Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver

About the Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver

The Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver is a unique recoil-operated revolver designed by retired British Lieutenant Colonel George Vincent Fosbery VC and produced by Webley & Scott from 1901 to 1924. Unlike conventional revolvers where the shooter rotates the cylinder by pulling the trigger or thumb-cocking the hammer, the Webley-Fosbery uses the recoil energy of each shot to slide the entire upper assembly (barrel, cylinder, and frame top) rearward along grooves in the lower frame, with a fixed stud engaging zig-zag tracks machined into the cylinder to rotate it to the next chamber and simultaneously re-cock the hammer. This produced an extraordinarily light, crisp single-action trigger pull and made the Webley-Fosbery exceptionally accurate for its era - it became a favourite of competition target shooters at Bisley. Chambered in .455 Webley with a 6-round cylinder (or in .38 ACP with an 8-round cylinder), the gun was loaded via stripper clips for rapid reloading. Despite its mechanical brilliance, the design was complex, expensive, mud-sensitive, and offered few practical advantages over conventional revolvers or the emerging self-loading pistols. It was never officially adopted by the British military but was carried into combat by officers who privately purchased examples during the Boer Wars and the First World War.

The Webley-Fosbery is the murder weapon in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon - Sam Spade famously identifies a discarded brass casing as 'an eight-shot .38 Webley-Fosbery automatic - there aren't many of them.' Colonel Fosbery, the inventor, had previously been awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions during the Umbeyla Campaign in 1863 against Afghan tribesmen on the North-West Frontier, making him perhaps the only Victoria Cross recipient to also patent a successful production firearm.

Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver specifications

The Webley-Fosbery is famous for its appearance in Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon, where Sam Spade identifies it as the murder weapon - though it does not appear in the 1941 film adaptation. The design is mechanically classified by some authorities as a 'semi-automatic revolver' since it self-cycles its action while retaining a rotating cylinder.