This pistol is being sold by Morphys on October 31, 2018.
This is a really interesting and probably unique Webley – a single shot, flat sided version of the WG Target revolver. It has a WG Target frame and grip and WG Target adjustable sights, but a monolithic barrel block with a single chamber and ejector in place of a cylinder (rather like a Colt Camp Perry). It is in magnificent condition, but there is a complete dearth of historical information on this pattern. The only deduction I can make is based on the serial number, which is just 11 digits shy of the last known WG revolver. This would place production just before World War One, and perhaps in using the last of the available parts it was reasonable to make a single-shot version like this for a custom special order?
A break-action target gun that’s easy to use and easy to make using the same tools for regular revolvers. I hope there aren’t any idiots who can’t tell the difference between a single-action target trigger and the usual service trigger (that usually results in shooting way off target or shooting a friend in the knee).
Tool room special? When you’re the factory (or “works” for our friends in Old Blighty) all things are possible.
“Old Blighty”
Where this place is?
It’s an affectionate colloquial reference to the United Kingdom. Originally just “Blighty” during WW1, but nowadays usually “Old Blighty”.
Interestingly, it’s a corruption of of a Hindi word meaning “foreign” as a reference to British products in India, which was then adopted by British soldiers meaning “Great Britain”. As a common military slang word among British soldiers during WW1, it later became a common expression in the British Empire. (Yes, I had to check the etymology, but it was interesting enough that I though to share it here.)
Thanks for explanation, I was aware about using Albion in place of United Kingdom, but not that. Interestingly Old Blighty can be found in 1916 song:
https://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/takemebacktodearoldblighty.htm
I would direct the readership to books on Smith & Wesson large-frame top-breaks; a single-shot target model (most commonly, maybe exclusively? — in .38 cal.) was not just offered, but sometimes customers bought six-shooters with spare single-shot barrel/top frames as a complete shooting kit. Thus you had a spare gun type and barrel installed with the utilization of one screw. Perhaps some U.K. customer, having seen or read about the S & W, asked Webley for a home-grown equivalent in the local common caliber. The S & W s pictured in books are usually nickel-plated and quite handsome in outline.
The Webley WG single shot pistol is very reminiscent of the H&R Model 195 and later known as the H & R USRA single shot pistol.
http://www.icollector.com/Scarce-H-R-USRA-Target-Pistol_i16752622
http://www.ogca.com/usra_single_shot_pistols.htm
Perhaps this spurred on the development…
Regards,
Bob CW
FWIW, here is a photo of my H&R Mdl US Revolver Association (USRA) single shot .22LR target pistol. The similarity with the subject W&S .455 Target pistol is somewhat remarkable. The H&R USRA pistols were produced in the late ’20’s and ’30’s, so it be a processor, or successor to the W&S pistol.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/nhJd4tc.jpg[/img]
Let us not forget the Ruger Hawkeye not-a-revolver, in .256 Win Mag.
The what? In what?
Well, this is Forgotten Weapons, after all.
There was a single-shot top-break reciever-barrel (solid unit, no barrel-cykinder gap) unit in ,22 LR that fit on to the reciever of a late-19th century 6-shot .38 Smith and Wesson in a great-uncles collection when I was a kid in the 60s. Don’t think it was original Smith because it had no makers’ marks so it was probably a “Main Street Special” from some small-town gunsmith but I got to put a couple of dozen .22 shorts though it whe I was 12 or so and it was as close as I’ve ever gotten to firing a vintage Schofield. Probably why I still love top-breaks – if I could afford a Cimmaron Schofield I’d have to pay someone to make me a .22 single-shot top piece for plinking, and I’d use that a lot more than the 6-shot .44 or .45.
I posted pics on Yuku. A respondent in the UK replied and hadvpertinent info on it and the other mentioned in video. Sales dates and recipient of firearm and when/where info. I can send gmail copy of the pist if anyone is interested. Contact me if ypu eish.
Does it have the internal revolver parts, so a revolver top half- now missing- could be put in place of the single shot top half?
No. Made as single shot only@
No. Made as single shot only@
The ordinary size recoil shield made me think there might be the revolver switch off was possible.
What??
Post is over a yr old and all sales prices would be listed at auction house not here.