The British Bull Dog was a popular type of solid-frame pocket revolver introduced by
Philip Webley & Son of Birmingham, England in 1872 and subsequently copied by gunmakers
in Continental Europe and the United States. It featured a 2.5-inch barrel and was chambered
for five .44 Short Rimfire, .442 Webley, or .450 Adams cartridges. Webley produced smaller
scaled .320 Revolver and .380 calibre versions later, but did not mark them with the British
Bull Dog name.
Design The design of the British Bull Dog revolver
had been in existence since 1868, but Henry webley registered the trademark in 1878. From
that time to the present, the term has come to mean any short barrelled double-action
revolver with a swing-out ejector rod and a short grip.
Intended to be carried in a coat pocket, many have survived to the present day in good condition,
having seen little actual use. The design originated in 1868 for the Webley Royal Irish
Constabulary model revolver and was manufactured as late as 1917.
Numerous copies and variants of this design were made in Belfast, Belgium, Spain, France
and the USA during the late 19th century. American copies were manufactured by the firms
of Forehand & Wadsworth, Iver Johnson and Harrington & Richardson. Belgian and American
versions were produced in smaller calibres, but most large calibre American copies were
chambered for the .44 Webley cartridge. A version made by Webley, but finished by
Belfast-based gunmaker, Joseph Braddell, known as the Ulster Bull Dog used a longer grip
frame than the standard, making the revolver easier to control and shoot.
The Bulldog was popular in Britain and America. US Army General George Armstrong Custer was
said to have carried a pair at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. British Bull Dog revolvers
were issued to employees of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company through 1895.
Garfield assassination A .44 calibre Belgian-made British Bulldog
revolver was used to assassinate US President James A. Garfield on 2 July 1881 by disgruntled
lawyer Charles J. Guiteau, who was angry that Garfield had not appointed him to a Federal
post. Guiteau reportedly wanted a British Bulldog revolver with ivory grips instead
of wooden ones, as he believed they would look nicer when the gun was displayed in a
museum, but decided not to spend the extra $US1 that the ivory-gripped model would have
cost. In all, he paid US$10 for the revolver, a box of cartridges and a penknife, before
spending the next day familiarising himself with the revolver's operation and firing 10
practice shots with it into trees along the banks of the Potomac River. He eventually
used the revolver to shoot Garfield a week or so later in the Sixth Street Railway Station
in Washington, D.C. After Guiteau's trial, the revolver was placed in the Smithsonian
Institution but disappeared some time later. Legacy
The large calibre British Bulldogs are now considered collector's pieces. Ammunition
for these pistols is no longer commercially manufactured.
Charter Arms based one of their more popular revolvers on this design in a 5-shot, double-action
revolver with a swing-out cylinder chambered in .44 Special known as the Charter Arms Bulldog.
Gallery
Notes
References Elman, Robert. Fired in Anger: The Personal
Handguns of American Heroes and Villains. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company.
Barnes, Frank C.. ".44 Bull Dog". In Amber, John T. Cartridges of the World. Northfield,
IL: DBI Books. p. 170. ISBN 0-695-80326-3. Dowell, William Chipchase. The Webley Story.
Kirkland, WA: Commonwealth Heritage Foundation. External links