notes:  The RIC is a heavy-frame, short-barreled revolver designed for official use, able to be used as much as a club as a revolver.  It was designed for the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), hence the name.  As such, it was used for many decades, as well as being sold commercially and to  several other British and colonial police forces, and by German and Belgian police early in the 20^th century.

Webley WG

     Notes:  The Webley WG as designed by a new Webley employee (at the time), Michael Kaufman.  It introduced a number of improvements which later became standard on other Webley revolvers, and it was widely sold to British officers and travelers going to the wilder parts of the kingdom.  WG is generally said to stand for “Webley Government,” but some say it stands for “Webley-Green,” after the inventor of the stirrup lock.  The WG does not include a safety.  The Service model is the most common one, produced for the military.  The Target model is a long-barreled version produced for competition; it had a long 7.5-inch barrel, a match trigger, and a sideplate that allowed access to the mechanism.

Webley-Wilkinson

     Notes:  Wilkinson Sword, the British company that had long been a supplier to the British government of swords, daggers, and knives, decided the time had changed around the end of the 19^th century and that they needed a firearm to sell to bolster flagging sales of their blades.  They therefore asked Webley to help them built a high-quality revolver for sale to British officers and the officers of other European countries.  The British officer of the time was allowed to use any sort of sidearm he wished, as long as it fired .455 Webley ammunition.  They designed a revolver with stainless steel plating and the highest-possible grade of steel for the parts of the weapon.  Some enterprising officers later rechambered their weapons to fire .450 revolver or .476 Enfield ammunition, but these conversions are relatively rare.  Due to the high quality of manufacture, a Webley-Wilkinson encountered today can still be expected to function flawlessly.