Webley & Scott

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The famous Webley Mk VI, standard sidearm of the British Army 1915-1932

Webley & Scott is an arms manufacturer based in Birmingham, England. Webley produced handguns and long guns from 1834. The company ceased to manufacture firearms in 1979 and now produces air pistols and air rifles.

Webley is famous for the revolvers and automatic pistols it supplied to the British Empire's military particularly the British Army from 1887 through both World War I and World War II.

History

The Webley company was founded in the late 18th century by William Davies, who made bullet moulds. It was taken over in 1834 by his son-in-law, Philip Webley, who began producing percussion sporting guns. The manufacture of revolvers, for which the firm became famous, began 20 years later. At that time the company was named Webley & Son. In 1897 Webley amalgamated with W & C Scott and Sons to become The Webley and Scott Revolver and Arms Company Ltd of Birmingham.

Webley's revolvers became the official British sidearm in 1887 and remained in British service until 1963. However after 1921 Webley service revolvers were manufactured by the government-owned Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield.

In 1932 the Enfield No.2 .38 inch calibre revolver, based on the Webley Mark VI, became the standard British service revolver. However, wartime shortages ensured that all marks of the Webley including models in .455 and .38/200 remained in use through World War Two, and the pistol remained in service as a substitute standard weapon into the early 1960s.

In 1920 the passing of the Firearms Act in the UK, which limited the availability of handguns to civilians, caused their sales to plummet. As a result the company began producing pneumatic guns in 1924, their first being the Mark I air pistol.

Demand for air guns increased rapidly in the 1920s and Webley's business began to grow again, with an inevitable peak related to weapons supply for British military use during the Second World War. Declining sales led to the decision to give up firearms manufacture completely in 1979, and Webley then only manufactured and distributed air guns until 22 December 2005, when the company closed down. Webley's dependent company - Venom Custom Shop - ceased trading as well. It was then bought by Wolverhampton-based company Airgunsport.

In March 2007 Airgunsport Ltd announced it was to take advantage of the historical name by re-branding itself as Webley Ltd, with the Webley & Scott name retained for its shotgun production.

Production

Until 1979 Webley and Scott manufactured shotguns and revolvers for private use, as well as producing sidearms for military and police use. This came to include both revolvers and self-loading (semi-automatic) pistols.

Webley's production originally consisted of hand-crafted firearms, although mass-production was later introduced to supply police and military buyers.

The first Webley production revolver appeared in 1853. Known as the Longspur it was a muzzle-loaded percussion cap and ball pistol. Some consider it to be the finest revolver of its day as it could shoot as fast as the contemporary Colt revolvers and was faster to load. However the hand-made Longspur could not compete in price with mass-produced revolvers such as the Colt, and production never equalled that of Webley's competitors Adams (Deane, Adams & Deane) or Tranter.

Webley's first popular success came with its first double-action revolver, adopted by the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1867. There is a well-known story that a pair of Webley RIC Model revolvers were presented to Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer by Lord Berkeley in 1869, and it is believed that General Custer was using them at the time of his death in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. There is some question whether the gun or guns presented to George Armstrong Custer were Webley RIC’s. Other sources indicate that Lord Berkeley Paget presented Custer with a Galand & Sommerville 44 calibre revolver (manufactured in England by the firm of Braendlin & Sommerville) and gave another to Tom Custer. Of course, it is possible that Lord Berkeley Paget may have given Custer two revolvers, both a Galand & Sommerville and a Webley RIC or even given the Custer brothers, in some combination, a pair of Webley RICs and a pair of Galand & Sommervilles. A cased Galand & Sommerville revolver certainly formed part of Tom Custer’s estate. It is an unconfirmed possibility that the Galand & Sommerville 44 revolver chambered the same ammunition as the first Webley RIC’s, i.e. Webley's .442 centre-fire cartridge.

Almost all of Webley's subsequent revolvers were of a top-break design. A pivoting lever on the side of the gun's upper receiver was pressed to release the barrel and cylinder assembly, which then tilts up and forward on a bottom-front pivot. After loading, the assembly is tilted back into firing position and locked closed.

