My Handgun Collection

[nbk3y7k]

2014-06-22 18.02.00.jpg

1.Webley & Scott Mk IV 0.32 Revolver
2. Smith & Wesson Mod 31-1 0.32 Revolver - 2"

[deep27]

Beautiful weapons.

Sent from my XT1022 using Tapatalk

[gaurav0101]

Nice guns... BTW may I ask what is the year of manufacture of your webley and scott. As W & S MK IV .32 my grandfather has doesn't have safety lock. It's 1937 modle.
Thanks
Gaurav

[winnie_the_pooh]

Is it not dangerous carrying a revolver without a safety lock ? Looked again,none of your revolvers have one.....be very very careful.The Brits knew their stuff.If they put a safety on the later Webley's it must be with a reason.

[BowMan]

Cut the pun and tell him straight on Winnie

[nbk3y7k]

Webley after 8500 serial started putting safety button. Earlier versions did not had it. Smith revolvers do not have safety button.

[timmy]

The problem with the Webley & Scott action is that the gun can be fired if the hammer is resting above a loaded chamber if the revolver is dropped. There is a part called the "Auxiliary Mainspring Lever" that serves the same function as the Rebound Lever in the older Colt actions, such as those found in Pythons, Diamondbacks, and Detective Specials. Both the Webley & Scott and the older Colts have similar actions derived from the same ancestral design (the Schmidt-Galand), however Colt greatly refined the action, while Webley & Scott did not.

The hammer on both actions retracts from the fully down position when the trigger is released by pressure on the back of the hammer by the Auxiliary Mainspring/Rebound Lever. (This lever also supplies spring tension for other uses, which is part of the ingenious aspect of the basic design.) Thus, the hammer does not rest on a loaded round, but is pulled back somewhat, retracting the firing pin.

Unfortunately, the angles of the lever and hammer surfaces that interact do not positively retain the hammer in a retracted position when a blow is struck on the hammer. Colt, around 1905, addressed this problem by using a Safety Lever and Safety Assembly connected to the trigger to block the hammer when the trigger is released. The hammer cannot fall because it is blocked by a piece of solid steel between the hammer and frame when the trigger is released. This is why, after the addition of this mechanism, the Colt "Police" model was called the "Police Positive." Other models in the Colt double action revolver line were fitted with this same mechanism.

Webley & Scott did not fit their revolvers with such a mechanism, and finally addressed the problem of accidental discharge by adding a manual safety.

IOF Revolvers are no longer produced with the same Webley & Scott clockwork. I believe the Auxiliary Mainspring Lever has been discarded and a Smith & Wesson type lockwork using coil springs has been adopted by IOF. I have never seen a good diagram of the IOF's innards, however, so I cannot comment beyond that on the IOF.

Smith & Wesson double action revolvers are pretty much the opposite of Colt revolvers: The cylinders of S&W cylinders revolve backwards, which means that the force that rotates them wants to push the cylinder out of the frame. This is why S&W revolvers require a lock on both the front and rear of the cylinder crane.

The lock cover of S&W revolvers is on the right, while a Colt's is on the left side.

But in the matter of the lockwork, a Colt operates the mechanism with the trigger, while S&W uses the hammer to actuate many parts of the action. So, S&W uses a "Hammer Block" connected to a "Hammer Slide", which a ridge on the hammer moves to positively block the hammer when it is in the rebounded position over an unfired round. The Hammer Slide also interacts with the trigger, so that the trigger must be pulled before the Hammer Slide can move forward, which then pulls the Hammer Block down and allows the hammer to fall fully, striking the primer.

So, to say S&W "revolvers do not have a safety button" is true, but it is more informative to say "S&W revolvers don't need a safety button." However, Webley & Scott revolvers do need a safety to be carried safely with a hammer in the rebounded position over a live round.

[captrakshitsharma]

Very well written and explained.... S&W made safe action revolvers years before the much popular Glock..lol