Has anyone else ever seen these? Webley–Fosbery Automatic Revolver

[Qwk69buick]

I am not sure what the point of this was, but in 1901 Webley started production of the absolute worst combination since cyanide and Kool aid. The pistol had a revolver cylinder that was notched to move as it tracked on a pin that stayed stationary, I can't say for sure but it had to have been mounted to the lower frame, the lower frame had a revolver style grip and trigger, a slide and recoil spring to counteract the blowback recoil. So you have a revolver frame on top a slide, and something between a modern semi frame and a disconnected revolver half. I am not sure how you could make something more complicated and utterly useless, because in the end revolvers had been around for about 70 years and already self fed, it's still a cylindrical action so there is no reloading advantage, and something that complicated would more than likely break in one of 10 ways when you needed it most. Probably the biggest mystery is that Webley made about 5000 of them over 20 years. I think they call that a blind alley in the technology game.

[RJay]

You have never watched the old classic movie " The Maltese Falcon " ?, with bogart s-at his best. , His partner. Archer , ( whose wife he was playing house with ) was shot with such an animal. I woild think there are very few old gun buffs who are not aware of the Webley Fosbery

[FrankenMauser]

Why is it "the worst" if it works as intended?

History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52t2jdLDHHg
Live fire and safety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EqkcVlzVSw

[RickB]

Figured prominently in the rather bizarre science/fantasy movie Zardoz.

[44 AMP]

The entire upper recoiled on the lower frame, advancing the cylinder and cocking the hammer at the same time. Technically, it was recoil operated, not blowback.

I am not sure how you could make something more complicated and utterly useless,

Complicated? yes. But not any more useless than any other revolver.

it's still a cylindrical action so there is no reloading advantage,

Advantage over what? its a top break revolver, with all the advantages and disadvantages of that design.

Advantages over a standard semi auto? No separate magazine. No issues feeding from a magazine. No needing to extract each round individually and feed in another for each shot. Disadvantages? 6 shot capacity, slower to reload than a standard semi auto (using preloaded magazines).

Faster to reload than a solid frame SA revolver. Reportedly very sensitive to what is today called "limp wristing". Made in .45 (.455 Webley) and .38 calibers.

one other advantage, lighter trigger pull for each shot than the DA trigger pull of regular DA revolvers.

1901,,, people were still figuring things out back then, and many different designs were tried. The first Luger didn't arrive until 1902. And the watershed design of the 1911 wasn't around until 1911, a full decade later.

I doubt few Webley-Fosberrys saw really hard use, there are no real reports about them being exceptionally fragile. Over complicated, and likely to break easily is always mentioned when talking about them, but no one ever has any reports of them actually breaking in any kind of significant numbers.

it was one of those ideas that flourished at the turn of the century, but turned out to not be an overall advantage, despite some advantages in some areas. An evolutionary dead end in handgun design.

But not the worst design ever, nor totally useless.

if you want to see some other dead ends that ought to have been good ideas, but turned out not to be, look up the Dardick revolver (and its "tround" ammunition) and the Gyrojet pistol.

Compared to the Webley-Fosberry, those two are fairly recent..

There is a certain spirit of invention (especially in the years before and after 1900) that says "how do you know it won't work unless you try it?"

So, lots of things got tried. Today, we have a much, much larger store of knowledge about what works, and what doesn't, partially due to those who did try this and that, to find out what worked well, and what didn't.

Probably the biggest mystery is that Webley made about 5000 of them over 20 years.

No mystery there. They were British. The gun did work. There was the makers prestige involved. They were British. They had money invested in the design. While it didn't set popularity records, the guns did work. And they were British....

[Qwk69buick]

It has all the complications of an early automatic, yet has no apparent advantage over a double action revolver

[FrankenMauser]

That depends upon your point of view.

My point of view is different from yours.

I think it was a worthwhile endeavor, and a successful design.

[Qwk69buick]

A good double action revolver (self cockingish)would have the advantage over that pistol, complicating a simple tried and true design by making it gyrate doesn't seem to solve any major problems of the first70 years of revolver design,, that were not solved by double action.

[FrankenMauser]

Can a "good double action revolver" cock and cycle itself using the recoil impulse of firing, and provide the shooter with a single-action trigger pull for the next shot?

[kozak6]

What a silly piece of junk! They should have just bought Glocks!

Seriously, though, I think you are being a little harsh. It was invented during the infancy of the semiautomatic pistol. Browning had just barely invented the pistol slide. And honestly, it compares quite favorably to a lot of primitive semiautomatics. Compared to a Borchardt, it's a monument of elegance and simplicity.

It's not that complicated either. It dispenses with the double action mechanism and the zigzag cylinder simplifies timing.

