Old revolver ID help!

J

"JJ"

New member
Ok guys, I need some help identifying this old .38? break over revolver!

A good friend showed it to me today and told me it's story.
It was his Grandfather's gun originally and some how, someone pawned it. His father got wind it was about to be sold & purchased it to keep it in the family.
His Father is now getting up there in age so he brought it to his house to keep it from growing legs again!

Just doing a search now on line I have discovered it is a Webley or a Webley knock off, but I would still like any info and a value estimate. Even though the guy wouldn't sell it for 10x it's value, he still would get a kick out of knowing it.

Sorry for the bad cell phone pics but it's all I got!

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I had very few markings on it, but here is a SPT50 on the cylinder.

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This is the top of the barrel.
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It is a .38 but it does not specify special.
I am old gun stupid so a caliber verification would be nice as well! :o

Thanks for any help!
 
Yes sir!

That looks just like it with the spur less hammer.
Are these fairly common as far as collectibles go?
 
Pretty common as far as collectibles go, finding one with the hammer spur and SA notch inside is more of a find. But its still a piece of history.
 
Yes sir! I agree!
And as I said this belonged to his Grandfather. I don't know if it was his from the war or if something he purchased.
I will try to get some more details but it has a lot of sentimental value regardless of it's monetary value!

Thanks for the help guys!
 
Officially the Pistol, Revolver No. 2 Mk 1*. The cartridge was the Cartridge, Revolver, .380 Inch, Mk 2, sometimes called the .38/200 because an obsolete version used a 200 grain bullet. In fact, the WWII cartridge used a jacketed 178 grain bullet. The cartridge case is the same as that of the .38 S&W cartridge, and .38 S&W (not .38 Special) can be fired in that revolver.

The No. 2 revolver was the standard British service pistol (revolver) of WWII. It resembles the Webley Mk IV, which was also used in WWII, but it is not a Webley nor made by Webley.

This might sound silly, but check to see if there is a hole through the barrel. That was one of the guns copied to make non-firing "collector" dummy guns and is the only one whose copy fooled me into thinking it was real. The copy was actually better made than the original!

Jim
 
Thanks form the info Jim! Good stuff.
I did look down the barrel to inspect the rifling so it appears to be an actual weapon, not a copy.
It actually has a nice trigger for as old as it is. The owner wants to fire it once just to see if it works and the clean it and put it up.
I guess his next quest will be to find some 38 s&w ammo!
 
.380-200 Mk I cartridges were used heavily in the early days of world war two as there were not enough of the later version available.

Britain purchased several million American made lead 200 gr. bullets under the cash and carry provisions, as well.

They needed the ammo so much that they took the chance of a technical violation of the Hague Accords.
 
I rather doubt that there was much concern about the Hague convention being violated by use of lead bullets in those Enfields; the number of rounds actually fired had to be miniscule. The standard British issue for revolvers (.380 and .455) was 12 rounds per gun, with another 12 rounds in unit supply.

That paucity of ammunition led to the expedient of staking the rims of 9mm so it could be fired in the revolvers. It also explains why there was so little of that ammunition available on the surplus market after WWII. One result of that was the "shaving" of Webley .455 revolver cylinders to accept .45 ACP with half moon clips.

Jim
 
It was a concern.

It's what led the British to abandon the 200-gr. lead bullet in the middle 1920s in the first place.

When war kicked off in 1939 it was found that there wasn't enough Mk II ammo to go around to arm the BEF that was sent to France, and the capacity to manufacture more was very limited and new capacity couldn't be brought on board in time, so the British adopted a three-prong approach:

1. Depite objections and worries inside the British military and government, arm those troops going to France with Mk I ammo.

2. Purchase several million more rounds of lead-bullet (Colt Super Police) ammo from the United States.

3. Haul ass on developing new production capacity.

Once sufficient quantities of ammo became available, lead-bullet rounds were withdrawn and replaced with the jacketed loads.

After 1943 or so, no Mk I ammo remained in service.
 
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