Westley Richards "Highest Possible" Air Pistol

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Westley Richards "Highest Possible" Air Pistol

Post by Certus » Sat May 18, 2013 2:06 pm

Hi,

At the risk of becoming a bit boring I will continue posting some pictures and a bit of background to some of the rarer early British production air pistols I've been lucky enough to add to my collection.

This time it's the oldest pistol I own and one of my personal favourites the Westley Richards "Highest Possible" together with the much rarer later variant the "Highest Possible Concentric".

The non-concentric "Highest Possible" is a big heavy pistol of grip cocking design where the piston moves rearwards and the barrel is superimposed on the cylinder. The pistol was of all steel construction in either blue or nickelled finish with either horn (first model) or vulcanite grips (second model). Westley Richards produced the pistol which was the invention of Edwin Anson one of the greatest of the British spring air pistol designers. Although patented in 1907 the pistol was probably not available until as late as 1910 and was sold up until 1915. Although only just over 1000 of these pistols were ever produced their inherent ruggedness resulted in a remarkable survival rate and they can often be found at Auctions or Arms Fairs. The most sought after variants are the very early versions that have a heart-shaped frame cut-out.

Although a large rather ungainly pistol it does sit quite nicely in the hand and has a neat little hinged lever in the base of the grip which can be extended to provide a cocking aid. It's not surprising that a pistol which is over 100 years old might be a bit low on power but this one still performs quite well out to six yards and is still a pleasure to shoot. The thing I like most about the "Highest Possible" is its visual similarity to the large victorian revolvers popular at the time.

Image

The second Westley Richards pistol is the so called "Concentric" version which was a much more streamlined design and although patented in 1921 was not sold until about 1924. This is the much rarer variant with only 100 or so ever made and less than 12 or so known to have survived. Although inferior in some ways to its non-concentric predecessor (for example, the use of a fixed sight and a smoothbore barrel), the overall high quality of the engineering is typical of Westley Richards. The pistol was only available in .177 with all steel construction and could be ordered in either a blue or nickelled finish. Some versions had a cut back cylinder sleeve for which there is currently no explanation of the reasons why this was introduced. Mine has this feature which I believe is the rarest of the variants.

The pistol is easy to cock and pleasant to shoot although it could not compete with the first Webley Mk1 overlever pistols introduced in 1924 which soon overshadowed all its competitors. I recently tested the pistol for accuracy using a Webley Premier as the standard. Both were shot at 10 metres on the standard NSRA 10 metre precision target which has a black aiming mark measuring 60mm in diameter. I can usually keep groups well within this using the Premier but was pleasantly surprised that this could also be achieved with the Concentric my best group measuring 40mm centre to centre.Image

Regards

Brian
Last edited by Certus on Sat May 18, 2013 10:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Posssible" Air Pistol

Post by pmh » Sat May 18, 2013 4:39 pm

:text-goodpost:

Another excellent post. The last model does have a flare pistol look to it.

Do you ever shot any of these, or dare you not to keep the internals original?

It would be interesting to see what sort of energy output the guns are capable of.

Kind regards,



Phil
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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Posssible" Air Pistol

Post by gab » Sat May 18, 2013 8:17 pm

Certus please continue these posts! They are are from boring. The airguns you are posting about are ones which I will likey never own or see an actual example of.

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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Posssible" Air Pistol

Post by Certus » Sat May 18, 2013 10:02 pm

pmh wrote::text-goodpost:

Another excellent post. The last model does have a flare pistol look to it.

Do you ever shot any of these, or dare you not to keep the internals original?

It would be interesting to see what sort of energy output the guns are capable of.

Kind regards,



Phil
Hello Phil,

I make a point of shooting even my rarest pistols at least once just to see how they feel in comparison to one another.

I don't do anything to scientific but did conduct a slightly more in depth test of the Highest Possible Concentric for inclusion in a little collectors magazine a few people are currently putting together.

I used a Webley Premier as the control and was pleasantly surprised at the accuracy obtainable with the Concentric once I got used to shooting it.

Regards

Brian

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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Posssible" Air Pistol

Post by Certus » Sat May 18, 2013 10:14 pm

gab wrote:Certus please continue these posts! They are are from boring. The airguns you are posting about are ones which I will likey never own or see an actual example of.
Hello,

Thanks for the kind words. I get a great deal of pleasure from researching and collecting early British production air pistols but am conscious that this might not be of interest to everybody.

I will post a few pictures and details soon of some slightly more common but none the less interesting pistols such as the Accles & Shelvoke Warrior, A.A. Brown & Sons Abasmajor and Frank Clarkes Titan range.

Regards

Brian

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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Posssible" Air Pistol

Post by Tank » Sat May 18, 2013 10:27 pm

Well, if I owned those pistols I would - if at all possible, shoot them as often as I could.
Bloody marvellous. I would love to own something like that and to be honest, right now I am looking 'round for a (as early as possible) Lincoln Jeffries while they can still be bought. (Hint Hint anybody?)

These Pistols are so rare that the really wrong thing would be to NOT show us them.

