It's speculated here, and elsewhere, that the W&S SSP has the barrel length it does to avoid the regulation of 1903 its barrel is longer than 9 inches. In this Act the term 'pistol' means a firearm or other weapon of any description from which any shot, bullet or other missile can be discharged, and of which the length of barrel, not including any revolving detachable or magazine breach, does not exceed nine inches. This Act may be cited as the Pistols Act, 1903. Pistols Act, 1903 An Act to regulate the sale and use of Pistols or other Firearmsīe it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: So this relatively innocuous, accurate, finely made, delightful (and eminently useful) pistol went from being considered 'common' (as described by a former pistol shooter in the UK) to being, now, very likely the very rarest of all Webley products. There are a few left in the UK (more on that later), but the vast majority of what's left of the production is whatever filtered out of the Islands before the Big Crushing. so I strongly suspect the majority of these pistols never left the Islands and consequently the Government snapped them up and destroyed them. The WSS wasn't terribly popular outside the UK, being too expensive, irrelevant to most other countries' pistol laws, etc. So, when the UK decided to ban handguns (for most practical purposes) all those fine pistols were conveniently located for simple and easy confiscation and they, for the most part, were. These were, of course, all duly and responsibly registered/listed with the Home Office/Government. But traditionally there were a great many Webley Single Shot Pistols held in clubs in the UK. They were sometimes Czech, sometimes Russian, etc. 22s, there for the purpose of safely teaching pistol handling to people. Therefore, most clubs had a few loaners, usually single-shot.

Legally, in the UK, ALL PISTOLS were registered/listed/made known to the Government, in specific, including who owned them, where they were stored, and how much ammunition (roughly) was on hand for them. Therefore, clubs typically had 'loaners' held by the club itself, probably on members' or multiple members' licenses, for use by applicants and new members looking to get a pistol license.Īnd, you DID have to have a special license or endorsement on a firearms license to buy or possess a pistol. For those unaware of (previous) UK pistol laws, a brief overview is that you had to first join a club and demonstrate proficiency with 'a pistol' BEFORE being able to purchase a handgun. It seems a great many of these fine pistols were held by Pistol Clubs in the UK.

Webley scott pistols