[ Webley-Fosbery Shooting ]
Let's give it a try, I've got 6 rounds of Fiocchi .455 here.
This is reputedly a target gun, so we'll do some target-style shooting.
That has an interesting recoil impulse to it,
in that you feel like the recoil at first,
and then you can feel the slide going "kerchunk" back into battery.
Because this runs slower than a typical semi-automatic pistol with a slide.
That's interesting. It also of course has a very high bore axis
because Fosbery had to cut the frame in half and have two separate bits.
Which isn't exactly conducive to having some super-low bore axis.
But it's really not a particularly unpleasant gun to shoot, I really liked that.
You do want to be careful you don't choke up on it too much
because the slide does come back here.
And I think that will do painful things to the web of your hand if you try and hold it too high.
So, in a grip like that.
And this has a magnificent, crisp, single-stage, no-creep trigger to it.
I'm going to put a few more rounds through this,
and then I'm also curious how it compares to a 1911.
Because one of the theories at the time
was that this was a much softer-shooting gun than the 1911.
Alright, because the Fosbery is a break-action revolver,
it's pretty easy to reload, pop out all the empties, and then ...
drop 6 rounds in here, or possibly on the ground.
The British did use speed loaders.
There were a couple of different versions, probably the best-known is called the Prideaux.
But there were some others as well.
That would have clearly been the faster way to reload one of these,
but even with single cases like this, it's still faster than a gate-loaded revolver.
You do have to cock it first.
Jerked that one.
Missed. Now, let's try a 1911.
Thank you.
Alright, I would say the Webley-Fosbery is indeed a softer-shooting gun than the 1911.
Although part of that is probably going to be the ammunition.
This is 230 grain at 850 feet per second,
the Fosbery is 265, but it's more like 700 or 715 feet per second.
And the recoil impulse is also substantially different.
This is a sharper hit, straight back into your hand,
because of course it is much lower to the hand.
The Fosbery, it's a much higher axis and you ... get a lot more muzzle flip.
And it's got that interesting feel to it where you have the initial recoil,
and then you get the "kerchunk" of the slide and the cylinder
going back into battery, that's pretty interesting.
Alright, so we found a potential interesting issue here with the Webley-Fosbery,
something that could have certainly come up in the field.
And that is the potential of it firing when you reload the gun when you snap the action closed.
So the way this is supposed to work, there is a safety notch on the hammer.
This is fired, and then I can bring the hammer back, just slightly, to the safety notch.
However, when I do that the firing pin is still exposed, right there.
And you can see it comes well out beyond the face of the back.
Now I have a pulled bullet here (I kind of mangled the case), but this is just a live primer.
So the way this is supposed to work is in order to open the gun
you push down on this lever, which pushes the hammer back.
That pushes it back to the safety notch,
and so when you snap the gun shut ...
[This microphone does not pick up shots well, but that was a primer firing.]
There, it did it. We've been going back and forth
trying to figure out if this can ... happen when you've got the safety notch engaged,
or if the hammer has to be all the way down.
Clearly, it can happen on the safety notch.
Now, ... yeah, there it is.
You know, it's interesting, there's not much of a primer indent there.
But that's certainly enough to fire it.
So that's really a potentially scary thing.
Even with the safety notch, and the gun design does a very good job of
forcing you to always be at that safety notch when you're closing the action.
When you hit the lever to open it, it puts the hammer back there.
When you close the gun, it forces that lever back and pushes the hammer back to the safety notch.
But, as we just saw, it can still fire a case at the safety notch.
Now it's possible that that is a specific defect of this example.
But I'll tell you what, any Webley-Fosbery I touch from now on I'm going to treat a bit differently.
Specifically the way I will go about reloading these
is to actually cock the hammer and engage the safety.
That brings the firing pin completely free and clear of the cylinder,
and with the safety engaged, the trigger is disconnected.
Now I can easily go ahead and
snap this down, and be safe and ready to shoot when I just connect the hammer.
[After filming, further investigation showed this to be a worn part on this particular Webley-Fosbery.]
[When new, this was not an issue with the design.]
[However, excessive wear on any Webley-Fosbery CAN create this condition, so owners should treat them with that in mind.]
Thanks for watching guys, I hope you enjoyed the video.
We learned a lot about the Webley-Fosbery out here today.
Potential safety issues, and just basic handling.
These were pretty slick guns in their day, and they are still pretty cool guns today.
I'd like to give a big thank you to Mike Carrick, one of the editors of Arms Heritage Magazine,
for letting me shoot this Webley from his collection.
If you're interested in guns like this, definitely check out Arms Heritage Magazine.
And of course, tune back into Forgotten Weapons for more automatic revolvers.