Webley Fosbery - grail gun

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Levallois

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I always wanted one but the prices dissuaded me from purchasing one. Well, I found a very nice seller who was willing to give me a long layaway and after selling 7 other guns (no S&Ws) and saving some cash it was mine. It has been used but well cared for so I think I should be able to shoot it once in a while. The other cool part is that through Richard Milner in the UK I have found out it was sold to a Grenadier Guard in 1914 just in time for the Great War. So I have the name of the original owner and in all probability a WF that was used in WWI!! I have already started the research.
Can't do much better than that.
Best,
John

39756887zu.jpeg
 
Congratulations! An interesting piece to be sure. IIRC they were popular at one time for competition shooting.
 
These are fascinating guns. I’ve never had a chance to handle, let alone shoot one.

The Webley-Fosbery was first used as a target gun at Bisley, I believe. Even though Fosbery was an officer and saw it as a potential service gun, it was never adopted for military service. But since British officers purchased their own sidearms until sometime during WW I (when the concept of the Webley Mk. VI as standardized sidearm was introduced), these were privately acquired and saw service.

It appears so was this one. Nice find!

PS: For anyone not as lucky as the OP, the guy from Forgotten Weapons has a nice video about shooting a Webley-Fosbery:

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4EqkcVlzVSw[/ame]
 
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I appreciate all the kind words. This is only the second one I have ever handled. The first was at a gun show a few years ago. I got to hold one for about 30 seconds until the seller realized I wasn't a serious buyer then he took it away from me pretty quick. Of interest is that these things can be carried c*cked and locked and can be reloaded as quickly as a semi-auto with a fast loader of the day - the two I know about are one made by Prideaux and one made by Watson. Put one of the former on layaway too. Might have it by Xmas.

Bigwheelzip - As far as sharing the name of the Grenadier Guard, I will once I get all his information together. I am curious why you asked?

The three times I know of that a Fosbery was used in a movie were
1) The Maltese Falcon - Miles Archer was killed with an "8 shot 45 cal" - no such thing - the 38 acp version was 8 shot and was what was written in the novel. They are rare, rare, rare so the .455 was used in the movie but the dialog wasn't adjusted to reflect that it only had 6 shots.
2) Zardoz - with Sean Connery in a loin cloth as Zed using one throughout. Weird movie and I found it disconcerting to see James Bond in a loin cloth but the guns were interesting.
3) The Lost City of Z - with Robert Pattinson character playing the side kick to Charlie Hunnan character and using one to shoot off the ear of an unruly expedition member. Ok movie but book was fantastic. What these explorers of the Amazon in the 1920s went through was mind boggling and many times deadly.

Here's two weird photos how it would look if they were used in the western US. Got to get out all my British stuff to do a proper WWI photo.

39706882mt.jpeg


39706881pm.jpeg


Anyway, thanks to all who replied and liked the topic.

John
 
Levallois said:
Bigwheelzip - As far as sharing the name of the Grenadier Guard, I will once I get all his information together. I am curious why you asked?
Click to expand...
Nothing nefarious, I just like trying to extract long forgotten bits of history from the web. Exploration for it's own sake.

Last summer I went to several WWI and WWII battlefields and cemeteries in Europe, and your guy might connect somehow.

Brits.jpg
 
Bigwheelzip - Yeah, i love the research aspect of gun owners in the past. From what I have discovered so far, he survived the war. No mean feat as it looks like he was in some battles.

Jorge - thanks!
 
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Color me jealous, what a good gun. I know exactly how pleased you are, because I know exactly how pleased I would be to own it.

I am sure there are a lot of people who can't really know what it was like to finally get this gun, but I know whenever I finally get one it's going to feel sort of like new Registered Magnum day. These are very much in that class of white whale.

Boy, I can't congratulate you enough.
 
These do tend to be pricey when they appear.

In order not to risk violating any forum rules on advertising internet sites, I won’t link or give specifics.

But a well-respected purveyor of collector firearms currently has a 1901 Webley-Fosbery on offer for a cool $13,000. :)
 
At a OGCA show in the early 80's I saw a similar gun in 22 LR. The group of older men around it didn't allow a wet behind the ears 25 year old close enough to get more than a glimpse!

From what I have gathered since then, it is a fully functional miniature that were hand made.

Ivan
 
While not the same kind of design, here is a modern semi-automatic revolver, a Mateba in .357 magnum. The upper section of the frame carrying the barrel and cylinder reciprocate when firing, and index the cylinder and cock the hammer. They also made them in .44 Magnum. Note that it fires from the bottom chamber of the cylinder.

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Again, thank you for all the terrific comments.

Mine was the cheapest that I have seen. And by cheapest, I mean the cost only made me give up the finer things in life (bourbon, cigars, car restoration, all other gun-related expenses) for awhile as opposed to abject poverty.

The Mateba is interesting looking. I would like to shoot one some day.
 
bigwheelzip said:
Nothing nefarious, I just like trying to extract long forgotten bits of history from the web. Exploration for it's own sake.

Last summer I went to several WWI and WWII battlefields and cemeteries in Europe, and your guy might connect somehow.

Brits.jpg
Click to expand...
Is that a panel in the Menin Gate? It's a very, very sobering place.
IIRC, USA had about 2,700 MIA in ten years of fighting in Vietnam. 2,700 MIA is a terrible thing, but Brits, Aussies Kiwis and Indians had about 54,000 MIA during WWI just in the Ypres Salient, never mind the rest of the Western Front and other locales.
What a horror, what a waste, over a bunch of inbred cousins having hissy fits..
 
ameridaddy said:
Is that a panel in the Menin Gate? It's a very, very sobering place.

IIRC, USA had about 2,700 MIA in ten years of fighting in Vietnam. 2,700 MIA is a terrible thing, but Brits, Aussies Kiwis and Indians had about 54,000 MIA during WWI just in the Ypres Salient, never mind the rest of the Western Front and other locales.

What a horror, what a waste, over a bunch of inbred cousins having hissy fits..
Click to expand...
Good eye. Yes, it is.
We stayed in Ypres while exploring the Flanders battlefields and cemeteries. Very impressed by the still large numbers of people that turn out at Menin Gate to pay homage at the nightly "Last Post" ceremony, more than a century after the carnage.
The 54,000 inscribed names of MIA covering the inside and outside of the Menin Gate didn't fit all those missing in Flanders. Another wall of 35,000 MIA names spans the length of nearby Tyne Cot, the worlds largest cemetery of Commonwealth war graves.

The MIA at Tyne Cot:
0820f1b99b48e59f9339f8b523a940c4.jpg


Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk
 
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