Webley Scott 1907

[boomer271]

I am looking for takedown instructions/ diagrams or any information on cleaning care and TLC on a Webley Scott Model 1907 .25 ACP pistol. Nice little shooter, but it needs some loving care and attention now. Any ideas, or does someone have The Knowledge on this fine little gun?

 

[MTF]

Had one when I lived in the US. They are nice little guns and I regret that Canadian law forbids me having one now. Takedown is accomplished by pulling down on the trigger guard so that the lug under the barrel rotates into the "flat" position. This allows the slide/barrel assembly to be pulled forward off the frame. In other words, the triggerguard pivots on a point where it meets the frame under the barrel, and pulls away at the point where it meets the gripframe. Sometimes this is very stiff, but it does work. It's all pretty straighforward after that. PM me if you have problems. I can probably email you a diagram.

 

[GrantR]

Here is a scan of an original Webley parts and dismounting diagram which is reproduced in Dowell's "The Webley Story", and may be what you are looking for.

I don't know a lot about these "self-loading pistols", but this is actually described as relating to the Model 1906 .25 caliber and Model 1913 .32 caliber external hammer automatics, whereas you call yours a Model 1907. However, I have noticed that the year designations Dowell gives for many models seem to be about one year off the designations often used by collectors, for some reason .....

(If your pistol is the hammerless model - which Dowell refers to as the Model 1909 - the original parts breakdown and dismounting instructions are also reproduced in "The Webley Story".)

This is just a thumbnail link to the full-size scan I did - the reproduction in the book leaves a bit to be desired, so I kept the resolution quite high to get as much detail as reasonably possible and to make the "fine print" legible. Click on the thumbnail to display the large image, which you can then copy to your hard drive and/or print ....

 

[GrantR]

Followup:

I glanced through the text of "The Webley Story" to see if I could find any written description of the dismounting process, which is only illustrated in the above scan.

First, I think I may have made the connection between the 1905, 1906 & 1907 designations that one seems to see used interchangeably with these little pistols. I'm not entirely sure because Dowell's text can be very difficult to follow at times, to say the least. In any event, it looks like 1905 was the first Patent date and 1906 is the year the model went into production .... at least in relation to the .32 and .38 caliber versions - which he refers to as the 1905 Model in the text. ( )

They first produced a prototype of a somewhat different design for .25 caliber, but then went with essentially a scaled down version of the "1905 Model" .32/.38 pistol instead .... which was nevertheless covered by a separate patent filed in December of 1906, with production presumably not starting until 1907. The two are so similar, in fact, than a single parts diagram/description and set of dismounting instructions served for both - i.e. the scan linked to above ....

Learned all this by reading his text regarding the .25 Caliber "1906 Model" (as he describes it) which comments on the very close similarity and then refers the reader to the text on the .32/38 1905 Model for a more detailed description .....

Anyway, here is the rather brief written description of the dismounting process:

"A novel method for securing the barrel to the body is by utilizing the open ends of the trigger guard; the guard is made from spring steel with specially shaped lugs at each end to suit squared slots machined in the floor of the body. By pulling the trigger guard in a forward direction the rear end springs clear of the lug, thus releasing the barrel and permitting it and the breech slide to be withdrawn from the body in a forward direction."