Webley & Scott Semiautos?

Nyles

Nyles

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I've always been interested in the Webley & Scott autoloading pistols produced in the early 20th century. I recently found a reference to .38 calibre W&S's being used by the Royal Navy as substitute standard guns. I've never heard that before, but then again until recently I was unaware that there WERE actual .38 (rather than 9mm Browning Long) W&Ss. Is this a mistaken reference to the .455 models which were standard in the RN, or is this correct?

If so, would they have been the M1909 in 9mm, or the M1910 in .38ACP?
 
Webley & Scott made a really nice small-frame .38 Revolver, which was also available in .32 and .22 calibres. It went through several Marks, ended up as the Mark IV small-frame revolver, which was the start point for the development of the "Enfield" revolver which was adopted in the 1930s.

The Government decided to concentrate ALL manufacture and repair for everything at Enfield, an impossible situation when they had only one full line and a large shop for shop projects. After Dunkirk, new government finally decided to do something, and Webley & Scott got a contract to build a whole pile of their small-frame .38 revolvers for military/naval/air use. This is the common Mark IV .38/200 of War Two use, taking a .38S&W casing with a 200-grain lead bullet, later superceded by a 178-grain RNFMJ.

W&S automatics were used in the Great War in calibre .455 Auto Mk. II.

They did make a line of pocket automatics, including the Metropolitan model, which are fun to play with and were the inspiration for the H&R pocket automatics of the 1920s. These were available in .32 and 9mm Browning Long (which was actually pretty short). I don;t know about Service use of these but would not be surprised at anything.

Likely I'm 'way off-base on this whole thing, anyway. How about a photo? "You show us yours, we'll show you ours".
 
Webley made a 38ACP calibre SA pistol (M1910 IIRC) in three variations pre WW1. Total production was less than 1000. Can find no reference as to naval purchase but "Howdah to Hipower" lists them as privately purchased by officers.
In 1914 Webley listed SA pistols in 25 ACP, 32ACP, 380ACP, 38ACP, 9MM BL and 455 Auto.
 
Thanks Green. I'm gonna assume that the bit about naval purchase was a confusion with the Mk.IN. Anyways, here's pictures of a .38ACP M1910 from Ellwood Epps I just snapped up. The holster looks similar to WW1-era Webley holsters, but I'm until I have it in hand I'm going to assume its coincidental.





 
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