You're going to be getting more gun blogging around here, as my current duties-that-pay-the-bills pretty much muzzles me on a lot of current military stuff... oddly enough because I have access to accurate information.
Which seems a little odd, but there you go.
So, continuing with the theme from yesterday on the Webley series of pistols, I decided to do a family portrait, Politburo-style.
Yesterday, I showed you the latest firearm to enter the Arsenal's books - a 1902-manufactured Webley Mark IV revolver.
That brought several people (including some we hadn't heard from in a while) out of the rafters of the Great Hall to comment on their Mark VI's, pistols which were essentially product-improvements on the Mark IV. The discussion yesterday skipped over the Mark V pistol. which was briefly adopted early in WWI.
The Mark V was a Mark IV with some manufacturing and dimensional changes and longer barrel - it retained the "bird-butt" grip, which really wasn't an ideal grip for a large caliber gun in rapid fire. So the Mark VI, with what we would see as a more conventional butt, was adopted in 1915 and became the standard.
Webley also made a line of ugly-but-serviceable automatics, some models of which were produced here in the United States by the firm of Harrington and Richardson.
"Um, dude - what about that "Politburo" thingy? "
As students of Soviet history know, one way Kremlinologists in the West kept track of who was in favor or out in the Soviet government was by tracking pictures of the Politburo members over time. When a new book came out in Russia discussing the various glorious aspects of Soviet achievement... you could look at the historical pictures to see who has been airbrushed out or... added in!
The Arsenal contains a Harrington and Richardson Self-Loading Pistol in 32ACP. And we have a Mark IV and a Mark VI pistol, all are in the picture. We don't actually have a Mark V. But, via the magic of Photoshop®, we don't need one for the blog! I just grafted the butt of the Mark IV onto the frame of the Mark VI, did some tweaking, and, voila! As near as to a Mark V as our budget will allow for, and only people who *really* know their pistols will be able to tell. Or, people who *know* the pic is faked and start looking for the artifacts of same. But it's all good - 'cuz I did *admit* to it on the pic - which is more than we can say of the Kremlin.
Oh - one last fiddly detail - I had some emails yesterday from folks who didn't understand what I meant when I said the Webley's were "top-break" revolvers. Click here, and all will be made clear, methinks.
Which seems a little odd, but there you go.
So, continuing with the theme from yesterday on the Webley series of pistols, I decided to do a family portrait, Politburo-style.
Yesterday, I showed you the latest firearm to enter the Arsenal's books - a 1902-manufactured Webley Mark IV revolver.
That brought several people (including some we hadn't heard from in a while) out of the rafters of the Great Hall to comment on their Mark VI's, pistols which were essentially product-improvements on the Mark IV. The discussion yesterday skipped over the Mark V pistol. which was briefly adopted early in WWI.
The Mark V was a Mark IV with some manufacturing and dimensional changes and longer barrel - it retained the "bird-butt" grip, which really wasn't an ideal grip for a large caliber gun in rapid fire. So the Mark VI, with what we would see as a more conventional butt, was adopted in 1915 and became the standard.
Webley also made a line of ugly-but-serviceable automatics, some models of which were produced here in the United States by the firm of Harrington and Richardson.
"Um, dude - what about that "Politburo" thingy? "
As students of Soviet history know, one way Kremlinologists in the West kept track of who was in favor or out in the Soviet government was by tracking pictures of the Politburo members over time. When a new book came out in Russia discussing the various glorious aspects of Soviet achievement... you could look at the historical pictures to see who has been airbrushed out or... added in!
The Arsenal contains a Harrington and Richardson Self-Loading Pistol in 32ACP. And we have a Mark IV and a Mark VI pistol, all are in the picture. We don't actually have a Mark V. But, via the magic of Photoshop®, we don't need one for the blog! I just grafted the butt of the Mark IV onto the frame of the Mark VI, did some tweaking, and, voila! As near as to a Mark V as our budget will allow for, and only people who *really* know their pistols will be able to tell. Or, people who *know* the pic is faked and start looking for the artifacts of same. But it's all good - 'cuz I did *admit* to it on the pic - which is more than we can say of the Kremlin.
Oh - one last fiddly detail - I had some emails yesterday from folks who didn't understand what I meant when I said the Webley's were "top-break" revolvers. Click here, and all will be made clear, methinks.
(A little rummaging over at American Rifleman reveals there actually WAS a bayonet produced for this pistol o.0 http://www.americanrifleman.org/hg_r_webley1.html)
And a Mauser Zig-Zag, for that matter.