[Powderman]

Quick question...did you folks know that there was a modern version of that revolver? I think they went out of business due to lack of interest--but I also think it was a lack of appreciation. If you can ever handle one, I'm sure you will like the smoothness of the action, and it does actually LOOK good. The unique location of the barrel cut way down on recoil, allowing for some REALLY fast controlled pairs. They were available in .357 and .44 magnum.

Take a look for the "Mateba Unica 6" revolver.

[RickB]

Sort of makes you wonder why automatic pistol design evolution included the retrograde step of DA?

[44 AMP]

A good double action revolver (self cockingish)would have the advantage over that pistol,

Assuming we accept this at face value, what would those advantages be??

complicating a simple tried and true design by making it gyrate doesn't seem to solve any major problems of the first70 years of revolver design,, that were not solved by double action.

Not sure where you are getting "gyrate" from. Perhaps we define the word differently. I don't see any "gyrate" in the Webley-Fosberry that isn't present in other revolvers as well. What I see is a mechanism that uses the force of recoil to advance the cylinder and cock the hammer, rather than a mechanism that uses the force of your trigger finger muscles to do the same thing.

And, just out of curiosity, what "major problems of the first 70 years of revolver design" do you see that the double action solved???

Its not easy to do, but to be fair, one should take off our 21st century glasses with their built in 20/20 hindsight, and put on a pair of 19th century "spectacles" and compare the design with its contemporaries, only.

And, one also needs to realize that technical, and even tactical advantages of a given design are not always enough to allow it to succeed. Especially if those advantages are just an improvement, and not a "quantum shift to the next level".

Firearms history is replete with examples of technically "superior" designs in guns and cartridges, that were not superior enough to justify their adoption, in the opinions of those in positions to make those decisions.

One classic case (in the US) is the .276 Pedersen vs. the .30-06. On paper, the .276 had better ballistics, so it would have been tactically superior to the 06. It was a smaller, lighter round, so it would have been logistically superior to the 06. However, these advantages while real, were not big enough advantages to justify the cost of replacing the .30-06, both in the cost of new guns (and all their support requirements) and in the "throwing away" of the considerable investment the US had in the 06, in existing guns and millions of rounds of ammo.

The old saying "build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door" is inspirational, but not always true. More than a few better mousetraps failed commercially and militarily over the years, for reasons not directly the result of the designs.

[BillM]

The Webley Fosbery filled a perceived niche in a interesting way. Neat
guns--and no more impractical that a Mars pistol or a Borchardt. It actually
had its roots in the Mauser Zig-Zag revolver of 1878, and the auto revolver
continues today with the Mateba.

[Jim Watson]

Not to mention the Webley Fosberry in .38 High Velocity.
The cartridge was actually the .38 ACP and it was loaded into the gun with an eight shot full moon clip.
http://www.forgottenweapons.com/earl...ebley-fosbery/

Oh, yeah, you could speed load the .455 with a Prideaux Device. Which also worked for the regular Webley.
http://www.icollector.com/Prideaux-S...stol_i25753761

[CastleBravo]

Sort of makes you wonder why automatic pistol design evolution included the retrograde step of DA?

Contrived requirements cooked up in government contracts, I suspect.

[Jim Watson]

Yep. First by German police, then German army, for large scale production.

[Pat T]

A buddy of mine showed me one his dad had, it was absolutely pristine, NRA 99%. It was gorgeous. I offered him a hundred bucks for it. He declined.

[moosemike]

Ah, the gun Bogey made famous!

[DPris]

I saw one at a gunshow, $900 price tag. That was 25 years ago.
I've always thought they were a neat gun, but never had the cash to acquire one.
Denis

[disseminator]

That is super cool, I would love to shoot it some....

[straightshooterjake]

It is my understanding that the Webley Fosbery revolvers got some interest from target shooters at the time, and that there was some success using them for target competition. This addresses the question of what advantages this design had. For rapid fire precision shooting, the semi-automatic single action trigger is a significant advantage over double action or over thumb cocking. I am not sure whether semi-autos pistols at that time were reliable or accurate enough to compete seriously at target shooting.

[Cheapshooter]

One of my "Holy Grail" guns. But out of my budget for a collector piece that most likely wouldn't be shot but a few times just to see it work.

[HisSoldier]

When I read Webley I thought of it's autoloader, another clunky English design.

Having owned a few things in my life designed by Englishmen I feel their genius resides in other areas, with a few exceptions. But they may feel likewise about American designs.

[lewwallace]

James D Julia just auctioned off 20, thats right twenty, of these "awkward, gyrating, stupid mis-concieved designs", this past wknd. The lowest opening bid in the lot for a complete gun was....12k! (there was one 'parts' gun missing grips, hammer and some internal parts that's opener was 4.2k) One had a pre sale estimate of 100k. Guess all these maligned, poorly thought out guns are just a fluke of history!!