The heir to the pistol "Mars"
Commander C. R. Samson is the first British pilot to take off from the deck of a ship. Pictured with a Webley & Scott .455 pistol
Whose address is on a hard bag,
Where is death packaged?
Who is the bullet for?
Where is she going to fly to today?
Adam Lindsay Gordon
(October 19, 1833 - June 24, 1870)
Where is death packaged?
Who is the bullet for?
Where is she going to fly to today?
Adam Lindsay Gordon
(October 19, 1833 - June 24, 1870)
stories about weapons. So, last time we got acquainted with the English pistol "Mars", so powerful and so complex that it was so accepted into service and was not and ... it's good that it wasn't. However, the idea of getting a powerful self-loading pistol (in England they did not like the word “automatic”) did not leave the minds of the British military. Therefore, development work on such weapons began to be carried out there at the end of the XNUMXth century, and at the very beginning of the XNUMXth century they were continued.
And by the way, several of the very prototypes of a self-loading pistol that Hugh Gabbet-Fairfax designed under the general name "Mars" in 1903 were not in vain. People just saw - "how not to." So how should it be? A year later, one of the directors of the Webley and Scott company, William John Whiting, managed to demonstrate “how it should be”, who, again, based on the Mars pistol (well, where to go from him?) Designed his self-loading pistol 1904, chambered for a .455 (11,2 mm) caliber revolver cartridge, used both in the army and in navy.
Even outwardly, Whiting's first sample looked like the unforgettable "Mars"
The pistol of 1904 turned out to be complex, bulky and heavy. A clear failure was the use of a welt cartridge, that is, a cartridge with a rim. Therefore, already in 1905, Whiting developed a much more compact model M1905 with a blowback for a relatively weak pistol cartridge 7,65 mm Browning cartridge. The mechanism of the pistol was more than original: a V-shaped flat return spring, which interacted with the casing-bolt using a swinging lever, was located on it under the right cheek of its handle!
Absolutely indigestible design, isn't it? Well, at least this spring was placed in the back of the handle. So no, they put it on the side. Although, on the other hand, the design is nowhere simpler. There is also no thermal effect on the spring. And the spring itself is flat. The production of such springs was well developed at that time.
The Webley and Scott pistol of the 1905 model began to be mass-produced, it was somewhat modernized in 1908, and it turned out to be so successful that it was in production until 1940. The police were also armed with it, not only in Great Britain, but also in a number of other European countries, and in addition, it was on commercial sale. At that time, England did not yet have one of the most stringent laws in the world, depriving its citizens of the right to own personal short-barreled weapons, not to mention wearing them.
Still, designing a pistol for a revolving welt cartridge is not the best idea ...
But in those years there was no such law in England, therefore, for self-defense, on the basis of the 1905 model, they made a pocket self-loading pistol of the 1906 model of the year, chambered for 6,35 mm Browning, which was very popular at that time. The Model 1906 also had a blowback. The V-shaped return spring was still hidden in the handle on the right and acted on the shutter with a swinging lever. In the best traditions of that time, the safety lever was located above the handle on the left, the magazine was used in a single row, and its latch was at the bottom of the handle, like most pistols of that time. Sights on it were absent in principle. Again, in 1909, on the basis of this sample, a pistol was made under a stronger cartridge of the 9-mm Browning Long caliber.
Commercial advertising for the sale of Webley and Scott pistols in Russia
Differences from the previous model: a larger caliber and the absence of a safety lever, which was replaced with an automatic grip safety at the rear of the handle. Sights finally appeared: a front sight, made as part of the barrel, and a rear sight in the groove of the casing-bolt, and with the ability to make lateral corrections. Provided on this pistol and a swivel on the handle for attaching a pistol belt.
Pistol M1910. View from the left. Photo littlegun.be
The M1910 pistol was designed to use .38 ACP (9 × 23SR) cartridges adopted in the USA. And here, interesting engineering solutions finally appeared, although it also used a short barrel stroke. However, the locking of the barrel took place with the help of inclined protrusions made on the barrel, which moved in the grooves on the frame. Also on the barrel there was a protrusion that entered the window on the casing-gate. Already in our time, the idea of engaging the barrel with the bolt through the window to eject the cartridges will be used in Glock pistols. But everything else was thought out, frankly, not very well.
The same pistol. Right view. Photo littlegun.be
And the automatics of this pistol worked like this: the barrel, being coupled with the casing-bolt, moved by the recoil force along the inclined grooves of the frame back and at the same time down. At the same time, they disengaged, and the shutter-casing moved back, while the barrel, meanwhile, returned forward by the force of the spring, after which the shutter-casing followed it, sending the next cartridge from the magazine into the chamber. USM trigger type, single action. The V-shaped spring, like on all other Whiting "webables", is located under the right cheek of the handle. The pistol turned out to be very good, but in Europe, because of its unusual cartridge, it was not in high demand.
