The Webley Self-Loading Pistol was an early magazine-fed pistol. The gun was designed in 1910 by the

Webley & Scott Webley & Scott is an arms manufacturer founded in Birmingham, England. Webley produced handguns and long guns from 1834 to 1979, when the company ceased to manufacture firearms and instead turned its attention to producing air pistols and ai ...

company. The Mk. 1 entered police service in 1911 in a

.32 ACP .32 ACP ( Automatic Colt Pistol, also known as .32 Automatic) is a centerfire pistol cartridge. It is a semi-rimmed, straight-walled cartridge developed by firearms designer John Browning, initially for use in the FN M1900 semi-automatic pi ...

model for the

London Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

. The .455 version was adopted by the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

in 1912 as the first automatic pistol in British service. The pistol was also adopted by the

Royal Horse Artillery The Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) was formed in 1793 as a distinct arm of the Royal Regiment of Artillery (commonly termed Royal Artillery) to provide horse artillery support to the cavalry units of the British Army. (Although the cavalry link r ...

and the Royal Flying Corps. Its predecessor was the unsuccessful

Mars Automatic Pistol The Mars Automatic Pistol, also sometimes known as the Webley-Mars, was a semi-automatic pistol developed in 1900 by the Englishman Hugh Gabbet-Fairfax and distributed by the Mars Automatic Pistol Syndicate Ltd. of Birmingham. It was manufact ...

Service use

They were issued to pilots of the Royal Naval Air Service. While principally issued as sidearms there was some intent that they be used to shoot other planes.

Problems

The pistol's original

cordite Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom since 1889 to replace black powder as a military propellant. Like modern gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burn ...

cartridge left a lot of residue in the barrel causing frequent jamming. This was resolved in 1914 with

nitrocellulose Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...

instead of cordite in the .455 cartridge. This new cartridge for the Mk.1 was called the Mark Iz. Had Webley invested in more research and development of its pistol and ammunition and new technologies, the result would have been a better firearm produced more quickly. Particularly given the increasing adoption of the semi-automatic pistol by foreign armed forces and the extensive testing and development data available from previous efforts by other manufacturers.

Improvements and variations

The first models of the Mk. 1 had the safety on left side of the hammer. This was later moved to the left side of the frame, where it could lock the slide. Service versions were also outfitted with a grip safety.

References

External links

High resolution picture of a Webley Self-Loading Pistol
{{DEFAULTSORT:Webley Self-Loading Pistol Semi-automatic pistols Semi-automatic pistols of the United Kingdom World War I British infantry weapons World War II infantry weapons of the United Kingdom