Someone got smart with a Webley "RIC" style revolver

fat tony

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I remember I had some business over at the HRM police station, the one over in the Woodside Industrial Park some time ago, (I had to get my letter saying I had no criminal record), anyways there was a jovial commissionaire at the desk there, for some reason they had moved the Halifax Police Museum over to that location from where it was before which was the RN Museum over in the Old Officer's mess at Stadacona. Well there was an exhibit there showing some of the weapons that they confiscated from criminals over the years, One of them was what looked like a long barreled RIC revolver they captured from some dolt who was doing armed robberies, there was a box of what appeared to be .38 S&W ammo, he had wrapped the casings in masking tape until they more or less 'fit' in the chambers, I think it might have been 450 boxer or something like that.I wonder if the dolt ever did a test fire to see if it would hold up?
 
Wrapped the cartridges in tape so that they would fit the chamber? Slap me silly!! Sounds like the type of fellow who didn't do too well in school .... maybe a candidate for the Darwin awards. I wonder what it was like to extract a fired casing (I can imagine a pretty messy chamber)?
 
I can recall one of the gunwriters (Elmer Kieth, maybe?) writing about an incident in which he and a friend got shanghied into working in a gold mine, as lads. Perhaps one of the Skeeter Skelton (spelling?) series of articles.

He related that the fellow that was pretty much keeping them as captive labor, had left them wearing their guns but had taken all the ammo. They had a "discussion" over whether they were staying or leaving, with the two of them making their point, with IIRC, 38 LC ammo, wrapped in the remnants of some folding money, and wedged into the chambers of a 45 Colt revolver.

Apparently, it worked well enough.

'Course, it could be just a story, but it was a good one.

It would be crude, but I would rather stand behind it than in front of it. Masking tape would have a lot of give.
IIRC I read somewhere that crude black powder "pistols" were confiscated in IIRC, Acatraz, made from rolled up pages of a National Geographic Magazine.


Cheers
Trev
 
"...some dolt who was..." Most criminals aren't exactly known for their smarts. There are cut down 12 ga shotguns in the TO Police museum that have the barrel(s) cut so far down that the shell sticks out the end. Seems to me there's an Enfield like that too.
 
IIRC I read somewhere that crude black powder "pistols" were confiscated in IIRC, Acatraz, made from rolled up pages of a National Geographic Magazine.

I once made some fuse casings up out of single sheets of common typing paper, (bumf from work :D), I rolled them up on a rod and the sheet was covered with waterproof wood glue, they got really hard, they were almost like hardwood dowels so I can believe they would make passable single use barrels.
 
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It all depends on how hard-up you are for a working firearm, I suppose.

If you think about it a bit, rolled paper has been used for fireworks (rocket casings as well as launching tubes for projectiles, as in roman candle) for centuries.

Paper is pretty tough stuff.

Cheers
Trev
 
Yup, I'm with the peanut gallery, It would suck to try to extract fired cases, but I'd shoot the aforesaid pistol in a self defence situation. .38 is pretty damned anemic, but substantial pressure would build up, enough to get the slug moving in a forward direction dangerous to the shootee.
 
Bart Skelton also told of a Colt Bisley that some Mexicans had fired - apparently with wrapped-in-tape.44 Magnum. :eek: (The extraction wasn't the issue.)
 
We should invite all the scrotums to a remote sand pit one day and have them test fire their ghetto guns. That would take both them and those illegal guns off the streets.....permanently.
 
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