“A little powder, a lotta lead, shoot’em once, they’ll be dead…”

Britain’s first self-extracting Army revolver, the 1880 Enfield was a comedy of errors. It had a disconcerting tendency for loaded chambers to rotate of their own weight to the bottom of the frame, leaving the user with an empty gun! Experience in the Zulu and Afghan campaigns revealed that it was too heavy, inaccurate, awkward loading, and too complicated to deploy quickly. Even worse, it was underpowered and not drop-safe.

Withdrawn after only ten years, the .442/450 Enfield was replaced in 1890 by the Webley Mk1 with 4-inch barrel, firing the .450/476 cartridge. The Webley soldiered on in both military and police service for 70 years, being produced in successive “Marks” I through VI. The Mark IV (Boer War Model) and later marks are safe for use with Cordite or smokeless loads, whereas earlier marks should use black powder only.

The .455 Mk VI cartridge, introduced in 1939, was used during WW2. Its 265-grain FMJ bullet attained 625 +/-25 fps from a 5” barrel. Considered obsolescent by the end of WW2, ammunition was produced by Kynoch for civilian law enforcement and export customers until 1969. CIL of Canada loaded lead-bullet .455 Colt into the mid- 1970s. Hornady produced a run of Mk2 lead ammo in 2008. Starline currently produces 0.76” .455 Mk II brass. Reed’s Custom Ammo can provide 0.87” Mk1 cases modified from Starline .45 Schofield, having adequate capacity for assembling the standard 21-grain black powder charge for use in older Mk1 through Mk3 revolvers.

Prior to WW1 service pistol practice in the British Army was one-handed, single-action slow fire. Shooting was conducted at 30 paces on 8-inch bullseye targets. Two-handed and double-action shooting were not taught, as rapid, continuous fire was expected only in an extreme emergency. Musketry Regulations 1909-1914 emphasized deliberate single-action fire “executed with alacrity.”

From 1890 on Naval personnel were issued Webley revolvers for shore and boarding parties. Ship’s equipment provided ample stocks of revolvers for such purposes. WW1 practice was to arm all officers and NCOs, as well as cooks, trumpeters, farriers, gunners, transport drivers, pilots, observers, engineers and sappers with “pistols.”

(Brits call all handguns “pistols” and the term “revolver” was also commonly used to describe any handgun).

In 1916 revolvers became secondary arms for the newly formed Machinegun Corps, as well as for the Royal Flying Corps and the Tank Corps. Trench warfare spurred the development of “practical pistol shooting” as we know it today. Revolvers, Mill’s bombs, cutlasses, hatchets and clubs were the preferred armaments carried on “trench raids.”

Capt. C.D. Tracy and Capt. J.B.L. Noel produced the “Instructional Course for the Webley Pistol”(1916) which emphasized instinctive point shooting. Its objective was for soldiers armed with a revolver to be able to accomplish, “The War Shot” hitting a 16” high x 12” wide steel plate at ten yards in one second.

Pistols were universally thought of as close-range weapons for fast encounters:

“The revolver is… a weapon for quick use at close quarters… looked upon more as a defensive weapon than an arm of precision…for delivering a knock-down blow within the limits of its normal short fighting range… used instinctively… aligned and discharged as a shotgun is used on moving game, rather than being consciously sighted…”

Pistols would be held with two hands only for engaging the enemy at distances beyond 20 yards, such as when firing at the charging Hun over a trench parapet or when in “No Man’s Land” firing from the shelter of a shell crater, from a prone position. Otherwise soldiers were taught a one-handed, stiff-armed position, intended to absorb recoil, “pivoting the body as if a gun turret,” and to thumb-cock the revolver as it is raised in a smooth motion after the draw, discharging it instinctively at the top of its vertical rise at the precise instant the sights came into alignment with the target, without dwelling upon sight picture.

When firing single-action in this fashion the expectation was to produce six hits on a man-sized silhouette at 15 yards in 12 seconds. An expert shot, firing double-action was expected to do the same in 3 seconds, engaging multiple targets from contact to 10 yards, firing instinctively from the hip. Training emphasized proper stance, grip, draw, and coordinating the rise and alignment of the pistol. A full hand squeeze was taught to discharge the revolver without jerking the trigger, being reinforced through dry firing to build smooth, coordinated motion, executed rapidly to “shoot first and hit hard!”

Training conditions were made as realistic as possible. Elaborate trench systems with canvas houses featured moving targets which fleetingly appeared, advanced, retreated, crossing quickly in front of the shooter or just popping up momentarily before vanishing. Instruction included ambidextrous firing around corners when moving through a trench, clearing a dugout or house room-by-room. Training emphasis stressed use of cover vs. mere concealment, to protect raiding parties from incoming shells or enemy fire, exploiting wall corner beams, rubble piles or shell craters.

Two-handed, single-action shooting was taught to 50 yards or more. Common sense instructions included advice such as:

• Keep track of the number of rounds fired, top off the revolver as frequently as possible.
• Never advance with fewer than 3 chambers loaded.
• When loading single rounds, load the chamber at 10:00 first with the others to follow anti-clockwise, because the Webley (and Colt) cylinder rotates clockwise, so that the cartridge will be rotated into position straight-away.
• When unloading, to avoid a spent case being trapped under the extractor always hold the pistol muzzle up or on its side when breaking it open.
• If in the heat of battle should a revolver be run empty or become unserviceable attempt to bluff the enemy,
• If the above fails, use the pistol as a bludgeon. Use the barrel to jab at the eyes or throat or use the front sight in a backhanded slash across the neck.
• The grip on the gun must never be relinquished, nor should the gun ever be held by the barrel to use it as a club!

(Indeed, there had been accounts of officers being shot after having experienced a misfire when they grasped the barrel for bludgeoning purposes, only to have the enemy grab the butt, and pull the trigger repeatedly until the weapon discharged).

Tracey’s “Revolver Shooting in War” (1916) describes these methods in detail.

While pistol lanyards were uniform items of the era, Tracy considered them a liability in the trenches.

“If used, [the lanyard] should only be employed at night or if mounted and NEVER attached around the neck, but around the arm, either under the epaulettes or centrally on the Sam Browne belt, allowing for the pistol to be employed with either hand.”

Otherwise the lanyard had the potential to be snagged on equipment or debris. Indeed an acquaintance of Tracy was strangled with a pistol lanyard and another lost his life when the lanyard was caught by the revolver hammer, causing a misfire, so that he was bayonetted.

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“A little powder, a lotta lead, shoot’em once, they’ll be dead…”