Just picked up a nice War Finish Webley MkIV

Claven2

Claven2

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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.

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Shout out to Collector's Source for hooking me up and at a very reasonable price too :)
 
Wow, you can really see the rough machining marks! They really just didn't bother with the finishing of the outside of the gun. The sides of the hammer and the top strap are really rough.

Awesome gun though!
 
It's already up in a thread, but it might become an MKL entry. AFAIK, only war finish guns were issued to UK troops, the nicely finished ones without broadarrows or military proofmarks were commercial sale and not technically milsurps ;)
 
Claven2 said:
It's already up in a thread, but it might become an MKL entry. AFAIK, only war finish guns were issued to UK troops, the nicely finished ones without broadarrows or military proofmarks were commercial sale and not technically milsurps ;)
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I think it should be a MKL entry. It seems to me that if not rare this is a pretty obscure milsurp. As i said previous, I didn't even know of such a thing as War Finish guns. Were they only Webley pistols or other firearms as well?
 
Reminds me of my 1945 dated Nagant revolver, talk about machining marks on that one.

Looking forward to hearing how your new Webley shoots.
 
fugawi said:
Would this include the Free Dutch, Polish and other forces? I know the Poles were organized and equipped as British formations with possible national variations.
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Those other nations' units were equipped from MOD stores, so if they got Webleys, then the answer would be yes - though they might have gotten Enfield revolvers instead - not sure.

The Brits also used a LOT of Victory S&W's and WW1 era .455 revolvers - even some WW1 era Colt 1911's in both .455 Auto and .45ACP.
 
Sardaukar said:
Wow, you can really see the rough machining marks! They really just didn't bother with the finishing of the outside of the gun. The sides of the hammer and the top strap are really rough.

Awesome gun though!
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Great! Claven, your are a fantastic photographer. Thanks for the OP.

The rough outside, well finished inside was what the Russian Tanks were in WW2. Hitler, on seeing one, is quoted as saying how can these tanks be any good, look at the rough finish? And he was comparing the exterior finish to that of his own tanks. We all know how that match up finished.
The Russians wasted no effort on appearances, just out produced Germany in numbers and thus won their tank battles against Germany.
w:h:

Appearances can be deceiving.
 
fugawi said:
I think it should be a MKL entry. It seems to me that if not rare this is a pretty obscure milsurp. As i said previous, I didn't even know of such a thing as War Finish guns. Were they only Webley pistols or other firearms as well?
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Hi I have had a MklV 38 Webley for years WAR FINISH never issued when I got it 1988.
Gerry
 
MapleSugar said:
The external finish sure does look rough, but the rifling looks nice and sharp!:)

Am I to assume that .38/200 means it takes a 200 gr. bullet in a .38 S&W case?:confused:
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Yes, that's exactly what it means. Though by WW2, the lead 200gr projectiles had been changed for a 178 - 180-grain (12 g) jacketed bullet.

The new round was known as the .380 Revolver Mk IIz, but they still marked the guns .38/200.
 
Claven, what about the Enfield revolvers, would any of those be War Finish as well or is it just Webleys? And what kind of numbers were War Finish as opposed to usual finishing process?

Thanks.
 
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