Webley Juniors

[ggggr]

Somehow I seem to have acquired a "few" Webley Junior pistols in the last 9 years, since getting back into airguns and joining the bbs. They sort of crept up on me, although they were never my favourite pistol.
I have somehow, come to own 2 pre war, tin gripped versions, one with the long barrel and one with the shorter barrel. There are various post war versions, with and without the fixed rearsight and a couple of Mk2 versions.

They are a very simple pistol and quite robust. However I think that they can be very hard to cock for a Junior pistol and have seen them with bent barrels. They have a single link like the Mk1, rather than the long and short lik set up on later , bigger pistols. I am currently after a mainspring that has a wire thickness around 1.51mm instead of the normal? 1.69-1.73mm, to make another easy to cock gun.

I find the fixed sight ones difficult to shoot with as it is not a brilliant sight picture and unless it suits your eyes, difficult to aim over or under, or off centre. I have 2 that have tags on them, saying "aim at top" and "aim at bottom"
The Mk1 versions have the catch similar to the Mk1 pistol and that can be a bit awkward to use but you do get used to it. I like that the pin that locates the grips is around 1/4 diameter, rather thanthe 3/32 of the larger pistols.
The Mk2 version has a "proper" barrel catch and are resonable pistols, but the end plug/ guide can be quite hard to undo, which happens with the Mk2 Premiers as well, probably more to do with the paint than the alloy?

The triggers on the guns are not brilliant and are usually quite heavy (another reason for a lighter gauge mainsping) .
I short stroked on pistol quite a bit, using a ptfe head that someone made up for me. This (with a shorter mainspring) was quite easy to cock and was not that much down on power, which was a surprise.

I have found that the screw that holds the piston washer on can shear if you try to undo it and would probably only try to remove one in future if the washer needed changing, then use a bit of heat on it.

My views on the pistols have changed a bit over the years and they are good enough to hit bottle caps at 7 1/2 yards, which I can do with all of them now.
A rough one is not worth very much------but have a bit of a tinker/ wood grips etc and they can be quite good fun.

[pjbingham]

I always find there is something quite nostalgic about the Webley Juniors. I should think most people of a certain age have shot one even if they havnt owned one. Supposedly everyone knows someone called Dave and similarly everyone knows or new someone with a Junior
There are still vast numbers of them out there as you know and they are easy to strip and repair with virtually all parts available. A good foot on the door if anyone's looking to start collecting older style air pistols.
I have found that the piston washer screw sheers too on a lot of examples I've stripped over the years but some are as good as the day they were made. Wether it's slightly different materials or years of being dry fired by over enthusiastic young owners in the past maybe I don't know.
I had a look through my box of springs and no joy,I have one spare junior spring but it's NOS and you can tell it's going to be hard to cock.