A Visit to the Birmingham Proof House (PICS ADDED)

[Rob M]

A nice man at the gun club I go to organised a trip for ten of us to visit the Birmingham Proof House. You might think that this would not be of much interest to an airgun fanatic, but I suppose that most of us are at least a bit interested in firearms and the history of the Birmingham Gun Trade as well, and as it happens, there is quite a bit there to interest the airgun fan. The proof house has been there since 1813, and has the look, traditions, atmosphere, and smell, of an historic building.

At the beginning of the tour, the Historian conducting us around the place showed us a heavily modified Webley Tempest. It had been modified so that the barrel was hinged at the rear of the action... On the front of the frame was a strange arrangement of steel plate like a clamp, containing a matrix of pins. We were challenged to guess what it was for, but none of us could; It turned out to be a pistol modified for piercing identification numbers into greyhounds ears! A very unusual use for a Webley Tempest!

The tour was all extremely interesting, you are guided round the facilities for deactivation testing, testing of black powder weapons, modern weapons, ammunition testing facilities, then on to the museums. There are three museums, the first is the Ammunition Museum, then there is the 'Black Museum', full of frightening exhibits showing what can happen when firearms are abused, used when worn out, used with the wrong ammunition and so on.

Finally there is the historic weapons museum. This houses examples of muskets, flintlocks, many military weapons up to the FN SLR, also some pistols. Upstairs contains examples of unusual guns, such as a 'double loading' flintlock which has two locks, you load, down a single barrel, a load of powder, a wad and a ball, then another wad, another load of powder, yet another wad and another ball... You then have to make sure that you pull the two triggers in the right order or a barrel burst and serious injury might result. Scary.

In this part of the museum I found what was for me the highlight of the tour, a case of classic air pistols, including Webley Mk1s, Juniors and Seniors, but also a Westley Richards, an Anson Star, an Accles and Shelvoke Warrior, a Parker Precision crank-wound pistol, an Abas Major (my favourite) but also, and I felt privileged to see this, as it is believed to be utterly unique, Webley's own prototype of the "Whiting" air pistol, on loan from the Birmingham Industrial Museum!

I've only ever seen photographs and drawings of this before, of course. It seems a little larger than I thought it to be, having a very long barrel, and looking very well-made indeed. A credit to the craftsmen at Webley's all those years ago. It has a small diameter cylinder and piston, and does not look powerful, and the historian verified this, saying that he has fired it and the pellets practically fall out of the end of the barrel. The small cylinder volume, small spring, and the long, rifled barrel combine to make a pistol that looks superb but unfortunately is not powerful enough even for paper target shooting. Whether it was more powerful when it was made and the spring was new I couldn't tell.

So there you go, if you get the chance to visit this historic place, do go, you won't regret it. I had not expected to find any classic airguns there (as airguns don't require proofing) but was pleasantly surprised, and as a bonus got to see a unique part of Webley and Scott's airgun history.

The tour cost £13.50 per person but was worth every penny.

Birmingham Proof House Website

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Rob M
Currently wanting: Rutten Winstar, Excellent Pistol, Hy-Score Sporter (US)