Hello,

There's an interesting discussion regarding the problem of sourcing original parts for older guns in the latest issue of Air Gunner magazine.

Those of us who regularly like to shoot the guns in our collections are always mindful of the possibility that sooner or later some component or other will fail necessitating a replacement part. Some original spare parts are just not available anymore which means either leaving the gun non-functional or having a replica part made. I personally couldn't live with a non-functional gun, so have either made minor parts myself or had somebody with the appropriate skills make them for me. I do however always place any broken original parts in a small bag and keep them with the gun as a part of its history.

I'm sure none of us would condone the breaking of a functioning, collectable gun to make a profit on selling the parts separately, but I have certainly bought guns in very poor condition cheaply just to obtain spares for my own use.

There are also specialist collectors who collect spares as they would pellet tins, oil cans, literature etc, especially the rare cardboard box sets originally issued to Webley dealers.

So, do we have a duty to stop using the rarer guns completely inorder to fully maintain their integrity or do we continue to use them sparingly for their originally intended purpose and replace any broken parts with non-original components ?

Regards

Brian