Why There Aren't Any

It seems a great many of these fine pistols were held by Pistol Clubs in the UK. For those unaware of (previous) UK pistol laws, a brief overview is that you had to first join a club and demonstrate proficiency with 'a pistol' BEFORE being able to purchase a handgun. Therefore, clubs typically had 'loaners' held by the club itself, probably on members' or multiple members' licenses, for use by applicants and new members looking to get a pistol license.

And, you DID have to have a special license or endorsement on a firearms license to buy or possess a pistol. Legally, in the UK, ALL PISTOLS were registered/listed/made known to the Government, in specific, including who owned them, where they were stored, and how much ammunition (roughly) was on hand for them.

Therefore, most clubs had a few loaners, usually single-shot .22s, there for the purpose of safely teaching pistol handling to people. They were sometimes Czech, sometimes Russian, etc. But traditionally there were a great many Webley Single Shot Pistols held in clubs in the UK. These were, of course, all duly and responsibly registered/listed with the Home Office/Government.

So, when the UK decided to ban handguns (for most practical purposes) all those fine pistols were conveniently located for simple and easy confiscation; and they, for the most part, were.

The WSS wasn't terribly popular outside the UK, being too expensive, irrelevant to most other countries' pistol laws, etc. so I strongly suspect the majority of these pistols never left the Islands; and consequently the Government snapped them up and destroyed them. There are a few left in the UK (more on that later), but the vast majority of what's left of the production is whatever filtered out of the Islands before the Big Crushing.

So; this relatively innocuous, accurate, finely made, delightful (and eminently useful) pistol went from being considered "common" (as described by a former pistol shooter in the UK) to being, now, very likely the very rarest of all Webley products. There are very few left.

If you have one, you're fortunate.

A Random Webley...

I honestly don't remember where this one came from. It's an example, I think, of a later Mark of the pistol, going by the front sight.

Pistols Act of 1903

Pistols Act, 1903

An Act to regulate the sale and use of Pistols or other Firearms
[11th August 1903]

Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

1. This Act may be cited as the Pistols Act, 1903.

2. In this Act the term "pistol" means a firearm or other weapon of any description from which any shot, bullet or other missile can be discharged, and of which the length of barrel, not including any revolving detachable or magazine breach, does not exceed nine inches.

It's speculated here, and elsewhere, that the W&S SSP has the barrel length it does to avoid the regulation of 1903; its barrel is longer than 9 inches. Therefore, it required, at the time, no special license for ownership, and actually, didn't originally qualify under English Law as a 'pistol' due to barrel length. It may not be the case, but it makes a certain amount of business sense.

Czech Webley Refugee

This machine seems to be in the Czech Republic, owned by a guy with a fairly extensive collection of target pistols. So at least one of these pistols resides in the Czech Republic.

Pathetic.

This battered example is in the REME. It is wrongly described and mis-identified. The rear sight is missing, and I suspect this pistol had a metal butt piece that has been sawn or torn off with a vise grips. It looks like the action is damaged as well. Bummer. Ironically, for reasons I'll get into soon (in another series of posts) it's probably one of the few W&S SS Pistols left in the UK.

My Personal Webley

I got my pistol when I was 14 years old. My family at the time owned guns, and I had a .22 rifle and a .30-30, but I kind of liked pistols. The head of the household disagreed with allowing me to purchase a pistol (with my own money, I might add), but at a gun show in the Midwest I saw a Webley Single Shot .22 pistol. I'd never seen anything like it, and was fascinated. I was used to single shot .22 rifles, so a single shot .22 pistol appealed to me.

The decision was made, actually, ironically, by the sheer length of the thing. The quote, if I recall, was, "Well, it's as long as a rifle. How much trouble could you get into with it?" It was purchased in the early 1980s for $140.00 cash, a fair amount of money for the time.

An earlier (?) example.

This pistol turned up for sale a while ago over at a guy named 'Bayonet Addict' and I lifted it for the archives. It's an older, I think, example, which actually could mean post-World War II. It's easy to see the resemblance to the Tranter in the frame shape.