Slightly ot; Is there an Enfield pistol?

Wife's reading an English murder mystery where somebody get capped with an, "Enfield revolver". Wife knew I have an Enfield rifle.

Sounds like author ignorance to me.

Was an Enfield pistol ever made?

Maybe, since most English writers know nothing about firearms, but in fact there were several revolvers made at Enfield. The first was the Pistol, Revolver, Breech Loading, Mk I, known as the Owen Jones after its inventor. This was an interesting top break revolver in which the cylinder slid forward to extract the cartridges. There was a second version, the Mk II, with minor improvements.

Then there was the government Mk VI, which was a Webley design; the government had a falling out with Webley over cost, and Enfield, the government arsenal, made the revolver from 1921 to the end of production.

The Pistol, Revolver, .380. No. 2 Mk 1 was designed at Enfield and made there up to WWII, then made by contractors. Webley never made the gun though it resembles the commercial Webley Mk IV, which was also made and used during WWII.

As the standard British service handgun of WWII, the No. 2 revolver would be the gun most likely to have been referred to as an "Enfield revolver."

Jim

Actualythe .380 revolver was designed by Webley and only modified by the government, who stole the design. Once the basic design was recieved, the government started modifying it INSTEAD of advising Webley what changes they wanted. A bit like India who "invented" a new self-loading rifle by reverse engineering the FAL samples they recieved.
Webley got it's revenge in WW2 since the "gubmint" was unable to produce enough enfield revolvers and had to go begging to Webley for more.

I was aware of that, John, just felt it was a bit much for a general answer.

The general layout of the Enfield No. 2 is the same as the Webley Mk IV, but IMHO the Enfield No.2 is a better design internally that the Webley, and a lot more suited to mass production. The use of a sideplate is a lot better than Webley's "shove everything in from the bottom" design. Rather too bad they didn't just go the whole way and design a modern swing cylinder revolver that could use a more powerful cartridge. I know the top-break design is faster for ejecting and re-loading, but with only 12 rounds per gun as standard ammo issue, they could not have been too concerned about rapid fire.

Jim

Well, Jim, I think the gubmint always had the intention of stealing the design, considering the fact that they copied the mk6. The fact that they left Webley sitting fat, dumb, and happy while they made improvements that Webley could also have made if they had bothered to mention what they wanted.

Now they had a history of doing stuff like this, They also screwed Jacob Snider.

Just to wrap up, the OP posted in another place that the book was written in the 1880's. I responded that it was quite possible that the writer did know what he was writing about, as the service revolver at that time was the Owen Jones, which was made at the Enfield RSAF and was officially and popularly known as the Enfield. It was, of course, not a Webley either by design or manufacture.

John, I have no doubt that Webley, feeling they had a lock on government contracts, not only in the UK but throughout the empire/commonwealth, simply had no desire to improve much of anything. Of course I have no personal knowledge of the company or its officers, but I do not get the impression of a progressive company leadership, dedicated to a program of continuing product improvement.

Even when they developed a very nice looking 9mm auto pistol, they retained the leaf type recoil spring, an anachronism. I am sure that part of the reluctance to change was due to England's oppressive gun laws, but one would think there would have been enough trade, domestic and export, to at least try to meet the competition.

It is interesting that I have seen little evidence that any of the British gun makers made an effort to oppose restrictive gun laws, even those which would effectively put them out of business.

Jim

British have a wonderfull ability to invent things but being an Island they are insulated and insular, and with strong unions and defensive attitude towards imports they are slow to develop competative technologies and have a "not invented here" attitude. Very proud people and rightfully so but time marches on and technology evolves. Thier class system and attitudes towards thier business class and employees has not helped either.

Are these pistols rare? or are they fairly common in Canada and the US?