doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The pinfire game gun

Temperatures are steadily dropping, and I must work on bringing in the winter's firewood inside (my only source of heat) -- so I might not be able to add much to this thread for the next days. But I've time to add another game gun today.

I suppose it is hard to think of the name Scott without the name Webley, as the two are intertwined when it comes to shotguns, but it was not always so. Each started out on their own, and both produced pinfire game guns.

The Webley name is a famous one in gun making, though it is best known for revolvers and air pistols, and the last shotgun carrying the Webley name was produced in 1991. Today's example is a much earlier one, either built as a dual-fire gun, or converted to dual-fire.

Philip Webley was apprenticed in 1827 at the age of 14 to William Ryan at William Ryan & Son, 32 Whittall Street, in Birmingham. That business had been started in 1783 by Benjamin Watson in Catherine Street, the original name for Whittall Street. In 1813 William Ryan helped fund the building of the "Gun Barrel Proof House of the Town of Birmingham". Ryan was a member of the proof house governing body, and later became a Guardian of the Proof House (his business would eventually become Rowland Watson, and Thomas Wild & Co). After his apprenticeship with Ryan ended in 1834, Philip Webley and his brother James established a partnership as percussioners, lock filers, and gun makers at 7 Weaman Street, in the old premises of William Davis. William Davis was born in Birmingham in 1790 and was apprenticed in the gun trade at the age of nine. In 1806 he joined the army and served in the Peninsular Wars and at Waterloo, and in 1817 he returned to Birmingham and established his own business as a gun implement maker, mould and tool maker at 7 Weaman Street. Davis died in 1831, and the business was continued by his widow, Sarah, and his daughter, Caroline, at 84 Weaman Street. Philip Webley married Caroline in 1838, and they lived at that address.

In 1853 Philip Webley obtained a patent (No. 335) for a hinged revolver, followed by patent No. 2127 for an improvement. This percussion cap-and-ball revolver was known as the "Longspur", and though faster to load than the Colt, it was more expensive. In 1859 Thomas William, aged 21, was made a partner in the firm and the name changed to P Webley & Son, described as "Gun and Pistol Makers and Patent Revolving Pistol Makers", for Philip Webley's patent. Philip focussed on his revolvers, and Thomas managed the shotgun side of the business. In 1863 and 1864 the firm's address was given as 83-84 Weaman Street, but from late 1864 to 1875 their address was 84 Weaman Street. On 4 August 1865 Thomas William Webley took out a provisional patent No.2030 for a centre-fire cartridge with a dummy pin which acted as a loaded indicator, and for conversions of pinfire guns and revolvers to centre-fire, though very little is known about this patent and what these conversions might have looked like. In 1866 Thomas William Webley patented a spring assisted rotary under-lever, patent No. 3022. In 1867 the firm made the double-action .442 revolver adopted by the Royal Irish Constabulary, and in 1869 Thomas William Webley became a Guardian of the Birmingham Proof House.

It was around this time this gun was made. It is a 12-bore double-bite screw-grip rotary under-lever dual pinfire-centrefire gun by Philip Webley & Son of 84 Weaman Street, Birmingham, serial number 1999. This tired-looking gun has over-bored chambers, and it may possibly have been made to use with Thomas William Webley's centre-fire/pin cartridge adapters described in patent No. 2030 of 1865 - though I think it was originally built as a dual-fire gun, capable of firing both pinfire and centre-fire cartridges. I don't believe it was an after-market conversion, as the extractor acts on a fixed projection on the hinge pin. It would seem an over-complication to re-build the gun just for an extractor, as other extractor designs used in after-market conversions are integrated in much simpler ways. The two-piece vertical-and-horizontal strikers, missing in this example, would have been similar to Thomas George Sylven's patent No. 806 of 1866, and the chamber over-boring remains a mystery. I've never encountered another Webley pinfire with which to compare, and the only illustration I've been able to trace is of Thomas Webley' snap-action underlever, in a 20 January 1994 issue of Shooting Times (this weekly British sportsman's magazine was first published in September 1882, and it has not missed a single edition since -- despite several wars getting in the way, demonstrating how seriously the Brits take their shooting sports -- though it is now a monthly publication, available in print and digital).

As is often the case with pinfires, the condition is 'tired and neglected' to put it mildly. The 26 5/8" damascus barrels (likely shortened) carry Birmingham proofs. There is no visible name and address on rib, and the back-action locks are signed "P. Webley & Son". The left hammer screw has been replaced, the left mainspring is a replacement, and the two-part strikers are missing. The gun has minimal border and foliate scroll engraving, and other than the dual-fire feature, it is a very standard, plain, and inexpensive Birmingham gun. The bores are pitted and the gun, missing a few parts, weighs 6 lb 14 oz.








This is what the original dual-fire strikers might have looked like: