Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on Forgotten Weapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at the Rock Island
Auction Company where we are taking a look at
an assortment of Webley WG revolvers.
We have an 1889 model, we have a WG Army,
and we have a WG Target.
And I should say before we go any further,
I want to point out that the history of Webley revolvers
is really a very complicated one.
And that's, I think, in large part because Webley was a commercial company
that was catering to a wide number of different sorts of clients,
they would make all sorts of different variations.
You know, if you're in the military and you go and they issue you a 1911 pistol
and you look at it and you go, "Well, you know I kind of want a 6 inch barrel instead of 5,
and I kind of want adjustable sights."
The military laughs at you and gives you a 1911.
Well, if you're in the civilian market and you go to Colt and you say the same thing,
and Colt thinks, "Well, there may be some other people like you."
Then Colt will offer a 6 inch barrelled version with adjustable sights.
That's the sort of thing that Webley did, you could order
all manner of different variations of Webley arms.
Different cartridges, different barrel lengths, different finishes,
different grip styles, all sorts of stuff.
And they were continually trying to improve their product to make it better, and better, and better.
So compared to a typical sort of military-issue lineage, you take a look at a military revolver,
the Enfield Mark I and II revolvers are a perfect example of this.
There's not that much going on, there's a couple of discrete models,
and we know what changes they made and why.
Well, with the civilian sort of guns there's a lot more going on.
So digression aside.
Webley started using the "WG" nomenclature, which is Webley Government, in 1883.
Although they didn't actually put it on a gun until the 1889 pattern, which is this one.
They would make a few refinements
to this gun over the first couple of thousand that were manufactured,
until in 1896 they really kind of standardised.
They had all the major improvements in place,
and what we generally recognise as the WG pattern was fully in hand.
They would continue to manufacture these until 1902,
when they were replaced by a new general pattern of revolver.
So there were two major variations of the WG, that being the Army and the Target.
Although there is a lot of blending of the features back and forth
because of the civilian demand, and Webley trying to cater to the civilian market as I described.
So I think these are fantastically cool-looking guns.
And we're going to go ahead and take a look at these up close,
and I'll show you what the changes in the patterns were, and well, what's cool about them.
The WG was Webley's offering for a military-style service revolver.
Remember that until 1915 British military officers actually had to provide their own sidearms.
So there were a bunch of different companies out there
trying to cater to the needs of army officers.
And Webley was one of the most prominent and successful of them.
So, what we're looking at here is a typical 6 inch barrel length.
You could order different barrel lengths, but this was the standard for an Army pattern revolver.
It has what was called a bird's head, or a parrot's beak, grip.
Which looks cool, it handles very nicely, I really like that style of grip.
And later on we would get used to not seeing this on a ... 6 inch barrelled revolver,
Webley would go on to start using this more on only smaller, more concealable, models.
But in the 1880s and 1890s, this was a popular grip style for a service sidearm.
You'll note that there is also a lanyard loop on it, that's typical of military service.
You tied this thing off to your belt or your holster,
so that if you drop it you don't lose it.
Particularly good for guys who are going to be on horseback, like officers.
Now this is the first pattern where they actually have WG marked on the gun,
and you can see this is a WG Model of 1889.
And at this point there were still a number of early features on the guns.
Most notably the cylinder release here, or the cylinder retention mechanism.
This ... gun is serial number 2,647, right there.
So it's relatively early in production, however this is not the first variant.
The very first ones had a Pryse-style button here,
and I'll leave that for description in a later video.
This one is ... a screw, and I've deliberately left this loose
so I can take it out and show you how it works.
But this is what actually holds the cylinder. So we'll go ahead and pull it out.
But in the meantime I will point out it is a double action revolver.
So you can manually cock it, or fire it double action.
And there is a lever here on the left side which retracts this locking bar,
and allows you to pop the whole thing open.
