Webley Model 1904
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
- The Model 1904 was basically the first working automatic pistol made by Webley (there was a 1903 toolroom experiment, but it didn't really work). Like all the Webley automatic that would follow, it was designed by William Whiting. The 1904 was the company's first effort at making a semiautomatic sidearm for the British military, so it was chambered for the .455 cartridge (a special rimless version made by Kynoch, after early experiments using the .455 rimmed revolver ammunition caused lots of problems stacking in magazines). It is a rather huge handgun, and uses a short recoil mechanism with two separate locking blocks. This particular one is s/n 23 - very few were made before it was rejected in military trials and Webley redirected its efforts toward smaller commercial pistols.
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This is one of the few gun channels/websites that actually makes you smarter.
Why did everything look so much better a hundred years ago....
Even this brick of a gun is elegant
Because gunsmithing used to be an art, now everything is geared around mass production and cost efficiency.
As an old gun buff fron Australia, I really enjoy everything you present. Keep up the good work,Mate.
Wow, that is such an interesting piece of fire arms engineering history. Back in those early days of auto pistol development there were some fascinating designs like this one which we don't see anymore (for good reasons obviously). And really shows how brilliant John Browning was, that at the same time these complex, expensive, and overly engineered designs were coming out, he came up with a simple, inexpensive design like the tilting barrel - which is still used to this day in some form or another. But these types of early complex designs make my favourite Forgotten Weapons videos.
what an elegantly designed pistol. You have a great job
Holy bore axis Batman!
Which is why the British Army whined "Too much recoil". I can see that thing flipping up and back severely.
Another great video on an excellent channel!
The 1904 Webley Whiting is so typically British, a triumph of engineering over aestheitcs and practicality! A great shame that Webley rather gave up automatic research and production during WW1 and this had nothing in the market in later years. After the MkIV .38 revolver (which is still made in a .32 version in India) they just gave up handgun production. Whiting retired after WW1 and though they did have an inspired Polish designer after WW2 that was more or less it for UK automatics.
Very limited market with the ever tightening regs on people owning them.
Seems like just about everything nowadays is a browning cam. It's fun to see some of these early and really interesting approaches to locking a recoil action. Thanks Ian!
The thumbnail does no justice to how massive that pistol is! Really cool piece of history!
This channel is a treat. I have been watching for a couple of years now. Absolutely blown away by the amount of firearms that I wasn't aware about. Question. How do you have so much knowledge about each firearm that you come across? It's like you could be presented with any firearm and know the history about it, the mechanics behind it and how to take it apart. Great job!
I spend a lot of time researching, and I really enjoy what I do. :)
Forgotten Weapons That's awesome to hear. Keep up what your doing!
Forgotten Weapons
I have definitely learned the most from your channel than any other on TH-cam. It is invaluable to be able to be entertained and informed at the same time.
e-Legal Canadian It's not quite that goofy - balancing the weight of the recoiling components with the recoil spring strength and bullet weight/velocity is an important element of ensuring that the pistol runs properly.
Quick yy3yyyyytqta
A housb tYgg0gMY TYuku with 0tqyh
fascinating firearm. i might also add that you do an outstanding job of presentation. if i were someone who didn't even like firearms i'd still watch for the educational value.
I believe the milled cuts on the side of the carrier assembly are there more for reducing contact area to reduce friction and give an avenue for debris to egress. The locking feed ramp does not look like it lines up as you described, maybe the camera angle threw me off but it seemed that the receiver block actually interfaced farther back. Given the feed arrangement it looks like it can not interface as far forward as you suspect.
neat piece ian i like webley i used to have a Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver many moons ago
Take away the extended barrel and it shows a bit of Glockiness to it. Interesting handgun. Some of the best gun videos on youtube.
Amazing pistol I'm sure it was pretty powerful for its day.
sites.google.com/site/britmilammo/-45-inch-self-loading
I like that loooong feed ramp,my 2013 CZ P09 has a long feed ramp also
That thing is a beast.
Webley tempest airgun ( pro) shoots about 26m/s , used to have one as a kid.Awsome gun.
With a .38 or .32 the concern about jacketed rounds might have some sort of truth.
Ironically, the rather large .455 that was used at the time meant that that modest loss of mass would not have been a problem.
Well this will match up with the RIA 5.0 pistol has been in development for 7 years now👍 always fun to see what seems to be new realay isnt. Just done differently😁
I can see why Webley wanted the Mars pistol. I absolutely adore weird pistols specifically in this design
I wonder if this pistol would have been able to shoot a more powerfull round than the .455 webley? It sure looks to be build very strong.. true British craftsmanship. very nice video!
That thing has got an ugly outline but is really cleverly made.
