Just picked up a nice War Finish Webley MkIV

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02-11-2011, 09:29 PM
Claven2

Just picked up a nice War Finish Webley MkIV

I was rather happy to pick up this little all-matching gem. It's is about as nice a WAR FINISH British issue MkIV as you are likely to see with a strongly struck broad arrow, uncracked grips and no real wear or abuse apart from some of the screw heads being a little deformed long ago. Bore is about mint.

For those not familiar, the War Finish guns were built for the British Army and were left roughly machined to speed production, though critical surfaces were polished so they have the same action as the commercial versions of the same gun.

The basic story is that RSAF Enfield basically STOLE the Webley design and made the Enfield No.2MkI revolver - very nearly an outright clone of the Webley. Nevertheless, Enfield could not supply these in enough quantity durign the war so a large quantity of real Webleys also had to be purchased and this is one of those.

It's in .38/200 AKA .38 S&W with a heavier bullet.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN2543-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN2542-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN2544-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN2545-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN2546-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN2547-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN2551-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCN2549-1.jpg

Shout out to Collector's Source for hooking me up and at a very reasonable price too :)
02-16-2011, 04:37 AM
Mohawk

Very Nice Webley. You should be proud to own such a piece. I have an Enfield and love it...Congrats on a great find...
03-21-2011, 03:31 PM
vintage hunter

Picked up a nice all matching War Finish MkIV at a show yesterday. Not as nice on the outside as Claven's, lots of chips in the paint, but it's minty inside. $275 for pistol, holster and 50 rds ammo. Now if I can just find an un-bobbed Enfield No.2 I'll really be...:dancingbanana:
03-22-2011, 02:49 AM
Mohawk

Portland Show was real winner. Found a WW2 dated .455 Webley, a 1943 Dated No2 Mk1 with tanker holster. Have seen many more of these coming out of the wood work lately. Now if I could find 500 rounds of .455 to go along with the 770 rounds of .38 S&W I picked up last week, I would be a happy camper....LOL
03-23-2011, 11:43 PM
barbarossa

Quote:

Originally Posted by Claven2

The basic story is that RSAF Enfield basically STOLE the Webley design and made the Enfield No.2MkI revolver - very nearly an outright clone of the Webley. Nevertheless, Enfield could not supply these in enough quantity durign the war so a large quantity of real Webleys also had to be purchased and this is one of those.

Claven2, have you ever compared the internal mechanisms of the Enfield revolver and the Webley Mark IV revolver? They are as different internally as chalk and cheese. The Enfield has an immensely stronger and easier to adjust mechanism, courtesy of Captain Boy's original design which is an amalgamation of the best features of the Webley, Colt, and Smith&Wesson revolver mechanism of that era. As far as the hinge mechanism, it was a public domain non patentable feature so nothing was stolen from Webley on that score. When Webley&Scott sued the British government to recover its expenses, it was granted an exceedingly small settlement by the court in its decision on the matter. I believe that was the correct decision all things considered.