Webley Mk IV .38

About the Webley Mk IV .38

The Webley Mk IV .38 is a six-shot, top-break, double-action service revolver chambered for the .38/200 (.38 S&W) cartridge. A scaled-down derivative of the .455 Webley Mk VI, it was developed in the early 1930s as Webley's commercial answer after the British Army adopted the rival Enfield No. 2 Mk I. WWII pistol shortages forced the Army back to Webley, which supplied roughly 126,000 Mk IVs from 1940 onward. It served extensively with British and Commonwealth forces through World War II, Korea, the Malayan Emergency, and into the colonial police era.

The Mk IV .38 was Webley's commercial consolation prize: the firm designed a .38 service revolver for the War Office, but in 1932 the government adopted the Enfield No. 2 instead, a design heavily based on Webley's own submission. Wartime pistol shortages forced the Army to buy Webleys anyway. A second irony: Britain swapped the original hard-hitting 200-grain soft-lead bullet for a lighter ~178-grain jacketed round citing the Hague Convention, blunting the very stopping power the .38/200 was designed to deliver.

Webley Mk IV .38 specifications

Standard military barrel was 5 inches (127 mm); 4-inch and 3-inch commercial/police barrels were also produced. The wartime 'War Finish' models used parkerised finishes and plain wood grips for faster mass production.