Definitely British.
nice to see gun jesus with a webley....grandad used to love his from ww2, he said "heaven is always waiting in the wings."
Piqued my interest in the 1903 pistol law.
"The Act was more or less ineffective, as anyone wishing to buy a pistol commercially merely had to purchase a licence on demand over the counter from a Post Office before doing so. In addition, it did not regulate private sales of such firearms." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kingdom#Pistols_Act_1903)
I wonder if the effects of the law were limited to only a short period.
Well I know they are a lot more stringent these day's. So much so any calibre above .22 are just outrughtt banned except under extreme cicumstances. Prince William wants one. And he would get one too.
@@geoffedwards-tb4kp Well, sort of. I believe they may own centerfire pistols, if a rod is permanently attached, so that they can not be concealed. I do not know the details, but have seen some video of the contraptions.
I imagine that there is some exception for royalty. I wouldn't question that part.
@@TheSuburban15 Normal members of the public can own certain guns , shotguns etc. Farmer hunting guns. Wildlife Ranger/vet. He could have rifle and or pistol for putting animal out of its misery if no hope.
Seems to be sized to fit .351WSL rather than .45! The most elegant Gilded Age boat anchor by a longshot!
I'd love to see you run a 3 gun competition with one of these.
Fun fact - "tabling an idea" has opposite meanings in the US and UK. So Webley, being Brits, would NOT have "tabled the idea" - they would have "taken it off the table".
That firing pin, is it really 2-piece or is it broken?
Snap-On screwdriver. Nice.
It's quite an elegant design, albeit for a massive pistol.
Just by looking at it I would complain about the high bore axis and the small and sharp gripping surfaces, this gun will not be comfortable to use. Going on the inside, the two locking surfaces may me a good safety feature but the whole mechanism is rather complicated. Overall it's an interesting but sub-optimal design, I can see why the military rejected it.
I like this video, thanks.
Curious, as are many British designs.... I could make bad jokes about warm beer & a Lucas refrigerator.... That aside... If I understand this action, the front locking lug is operated by gravity. Would this pistol function properly if held sideways or upside down?
I know it's been 6 years, but that locking lug is operated by a cam on the top of it that forces it down when the barrel has recoiled far enough.
Huh. It looks like a very well thought system. Minimal numer of springs, instead just angled surfaces... smart. Less parts to wear and brake and easier machining. Plus the gun seems to be well made. I wonder why it had so many malfunctions though. Pity it didn't become more popular.
ian,with all your knowledge of whats right and wrong with a pistol..im not saying you do better or wrose,what im saying is with your extensive knowledge it would be fascinating to see what a pstol designed by you would be?maybe a manufacturer would consider it.even as a one off for these videos?kind regards,david
david woodward he’d design a Glock 19. Said so in a Q&A.
A repro in .45 would be great.
Sometimes the unsuccessful designs are the more interesting ones. That is a fascinating piece of hardware, but the story is almost more so.
Is there anything to the similarity between this and the operation of the Mars Automatic pistol design?
Are those locking surfaces purely gravity actuated? because that .. looks like a gun you couldnt fire while holding at an angle without getting a malfunction. I love the elegance of the design but.. and the problem with any fouling at all causing those locking wedges to stick.. sounds like a real problem unless it was actually concussion pushing them instead
It's not gravity, the tip of the block is angled so the pressure of the cartridge moving the slide will force it down into the groove when it has traveled far enough.
@Forgotten Weapons why does this remind me of a similar Mars pistol
Do you think the recoil spring design for this pistol will ever be used for a modern pistol design? seems clever enough.
I doubt it - they are a lot more expensive to make than coil springs.
Because of modern methods and practices I suspect. Shame. It seems compact.
Did anyone else notice that little smoke ring at 8:31?
I think it's a bit of string or fluff that floats off the frame, not a smoke ring. Good catch though!
I didn't think it was a smoke ring either but I really didn't know what else it could have been lol.
Just out of curiosity, would the v-spring have been strong enough (or as strong as a conventional coil spring) to operate the gun as a blowback action? I wonder if Webley had the locking lugs figured out first, then decided on the v-spring to fit, or if it was the other way around (wherein their experiments found the v-spring not strong enough, so redesigned it with the lugs).
The v-spring could be used in a blowback mechanism. Its problems are that it's a lot more expensive to make than a coil spring, and I suspect it has a shorter service life.
Interesting, thanks. I suppose Webley wanted to save space in not using coil springs.
Forgotten Weapons I think the bigger problem is that when a coil spring breaks, it can still kinda work, at least for a little while. When a v-spring breaks, then it completely stops working, immediately.
I really don't know how long I drove my car around with the rear coil springs broken. Didn't know until I went to rotate tires, and noticed that something didn't look right.
