British Constabulary Revolver?

R

rburch

New member
So I stopped by a pawn shop while back home visiting my folks, I'm friendly with the owner and he showed me this:







He knows nothing about it has no clue what caliber it is or where to get ammo.

It reminds me a bit of a Webly, and my Nagant revolver.

It is double action, and looks to be about 44-45 cal to me, and has this marking:



Cal 12, do they mean it's a 12 mm?

Anyone know anything about this thing?
 
I'm thinking that's probably a Belgian knockoff. A real one should have Webley & Scott markings and English proofmarks. Look at the back of the cylinder and see if it has ELG stamped on it. If it does it's Belgian.
 
No such thing as a "British Constabulary" revolver issued by anybody in England. No metrics in England when that style was in use either. As mentioned, it's likely Belgian with the finish removed or some bone head chromed it. Thing has zero collector value.
.455 Webley, .476 Adams, et al used the same bullet diameter. 11.3 or 11.6 mm.
 
It's most likely a Belgian knock off, and to my eye appears to have been plated, or replated, fairly recently.

My best guess is that it's modeled after the Webley Royal Irish Constabulary model, which was Webley's first double action revolver model and which was adopted by the RIC in the late 1860s.

The caliber 12 MAY refer to the gun being chambered for the rather uncommon .500 Tranter cartridge (also known as the .500 Webley). The RIC model and a few later Webleys were made in .500 Tranter, and the cartridge was loaded in Belgium and possibly in Germany by DWM.
 
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