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Curio & Relic Gallery Post pictures of your favorite milsurp here.

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Old 05-08-2014, 6:55 PM
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pitfighter pitfighter is offline
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Default (misbehaving) Webley Fosbery

One of the firearms of my dreams as a young man was the Webley Fosbery -

I've wanted one from the time I saw The Maltese Falcon, and then looked up the revolver - read about Fosbery and his heroic exploits, winning the Victoria Cross in sword fight with Afghan rebels.
He was an explorer of the paradox, indeed his rifle/shotgun was called the paradox gun.
His revolver aptly was also a paradox, an automatic revolver.

I found this 1912 example in a California gun-shop and paid the single largest amount of cash I had paid for any firearm at the time, my hands were shaking! - *I have since beaten that price, but for some reason you always remember your first big spend

I kept it unfired for a year - and then could't resist temptation.
I took it along to the private range at Angeles, along with a batch of original 1943 Canadian .455 and a single box of modern Hornady .455.

The old ammo ran beautifully - very accurate and smooth - you can see why the revolver was the choice of famous American pistol shooter Walter Winans.
It is an incredible experience to shoot - or it was for me.
It was an Officer purchase and there are stories of it's use on the front - famously as an air to air firearm, before MG's replaced handguns in planes.
When you had a canvas and wood set up, ejecting shell cases were an issue - look up the steel cage that was attached to 1911 autos - with no ejecting cases, the Fosbery was a fairly good choice for rapid fire, but that era was short lived.


Back to the range day:
The modern ammo gave just enough recoil to cycle the action, not enough to cock the hammer (we did fix this malady.) - so temporarily, this became another form of paradox!

I kept the revolver a little while longer - sadly, it is long gone now - it could't pay for itself as a movie rental, and somehow after finding it, and owning it for a few years - I no longer felt the strong attraction to it, that had fueled the years long hunt.

Photographed alongside another revolver with a safety catch - the German Reichsrevolver - in 10.6mm








With an old Webley WS I owned - the storyboards are the tank sequence from "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." neither the Fosbery or the Webley WS were used in the movie but they seemed to fit together
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Last edited by pitfighter; 05-08-2014 at 9:35 PM..
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Old 05-24-2014, 9:28 PM
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Bigyates Bigyates is offline
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Default

Nice revolver and photos.
I too am a student of Fosbery. The original revolver operated with 6.25grs revolver cordite and 265gr bullet. Webley made just fewer than 5000 of these revolvers. I hope to find one someday.

"Paradox" was name coined and patented by Holland and Holland for the Fosbery designed rifled choke gun that Holland manufactured using Fosbery's design. A gun shooting both conical bullet and shot. Giving the user the ability to take game from snipe to buffalo, a real paradox.

Last edited by Bigyates; 05-24-2014 at 9:35 PM..
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