Webley MK4 Endfield No. 2

During World War I the standard British service revolved was one variant or other of the Webley .455 pistol. These were very effective pistols, but their weight and bulk made them very difficult to handle correctly without a great deal of training and constant practice, two commodities that were in short supply at that time. After 1919 the British Army decided that a smaller pistol firing a heavy .38-cal bullet would be just as effective as the larger-calibre weapon but would be easier to handle and would require less training. So Webley and Scott, which up to that time had been pistol manufacturers of a virtually official status for the British armed forces, took its .455 revolved, scaled it down and offered the result to the military.

Webley design.
To thje chagrin of Webley and Scott, the miliary simploy took the design, made a few minor alterations and then placed the result in production as an 'official' government design to be produced at the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock in Middlesex. This procedure took time, for Webley and Scott offered its design in 1923 and Enfield Lock took over the design in 1926. Webley and Scott were somewhat nonplussed at the course of events but proceeded to make its .38 revolved, known as the Webley MK 4, all over the world with limited success.

The Enfield Lock product became the Pistol, Revolved, No. 2 Mk 1 and was duly issued for service. Once in service it proved sound and effective enough, but mechanical progress meant that large numbers of these pistols were issued to tank crews and other mechanised personnel, who made the unfortunate discovery that the long hammer spur had a tendency to catch on to the many internal fittings of tanks and other vehicles with what could be nasty results. This led to a redesign in which the Enfield pistol had the hammer spur removed altogether and the trigger mechanism lightened to enable the weapon to be fired double-action only. This revolver became the No. 2 Mk 1*, and existing Mk 1s were modified to the new standard. The double action made the pisftol very difficult to use accurately at all except minimal range, but that did not seem to matter too much at the time.

Accuracy in service pistols has often b een a matter of luck. The Enfield No. 2 had few pretensions as a target weapon: it was designed for self-defence at 23 m (25 yd) or less. By 1942 with British forces at full stretch in the North African desert and in the Far East, the volume of weapon production was more important than the quality. To accelerate the manufacture of No. 2 pistols, several features were dropped including the hammer safety stop. The resulting No. 2 Mk 1 was quicker and cheaper to make but was essentially a dangerous weapon. If dropped on the hard surface with a round in the chamber, the pistol was liable to go off. If this seems a foolhardy decision, it is important to remember that British factories were then churning out tens of thousands of Sten guns which were even more prone to accidental discharges. The Mk 1s were recalled after the end of the World War II and safety stops were added before their return to service.

Bullet sizes
The British 200-grain .38 cartridge fired by the Enfield revolver was very different to the 9-mm Luger round favoured by the German forces. Roughly speaking it fired a bullet twice the size but at half the speed. The black art terminal ballistics was then in its infancy and this diametrically opposite approach had little to do with the respective bullet's behaviour when they struck a target. The Germans simply had the most powerful round that was practical for an early 20th century automatic. The British had begun with the .455 Webley cartridge and wanted to lighten it to give inexperienced shooters a better chance hitting the target.

Webley and Scott re-entered the scene during World War II, when supplies of the Enfield pistols were too slow to meet the ever-expanding demand. Thus the Webley Mk 4 was ordered to eke out supplies and Webley and Scott went on to supply tousands of its design to the British Army after all. Unfortunately, although the two pistols were virtually identical in appearance, there were enough minor differences between them to prevent interchangeability of parts.

Wartime Service
Both pistols saw extensive use between 1939 and 1945, and although the Enfield revolvers (there was a No. 2 Mk 1 which embodied wartime production expedients) were the official standard pistols, the Webley Mk 4 was just as widely used among British and Commonwealth armed forces. Both remained in service until the 1960s and both are still to be enountered as service pistols in various parts of the world.