Webley went on to produce more revolvers for the civilian market. Webley's popular series of pocket revolvers, the British Bulldog, were developed in 1872, available in .442 and .450 calibres, and widely exported.

Although often attributed to Webley, Webley only produced some of the revolvers now commonly referred to as Webley .577 Boxer Revolvers, which used the most powerful handgun cartridge of the day, the .577 Boxer. It was produced by Webley under licence from the firm of William Tranter of Birmingham, whose design it actually was. Webley was just one of several firms licensed to use Tranter's double-action lock and particularly Tranter's patented revolving recoil shield, which was a key feature of the early .577 calibre revolvers.

In the 1880s Webley developed a rugged and powerful revolver for the British military, the Webley Mk 1. Nicknamed "the British Peacemaker" in the United States, it was manufactured in .450, .455, and .476 calibre and founded a family of revolvers that were the standard handguns of the British Army, Royal Navy, and British police constabularies from 1887 to 1918. The Mark VI (known as the Webley Revolver No. 1 Mark VI after 1927) was the last standard service pistol made by Webley; the most widely-produced of their revolvers, 300,000 were made for service during World War I.

Webley began experimenting with semi-automatic action in 1900 and in 1909 they began producing a series of semi-automatic pistols for civilian and police use. Their .32 Automatic Pistol was adopted by London's Metropolitan Police in 1911. The same weapon in .38 calibre was used by the Royal Navy as a substitute standard weapon during World War II.

In 1924 Webley produced its first air pistol, the Mark I.

In 1929 Webley introduced its Mark II air rifle. During World War II Webley air rifles were used for rifle training as well as civilian target shooting and hunting.

The Mark II, known as the service air rifle because of its use by the UK military, used break-action with a superimposed barrel locked by bolt action. The detachable barrel was easily interchangeable with others of the three calibres available.

The Mark II was discontinued in 1946 and replaced by the Mark III, in production until 1975. The Mark III was a top-loaded air rifle with a fixed barrel and used underlever cocking. It was only made in .177 and .22 calibres.

Webley continues to manufacture air pistols in .22 (5.5mm) and .177 (4.5mm) calibre, and air rifles in .22, .177 and .25 (6.35mm) calibre. A variety of actions are available in several different models, including the Nemesis, Stinger, and Tempest air pistols and Raider, Venom, and Vulcan air rifles. In early 2007 Webley broke away from its traditional 'barrel overlever' design to launch the revised Typhoon model, a 'break-barrel' design with a recoil-reduction system.

Webley and Scott has also returned to shotgun production with alliances with European manufacturers, and now markets a number of sporting and competition shotguns.

Famous Guns

Webley Mk II Service air rifle
  • The Webley Longspur Revolver (1853)
  • The Royal Irish Constabulary Revolver (1867)
  • The Boxer Revolver (1868)
  • The British Bulldog Revolver (1872)
Developed from the RIC Revolver, with a barrel only 2 1/2 inches it could fit in a coat pocket.
Sold commercially as the "Webley-Government"
  • The Webley-Wilkinson (1884 to 1914)
A very high-quality revolver manufactured by Webley, sold by Wilkinson Sword company

Webley & Scott automatic pistols

Webley developed several designs after the turn of the century, with the first production model, a .32 caliber, introduced in 1909. This self-loading pistol was adopted by the Metropolitan Police following the infamous Siege of Sidney Street in 1921. A .38 caliber version was adopted by the Royal Navy, and served in both world wars.

Webley & Scott flare pistols

Webley & Scott produced a number of single-shot, break open signal devices used by Commonwealth Military Forces during the First and Second World War. Perhaps the most prolific of these was the No.1 MkIII, known to have been produced in 1918 at the company's Birmingham facility. A variant, differing only in its use of black plastic grip panels instead of the earlier wood, was produced by Colonial Sugar Refinery in Sydney, Australia in 1942. The pistols can often be seen in films, notably Lawrence of Arabia, where the title character discharges one to signal the beginning of an attack on a disabled enemy train.

See also

References

  • Dowell, William Chipcase, The Webley Story, (Commonwealth Heritage Foundation, Kirkland, Washington: 1987)

External links


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