I recently picked up a couple of home-made air pistols. One is a gat-type that was obviously scratch built, and the other is a customised Webley Mark 1. I don’t usually look to collect this sort of thing (except for my own efforts) but sometimes you get them almost accidentally, sometimes they just intrigue you. Although I have no information about who made them, or when they were made, they do have some features of interest.
The push-barrel pistol is of very heavy and solid construction, all-steel except for a brass barrel liner and milled brass grip plates. All the components are closely machined and the frame is held together entirely by screws, with no rivets, spot welds or pins. It was clearly made by someone with excellent machining skills, but whoever it was wasn’t very hot on fancy looks.
Although it follows the typical gat design, the maker introduced some original features of his own, such as the unusual loading pin arrangement and the trigger/sear system. The gun also has an unusually long piston stroke for this type of pistol, so the intention was probably to produce something with a bit more oomph than the average push-barrel.
The gun has no markings, so no clue as to who could have made it, but as all the screws are BA it was almost certainly made in this country. From the patina on the frame, corrosion on the brass plates when received, and the general appearance of the internals when I took it apart I would say that it was made more than 50 years ago, perhaps immediate pre-war or post war.
I know it’s fanciful speculation, but I can’t help feeling there is a connection between this and the first Harrington Gats from before the war. I have had a close look at one of these Harringtons, which have some key differences to their later post-war versions. The Harrington uses two fixing screws and these also have BA threads. You can see a loose similarity between the trigger mechanisms of the two pistols (the Harrington is on the right):
Maybe this pistol was Harrington’s first prototype when he started to explore the possibility of making his own push-barrel pistol? Wishful thinking I know, but who knows? It was definitely made to be easily taken apart. It seems that a few Bussey prototype pistols and at least one Lincoln Jeffries prototype pistol have found their way onto the collecting scene and were never scrapped. Why not a Harrington prototype? If anybody knowns anything about this pistol I would be very grateful to hear from them.
I will post something on the Webley pistol when I have had time to take a few pictures.
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Originally Posted by ccdjg
