another new toy
Dec. 3rd, 2006 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Yesterday afternoon Justin and I made our weekly round of the thrift stores over in Garland, and he convinced me to also go to the giant pawn shop and the new Bass Pro.

In the pawn shop I wanted to play with the musical instruments, but he dragged me over to look at guns first. While he ooed and ahhed over the modern automatics, I went to check the revolver section for anything old, because I've been wanting a top-break of some kind in lieu of the Webley we'll never find. I found a lovely little top-break. It was a bit old and dirty, but--
WHAT. Delivery caught up just as I saw it, and his first words were "Fucking hell, I didn't expect that."

It was a Webley Mk VI, the British WWI-issue officer's pistol from 1915 (and this is an army gun; it has the Broad Arrow stamped on EVERYTHING), originally .455 but with the cylinder shaved down to take .45 Auto in clips. After waiting for a clerk to come over (I refused to leave my gun and find one, lest somebody buy it out from under me - I draped myself over the cabinet and tried to look like A Girl Who Required Assistance), then filling out the form and waiting for the background check (always a bit unnerving; it drags on far longer than you feel it ought to), the guy came out, took our credit card, and wrapped the gun up in a plastic bag for carrying home. I guess the box was lost sometime in the last eighty years.
It looks like it hasn't been shot since it came to America. It's full of dried-up oil, so much so that when we got it home and took the trigger lock off it wouldn't drop the hammer in single-action or go back all the way in double-action. Justin worked on it for awhile, dry-firing until the crap finally fell off the sear; now it works perfectly.


In the pawn shop I wanted to play with the musical instruments, but he dragged me over to look at guns first. While he ooed and ahhed over the modern automatics, I went to check the revolver section for anything old, because I've been wanting a top-break of some kind in lieu of the Webley we'll never find. I found a lovely little top-break. It was a bit old and dirty, but--
WHAT. Delivery caught up just as I saw it, and his first words were "Fucking hell, I didn't expect that."

It was a Webley Mk VI, the British WWI-issue officer's pistol from 1915 (and this is an army gun; it has the Broad Arrow stamped on EVERYTHING), originally .455 but with the cylinder shaved down to take .45 Auto in clips. After waiting for a clerk to come over (I refused to leave my gun and find one, lest somebody buy it out from under me - I draped myself over the cabinet and tried to look like A Girl Who Required Assistance), then filling out the form and waiting for the background check (always a bit unnerving; it drags on far longer than you feel it ought to), the guy came out, took our credit card, and wrapped the gun up in a plastic bag for carrying home. I guess the box was lost sometime in the last eighty years.
It looks like it hasn't been shot since it came to America. It's full of dried-up oil, so much so that when we got it home and took the trigger lock off it wouldn't drop the hammer in single-action or go back all the way in double-action. Justin worked on it for awhile, dry-firing until the crap finally fell off the sear; now it works perfectly.