What an odd legal situation where the British government passes a law that absolutely gouges Webley's business and strips the British people of a right that I'd consider fundamental and the first thing Webley does is to jump to make a pistol for the British government to make up those sales.
Fiscally, I understand that totally. But on principle, that kinda hurts.
The right to not be shot in a school? There was 656 mass shootings in the US in 2023, leaving 712 people killed and 2,692 injured. You want to know how many mass shootings there were in the UK in the same time? 1. one mass shooting in 2023 that left 4 injured and none dead. I don't remember exact nukber but there have been over 3,000 mass shootings in the US since the late 90's, leaving thousands dead... in the UK? 33, leaving 36 dead. In the US, deaths by firearm ruled self defence was roughly 54 last year... how many murdered?
in fact, as I write this, there was a mass shooting 2 HOURS AGO in Birmingham, Alabama killing 4 innocent people. Which is Ironic because that's a higher homicide rate than the original Birmingham in England, for the entire year of 2024 so far, which has one of the highest crime rates in the UK.
I had a look and there were 151 homicides in Birmingham, Alabama in 2023, higher than the homicide rate of London in the same year, except there was 196,644 people in Birmingham, Alabama, and 9,748,033 people in the London metro area.
You can keep your so-called "fundamental right" to an untimely death at the hands of a lunatic, thank you.
@@SmD-ff5xd you wanna have a statistics fight with me? Cause you're gonna lose it.
Let's start off with the fact that "mass shooting" in those studies is a far broader metric than it should be, as it includes any instance where the people get hit by gunfire. Walking into a room and shooting the only three people in there isn't a mass shooting. Not to mention the fact that most of those instances are shootings either related to gangs or revolving around some other type of criminal activity, the statistics are wildly exaggerated. Second, defensive uses of a firearm in the US are listed by every major study anywhere between 500,000 and 3,000,000 annually, meaning two things; 1) Americans use their guns far more in self defense than they do criminally, and 2) it's orders of magnitude more likely that a defensive use of a gun results in the criminal not being killed by the victim, but either wounded or scared off, which means less deaths in the long run.
Also, you'd do well to remember that the US is a country of 334 million people, while the UK had only 67 million. When a country is five times larger in population, not to mention that the US has 9 cities over 1 million people whereas the UK only has 3, you might expect a little more hang activity in those areas than you would in the UK. Then on top of that whatever murders don't happen with guns in the UK tend to happen with knives and trucks instead.
The guy who bought this could have gotten about four dozen HK Mk.23 pistols instead
It's an interesting pistol but $109k seems a bit excessive.
I Really live these movies
I feel sorry for Scott : (
Sure, get me all excited that perhaps some day I would run into one of these old guns on the kitchen table of an old lady who wanted to sell off some of Dad's old junk and pick it up for 12 bucks or so, then trash my dreams with facts! I would love to have one of these guns to take out in the country and and put some very big holes in some very little cans. Ah well another firearm on my list of dream guns I shall never possess. As I explain to my grandsons from time to time, we all have our dreams, and without dreams there could be no progress in this world, so dream on boys and make the world a better place for your children, as I have for mine.
Too bad more of these, well, at least the later Webley automatics weren't sold in the U.S.
Question: know where I can get a copy of the schematics for this?
I like the design. The extensive use of cams should make it rather easy to mass produce. Of course it had some small issues to work out being a new design, but over all I like it. The only major issue I see is it appears to weigh about the same as a sub-machine gun, ha. I am sure they would be able to trim it down though if the project had more traction.
Looks less like a _Hail Mary_ and more like giving up.
Was this the one that sold for $95K
+TOTITZKI Yep
That safety looks like it disengages way too easily...
That must of been a cannon in .455Webley
Weren't Webley automatics largely used by British police for a while, especially during World War Two?
Small ones were, yes. Mostly .32ACP models.
Warning. This gun will not reload when inverted.
It will, cam at the top forces it down.
2:22 LOOOOWWWWW TAPPERRRRR FAAAAADEEEE
Not sure if this is just me, but this gun is sexy... like satisfying to look at right?
Much better looking than the 1913
Webley 1913 video here: th-cam.com/video/HSDygkzGQRo/w-d-xo.html (may 2017)
I concealed carry that pistol. By the way, my name is Hulk.
Sorta looks like a hipoint with an extended barrel.
When hi points grandad was in his prime....
I am India and I have gun licence can I buy this pistol
If you had $110k at the Auction it would have been yours !!
More unwieldy than a Hi-Point?
I was really pretty baffled about how the pistol could possibly work, until the recoil spring was pointed out.
Sorta looks like the big ugly brother to the Walther p38
Typical Webley over engineering.