Webley Revolver

The Webley revolver is a British top-break, self-extracting revolver produced by the Webley & Scott company, adopted as the standard sidearm of the British armed forces beginning in the 1880s and continuing in various marks through the First and Second World Wars, with the Webley Mark VI, introduced in 1915, being the most widely issued version among British and Commonwealth officers and specialist troops in the trenches of the First World War. Its top-break action allowed the barrel to hinge downward, automatically ejecting all six spent cartridge cases at once and permitting a faster reload than a conventional swing-out cylinder revolver of the period, an advantage valued by officers and cavalry troopers who needed to reload quickly under pressure. Chambered for the large .455 Webley cartridge, the revolver remained in official British service in a supporting role alongside newer semi-automatic pistols well into the Second World War, and its top-break mechanism influenced later revolver designs across multiple countries.