Webley MkII Service Info?

[Mr. Gain]

This isn't my usual neck of the woods, but yesterday a friend gave me a Webley MkII Service to play with and I'm rather hoping some of the learned gentlemen on here can give me an idea of its date of manufacture -presumably sometime in the late 1930s?-, and any other pearls of wisdom I should know.

The rifle is a Third Series, with matching serial numbers (S7110) on the trigger guard and .22 barrel, and is in fair condition, though some of the blueing is gone; there are some fine scratches on the l/h side of the cylinder and a gross one on the l/h side of the stock; and the (horn?) butt plate is cracked from the upper screw to the heel of the butt. On the plus side, the rifle is complete, wholly original (as far as I can tell), and the stock is a pretty piece of walnut with a nice finish.

Once I got it home, I removed the encrusted dust and dirt with a soft cloth, a toothbrush, and some Napier Gun Cleaner; cleaned off some spots of surface rust with Young's 303, and swabbed a fair amount of black fouling out of the barrel with a cleaning rod and patches, again with Napier GC, before stripping the action.

This was full of grease, much of which had got ahead of the piston and was causing an impressive amount of dieselling. I therefore wiped off the excess and degreased everything but the spring and guide, cleaning the compression chamber and piston thoroughly before lightly greasing the contact surfaces on the piston, minus the sear engagement point, the pivots of the cocking mechanism, and the threads of the cylinder end cap. I then reassembled the action and gave all the external surfaces a wipe down with some Napier Gun Oil. Finally, I removed the hard breech washer and soaked it overnight in silicone oil.

The rifle is now back together, and sounds and feels much healthier: the explosive dieselling has stopped, though it is still "breathing" a bit of light-grey, wispy smoke - I presume this is excess oil from the breech washer. Once it's running clean I'll re-chrono and see what the consistency is like, but for now all I can say is that it shoots fairly well (about 1" for 5 shots at 10 yards) and likes RWS Superdomes much better than 5.6mm Wasps.

I don't know if there are other barrels for this rifle in my friend's mother's attic -the rifle was his step-father's -but I'll certainly ask.

Anyway, if you think I've overlooked something important, or committed some heinous crime against this lovely old thing, I'm sure you need no invitation to set me straight! And if you'd like me to post some pictures, just let me know the particular details you'd like to see and I'll snap some after work tomorrow.

TIA

Mr. G.