Webley problems

I have never had any parts break on my two .455s, but had a recoil shield break on one of my .38s (Mark IV). I ordered a replacement part from the USA, put it in, and have had no further problems after many years and several hundred rounds fired.
 
Hi everyone,

I recently had a part break on my .455 Webley Mk II; all parts are matching on mine, so it should be all Mk II material. Look here:

Instruction%20for%20Armourers%20-1897%20-%20%20Plate%20III.jpg


Part #25, the extractor lever spring, broke on mine. For something that repeatedly bends back and forth, it's a thin little bugger of a leaf spring, and I'm not surprised that it broke on me. The pistol would still fire just fine; you may only get some problems with extraction (ejection?). Interestingly, my Mk II had #25 (can't seem to find #26; the upper bit of #25 is still stuck in #9) instead of #44 and #45, which are more robust parts.

If and when the part breaks, you'll notice the following:

When the pistol is closed up, the extractor lever (#9), or the cam as some guys call it, shifts around instead of staying in place. That's because the extractor lever spring is no longer there to keep the cam from moving. When the cam shifts backwards, the little notch at the front of the cam fails to engage the frame. As a result, your extraction mechanism will fail. You usually won't get this problem when firing the revolver upright since gravity will keep the cam down and ready to engage the frame. Problems arise when shooting the revolver on its side or – for whatever reason – when inverted.

This isn't a big problem to me, since I will be shooting with .45 ACP (save the heart attack; it will be loaded to lower pressures) and moonclips. I was told to remove the entire cam assembly by the seller since it wasn't "needed", but I kept it in because I didn't like having this huge gap in the hinge; I was afraid of things getting bent out of shape by the screw (#30).

The solution? Find parts #44 and #45. Or, obtain parts from a Webley Mk VI. I read in another forum that the extractor lever parts on a Mk VI are of the few that are back-compatible to the Mk II. You'll need 3 things: the extractor lever, the auxiliary extractor lever, and the extractor lever spiral spring. These parts are all analogous to #9, #44, and #45 in the above diagram. So far, I've only found these on Numrich. No, they haven't been in stock for a while.
_____

Cheers,

Q
 
I've read that dry firing Webleys can cause the hammer to break. I had a Mk VII once that had a mismatched hammer, possibly broken that way.
 
Broke the nose off the hammer on a nice Mark VI many years ago.

Helluvva job to get it repaired: drill out the broken-off it, drill out the hammer, braze in a PIN to connect and hold them together. Job took about 2 hours but, once you know what you're doing, it wasn't bad. No spare parts available back then.

CAUSE, without doubt, was dry-firing the critter withOUT primed empties in the cylinder. Haven't dry-fired a Wobbly without primed cases since then.

Haven't had a recurrence, either.

Only other problem was a latch spring.

That's in 50 years of playing with the things.

They are darned decent guns.

Absolutely the only military pistol that you can use to smack some clown in the pickelhaub..... and then take it to a match.
 
a common problem I have run into with all revolvers with an extractor that is pushed back with part number 9, is that there is a tiny little bump on the piece and is supposed to prevent the part from rotating around when opening the gun. The little bump (which bears on the frame) can wear off and the extractor ceases to work

cheers mooncoon
 
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