The inscription on the casing-shutter. Photo littlegun.be
But all this, so to speak, was only a prelude to what was finally created in 1912. At the same time, a self-loading pistol appeared, which a year later was accepted into service with the Royal Navy under the official name of the Webley and Scott Self-loading Pistol Mk I Marine, and it was the first automatic pistol that entered service with the British armed forces. The same automation as on the previous sample, only the caliber is no longer 9 mm, but 11,2 mm, that is, 0,441 inches (although officially its caliber was considered equal to 0,445).
The cartridge was really very powerful. It is enough, for example, to say that it was impossible to shoot his cartridges from a revolver of the same caliber. It could have been torn apart. The pistol was equipped with an automatic grip safety, which blocked the trigger until its lever was released while wrapping around the handle. The trigger of this pistol was somewhat similar to the trigger of the TT pistol, also assembled in one separate block. There was a shutter delay, a casing-bolt after all the cartridges were used up in the rearmost position. The shutter delay switch was placed on the left side of the frame.
"Webley and Scott" M1910, Type 3, issue of 1911. Overall length 205 mm, barrel length 127 mm, weight 970 g. Caliber .38. Royal Arsenal, Leeds
Outwardly, the gun looked like previous samples, but because of its large size it seemed even more angular. Its characteristic "square" shape was complemented by its handle, placed under the casing-bolt with a minimum slope. Because of this, it was quite difficult (unlike the Parabellum pistol) to fire offhand from it. However, a trained shooter could hit targets quite successfully from it.
In addition, which, by the way, was also immediately noted by the troops, it was also a good weapon in hand-to-hand combat, because even without cartridges its weight reached 1,43 kg. It was enough to take it by the barrel and hit the enemy with the handle on the head in order to immediately disable him with one blow!
Mk I "Marine" issue of 1915. Left side view. Photo littlegun.be
He is the right side. Photo littlegun.be
For pistols for pilots, such a “butt” was offered! Photo littlegun.be
Also in 1915, the Mk I was adopted as a limited standard weapon by the Royal Horse Artillery and the Royal Flying Corps. When the First World War ended, Webley and Scott continued to produce self-loading pistols of this type, but the main emphasis was placed on samples chambered for 6,35 mm, 7,65 mm and 9 mm calibers, the release of which continued in 1940.
TTX pistols "Webley and Scott" designed by John Whiting
Model 1905
Caliber: 7,65mm Browning (7,65×16)
Overall length: mm 159
Barrel length: 89 mm
Empty weight: 580 g
Store capacity: 8 cartridges
Model 1906
Caliber: 6,35mm Browning (6,35×16)
Overall length: mm 120
Barrel length: 54 mm
Empty weight: 340 g
Store capacity: 6 cartridges
Webley & Scott semi-automatic pistol .25ACP. They were produced from 1906 to 1940 and are a smaller version of the police pistol, but with an open trigger. The .25 ACP version has a 6-round magazine, blue burnishing, and plastic grips. On the left side of the slide is marked "WEBLEY & SCOTT LTD/LONDON & BIRMINGHAM/6.35m/m AUTOMATIC PISTOL". Caliber 6,35 mm (.25ACP) Photo by littlegun.be
Model 1909
Caliber: 9mm Browning Long (9×20)
Overall length: mm 203
Barrel length: 140 mm
Empty weight: 985 g
Store capacity: 8 cartridges
Model 1910
Caliber: .38 ACP (9 × 23)
Overall length: mm 203
Barrel length: 127 mm
Empty weight: 540 g
Store capacity: 8 cartridges
Mk. I "Marine"
Caliber: .455 Webley (11,43×23)
Overall length: mm 203
Barrel length: 127 mm
Empty weight: 990 g
Store capacity: 7 cartridges
A 1914 Webley and Scott police officer. Its device is well shown: oblique projections on the breech breech, a lever in the handle and its V-shaped spring. The gun was arranged, of course, nowhere is easier!
The device of the pistol and the cartridge for it ...
And this is how it looks in the hand of the shooter. Not bad, let's say. But its frame - see the photo below, was technologically complex, and its manufacture required many different operations.
Pistol "Webley and Scott" M1911 caliber 7,65 mm. Overall length 158,7 mm, barrel length 88,9 mm, thickness 25 mm. Auckland War Memorial Museum, New Zealand
Commercial model M1910, manufactured in 1924. Overall length: 157 mm. Barrel length: 89 mm. Empty weight: 540 g. Royal Arsenal, Leeds
В качестве вывода: the main advantages of this pistol were the simplicity of design and large caliber (for an army pistol), although the design was very primitive, the weight was too large, and in order to shoot accurately from it, you had to be a well-trained shooter!
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