And when you open it there is a spring in the centre ejector,
and it will push all 6 cases out, eject them all,
and then snap back into place ready to be reloaded.
So this is the style of revolver that was, I think, definitely the
best tactical gunfighter sort of military revolver at the time.
Not having a solid frame reduced the potential strength of the action.
But the British cartridges used in these guns were not particularly potent in the first place,
and so that ... didn't prove to be a practical issue.
And it was made up for by the fact that you can reload this thing a lot faster
than something like a Single Action Army where you have to manually eject each round with a rod,
and then manually load each round one at a time through a loading gate.
This: all empty, drop 6 rounds in it, lock it down, and it's ready to go again.
Now the cylinder retention on this is really quite simple.
We just take this screw out.
Pull that out.
And then the cylinder comes out.
So there's a hole right here in the cylinder guide rod, the cylinder axis,
and that's what this screw goes through.
That holds the cylinder in place, and that's all there is to it.
This is simple, and it works, but as you can see
it's not the ... quickest thing to disassemble in the field.
And when you do, you're left with this loose screw.
So the main change between the 1889 pattern and the later standard sort of WGs
was the ... cylinder retention mechanism.
Webley replaced that cross-pin screw with a little claw design
that was the idea of a guy named William Whiting.
Whiting was a career firearms designer, he worked his entire life for the Webley Company,
was responsible for all of their semi-auto pistols, and also did a bunch of work on revolvers.
So what he came up with is a system that is perhaps more complicated to make,
but definitely a lot better for the end-user.
So what we have is a claw here that spans across both sides of the gun,
and it pivots on the frame here,
and it holds onto a little recessed cut on the front of the cylinder.
Then when the gun is fully open like this,
we have this pivoting lever.
And you'll notice right at the very end of travel it pulls that claw down.
And then the cylinder just slides right out.
So ... with this system there is nothing loose on the gun, that lever doesn't go anywhere.
And reinstalling the cylinder is as simple as just putting it back in.
And this becomes a fairly distinctive feature on the outside of Webley revolvers after this point.
And this was done I believe in 1892.
The one other noticeable change made between the 1889 and the kind of more standard WG
was in the style of the fluting of the cylinder.
The very early guns, right up until about 1893, had what was called "church steeple" fluting
where there's a point here at the back. After that they changed to a rounded style.
Not really anything mechanical there, more of an aesthetic stylistic choice.
But it is a noticeable one, and a difference that some collectors are particularly interested in.
So at this point the markings on the gun change a bit,
they are now on the side of the barrel assembly, "WG Army Model".
Nothing on the top there, although I will point out that a lot of these guns
were resold by Webley to various retailers, and ... if you ordered a ... sufficient quantity
Webley would be happy to mark your name on the top of the barrel as the retailer.
So a lot of these guns have some of those various sorts of markings.
In addition we have some standard markings you'll find on all of them, namely,
"Webley Patents", and the Webley & Scott logo, which is a bullet with wings, and "W & S" underneath it.
These are also now marked with their calibre, and it's interesting, they're marked .455/.476.
And the reason for that is there were a bunch of different cartridges in use
by the British military at this time, and they're all sort of interchangeable.
Now ... these cartridges really do deserve an entire video on their own,
and I promise they will get one at some point here.
But basically you're looking at having .450, .455 and .476 calibre cartridges,
... they differ in power, but the Webleys were built to take the most powerful of them,
and thus could be interchangeably used with all of the others.
Think .357 Magnum and .38 Special more or less.
These revolvers would also fire the Enfield Mark II and Mark III cartridges,
which were being phased out by the British military at this point.
So the idea here is in order to properly market these guns to British officers,
they needed to know that they could ... certainly fire the standard military ammunition,
but it was also a nice benefit to be able to also
shoot basically anything else that was in the British system.
Again, because of Webley's interest in selling to the civilian market,
they also manufactured a specialised Target model.
And this proved to be very popular and very successful in competition in the 1890s.
