So I picked up this lovely little 1936 Enfield manufactured No.2MkI revolver marked to the Royal Tank Corps Depot at Bovington Camp, Dorset. Weapon No. 911. It's a cancelled marking, probably because between 1936 and 1938 the Corps was renamed the Royal Tank Regiment, decentralized from Dorset, and expended to 51 battalions to go fight Hitler.
Lovely little piece really with better than 90% finish and it's never been rebuilt, refurbed, or even ham-fistedly disassembled. Wonder how it braved the war with so little wear in evidence (?).
As you may know, there is a fair bit of controversy around the Enfield No.2MkI. 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 during the war so a large quantity of real Webleys also had to be purchased.
Rather than type it all out, here is the Wikipedia take on those events, primarily excerpted from Ian Skennerton's book on the No.2 revolver.
And a side-by-each:
Lovely little piece really with better than 90% finish and it's never been rebuilt, refurbed, or even ham-fistedly disassembled. Wonder how it braved the war with so little wear in evidence (?).
As you may know, there is a fair bit of controversy around the Enfield No.2MkI. 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 during the war so a large quantity of real Webleys also had to be purchased.
Rather than type it all out, here is the Wikipedia take on those events, primarily excerpted from Ian Skennerton's book on the No.2 revolver.
And a side-by-each:
