I started thinking about this after I helped ccdjg make his 'Unrealised pistol prototypes' video.

When he asked the question 'why didn't they go into production?' the answer was invariably that they were no improvement on the Webley mk1 design, and by comparison were all very over complicated.

I can't think of another air pistol that was pretty brilliant in it's first iteration, and was steadily improved for 50 years, in a live marketplace, from the Mk1 to the E series Premier. (I'm not a fan of the Alloy mk1's but I'm sure they shoot well, I do absolutely love the later Tempest & Hurricane though.)
That kind of evolution seems rare in air pistols.

Doing my '100 years of Air pistol' series of video's, and getting to shoot whole era's worth of my favourite shooters in one sitting the Webley's stand out amongst their contemporaries as having got pretty much everything right. (maybe a bugger to zero in, but perseverance works.) Obviously there are match pistol's like the mod 6 & LP65 series but they are not as fun to shoot.

I also don't know how they get so much power out of such a tiny pistol, a lot of mine will happily do 3.5 ftlbs and shoot really nicely. My 1924 mk1 does 3ftlbs (!) compared to my Highest possible which does 2.5ftlbs. Both serviced to be shooting at there best.
I know power isn't everything but I think it's an indication of an efficient design.

People rave about the HW45 as a power house but my serviced non-deiseling .177 '45 does just over 4 ftlbs, and I see lots of accounts of them only doing 4.5 ftlbs.
They are so much nastier to shoot than a nicely serviced Webley. I think 3.5ftlbs must be a sweet spot for this sort of design.

Not to mention the magnificent build quality of the earlier ones......
Anyway, I think as a functional air pistol they got the recipe right almost 100 years ago.. crazy really.

I would like to look into this further, Gordon Bruce's book is brilliant, especially for what changes or improvements happened when, but it would be interesting to do an era by era comparison with what else was out at the time, and how they stacked up against whatever Webley was available.

I don't have any experience shooting some of the earlier contemporaries, like the Abas Major or the Akvoke, I've kind of avoided them as I'd read account's that they weren't particularly good shooters.
How do they compare?

Cheers,
Matt

ccdjgs prototype vid: https://youtu.be/VCr9RcVnslc
100 yrs air pistols 1 + 2 https://youtu.be/qt2zfenq4QI https://youtu.be/te6fFFAV1hE