These were actually introduced all the way back in 1889
with ... the very first 1889 model WGs, became more popular in the 1890s however.
And in this case this particular one is nickelled, where this gun is blued.
That's not an Army/Target thing, you could get either pattern with either finish.
What they did on the Target model were a couple of things.
The barrel was generally longer, 7.5 inches instead of 6.
The grip was changed, and this is actually very similar to the change in the grip
that Colt made for its Bisley Model revolvers.
... Well, generally they created a new offering which had a kind of a flared base grip.
So that the gun wouldn't roll in your hand, your grip wouldn't change as you fired the gun.
And what that meant is a more consistent grip, which meant potentially better accuracy.
So this is better for getting the gun re-cocked and quickly firing a second shot.
This is better for having the gun not move, and allowed you more consistency and more precision.
So that change was made, and then they also put on adjustable sights.
The Army model here has just a fixed rear notch in the locking latch.
The Target model has a dovetailed sliding bar with that notch,
so you can tap this side to side.
Note that they have actually put a couple of little cutouts in there so you can put a punch in there,
and just gently tap this to move it side to side to zero your windage.
And then the Target model also had an elevation adjustable front sight.
So in this case the front sight is pinned there and it pivots up and down.
So you can loosen this screw and either raise or lower that front sight to the appropriate point,
tighten it down, and then you'll be shooting exactly to your intended point of impact.
Also note how the trigger face was serrated on the Target model here.
That is something that was considered beneficial by target shooters at that time.
It's something that kind of goes in and out of vogue
whether you want a smooth face or a grippy face on a trigger.
I mentioned the calibre markings earlier, I do want to point out that
our Target model here is marked actually .450/.455, and it's in the 10,000 range for serial numbers.
This Army pattern is .455/.476, and it's in the 13,000 range.
And then we also have a much later kind of a hybrid Army/Target model,
in the 20,000 range marked .450/.455.
So this is sort of an example of some of the fluidity of the variations
in a commercial gun like the Webley.
This particular piece ... has a 6 inch barrel like an Army model.
It is in fact marked "Army Model", but it has the Target style of grip.
And again, that's the sort of variation you'll see
with Webleys, and with other commercial pistols as well.
So this style of flared grip would go on to become more popular for a military-pattern gun.
And of course the most successful of them, the most well recognised, is the Webley Mark VI
.455 calibre revolver, which was adopted as the British standard in World War One.
That has a grip not quite identical to this,
it doesn't have this sort of slight hump in the back strap there.
But it definitely has the square butt and the flare at the bottom.
Last but not least, I'll point out that there were also variations in grips.
So we have checkered wooden grips here.
We have vulcanised rubber grips here that actually have a WG logo moulded into them.
Our bird's head grips are, in this case, moulded vulcanised rubber.
This final standardised pattern of WG emerged about 1896,
and ... at about serial number 10,000.
So a total of 22,000, a little over 22,000 WGs were made in total.
The standard pattern, which is the one that is by far the most commonly found today,
accounts for basically 10,000 through 22,000.
There are a lot of European service revolvers out there, and to be honest,
to me I think a lot of them kind of lack character.
But Webley is definitely not among that group.
I think these Webleys have this really cool bit of British Empire, late 19th century panache to them.
So hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Hopefully I would like over the coming months and/or years
to continue expanding this series into many of the other Webley pattern revolvers.
And eventually we'll have a complete sequence here,
and be able to give you this very complex,
but very interesting history of Webley from the 1870s all the way through the 1920s, so.
Anyway, if you're interested in any of these three,
make sure to check out Rock Island's catalogue ... pages.
There is a link in the description text below
that will take you to ForgottenWeapons.com, my site,
and from there you can find links to the catalogue pages for each of these three.
Rock Island does also have several additional WGs, and a bunch of other Webleys as well.
Anyway, thanks for watching, tune in again tomorrow for another cool Forgotten Weapon.