What's what with Webley pistols?

[Geezer]

Buy a book - namely 'Webley Air Pistols' by Gordon Bruce. Then you'll know.

Very good advice.

Get your mitts on a slant grip Senior and you'll have the highest quality air pistol ever made in your hands IMHO.
It's the closest air pistols have ever got to firearm quality levels.

Equally very good advice.

For about three generations of U.K. airgun shooters (except for the minority enthusiast 10M match guys from the 60s), the Webleys were the pistol you had to own, wanted to own, etc. From the 20s to the late 50s, for most British shooters, the Webley was seen, rightly or wrongly, as the best air pistol in the world.

Nostalgia plays a big part, but in a good way. My post-war Senior is arguably not as good a pistol as my contemporary 1950s wood grip Diana 5. But almost no-one in, say, 1955 Britain, would have held that view.

Damn it, Sir, the Webley is British and I carried a Webley revolver in the Great War!

Even if they aren’t the most accurate things, they are (pre alloy Premier) exceptionally well made, handy, and just nice.

The Tempest is a decent gun. The Senior or early Premier is just better. Similar performance, handier, better build quality.

Finally, I have a Mk1, a Senior, a Tempest and a Hurricane. The one I reach for for a little plink or fondle is always the Senior. Not only is it a bloody good gun, it takes me back to a world before I was born.