Bring them on!
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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Posssible" Air Pistol

Post by Certus » Sat May 18, 2013 10:40 pm

Tank wrote:Well, if I owned those pistols I would - if at all possible, shoot them as often as I could.
Bloody marvellous. I would love to own something like that and to be honest, right now I am looking 'round for a (as early as possible) Lincoln Jeffries while they can still be bought. (Hint Hint anybody?)

These Pistols are so rare that the really wrong thing would be to NOT show us them.

Bring them on!
Hi Graham,

I will include something about the standard "greasegun" Lincoln pistol soon if that would be of interest. There were quite a few variants of the Lincoln but many were made in such small numbers they would probably be considered as prototype rather than production pistols. You should be able to pick up a standard Lincoln without too much trouble but they are not particularly suited to regular use as unlike Webleys spares are not available. OK to shoot occasionally though just for the fun of it.

Regards

Brian

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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Posssible" Air Pistol

Post by Tank » Sat May 18, 2013 11:11 pm

Certus wrote:Hi Graham,

I will include something about the standard "greasegun" Lincoln pistol soon if that would be of interest. There were quite a few variants of the Lincoln but many were made in such small numbers they would probably be considered as prototype rather than production pistols. You should be able to pick up a standard Lincoln without too much trouble but they are not particularly suited to regular use as unlike Webleys spares are not available. OK to shoot occasionally though just for the fun of it.

Regards

Brian
It would be very much of interest. I would like to see other views too. If you have any probs with the photographs just email them to me and I will sort them out for you.

Spares, my workshop is absolutely full of spares, what would you like?

I spent a long time at Sea Brian (probably still do if you ask some of the chaps at the club) and it was awfully difficult to "nip out and get one" or "order one" - especially some of the places I was at. So you made whatever you needed. Today I am lazy and I tend to avail myself of some of the fine online Emporiums. But I just smile when people tell me "no, can't get them mate" (probably makes me look like the village idiot, thinking about it!).
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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Posssible" Air Pistol

Post by Certus » Sun May 19, 2013 11:09 am

Tank wrote:
Certus wrote:Hi Graham,

I will include something about the standard "greasegun" Lincoln pistol soon if that would be of interest. There were quite a few variants of the Lincoln but many were made in such small numbers they would probably be considered as prototype rather than production pistols. You should be able to pick up a standard Lincoln without too much trouble but they are not particularly suited to regular use as unlike Webleys spares are not available. OK to shoot occasionally though just for the fun of it.

Regards

Brian
It would be very much of interest. I would like to see other views too. If you have any probs with the photographs just email them to me and I will sort them out for you.

Spares, my workshop is absolutely full of spares, what would you like?

I spent a long time at Sea Brian (probably still do if you ask some of the chaps at the club) and it was awfully difficult to "nip out and get one" or "order one" - especially some of the places I was at. So you made whatever you needed. Today I am lazy and I tend to avail myself of some of the fine online Emporiums. But I just smile when people tell me "no, can't get them mate" (probably makes me look like the village idiot, thinking about it!).
Hello Graham,

Thanks for the interest. I will certainly keep the spares possibility in mind should the situation ever arise.

On the very few occasions I have replaced original broken parts on the rarer pistols I'm always careful to keep them with the pistol as part of its history.

I will post some details and pictures of my Lincoln together with a 7th series Titan soon.

Regards

Brian

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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Possible" Air Pistol

Post by Tank » Sun May 19, 2013 11:54 am

Well Brian, the facts are that nothing made before cannot be made again. It is the economy of scale though.
As a hobbyist and enthusiast I think nothing of spending a couple of weeks - on and off - refinishing a stock or several hours making a retaining block for a pistol, deciding which steel to use and ordering a piece, setting up the drill press, cutting and dressing the part, getting it Blued or electroplated.
Nobody would do that for a couple of pounds. If I worked out how much time I have spent doing this sort of thing I could pay myself a fortune!
No, as a hobby I find it extremely rewarding, but as a job......
This is why, when Nick (from Magic9design.com) or UK Neil give me a price for something I either pay it or don't have the job done.
Sadly, in these "modern times" I see more and more youths with real potential sitting in front of a TV -playing games- wasting their lives when they have so much potential but there are NO real hands on practical courses they could attend to allow these talents to flourish. I know very, very few talanted, capable young artisans - but I see a load of old fogeys such as myself who have spent a lifetime mending and making do with no-one to pass on our skills. Thank God for forums such as this!
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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Possible" Air Pistol

Post by Certus » Sun May 19, 2013 1:00 pm

Hi Graham,

I know just what you mean regarding the general decline in manufacturing standards and the tendency to discard things rather than repair them these days. I collect these old air guns as much for the engineering interest and ingenuity of design as much as anything.

Regards

Brian

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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Possible" Air Pistol

Post by micken » Sun May 19, 2013 5:00 pm

Hi Brian

Many thanks for another interesting and informative thread. I'm looking forward to your future contributions.

Cheers,

Mick

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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Possible" Air Pistol

Post by Adam77K » Mon May 20, 2013 5:58 pm

Tank wrote:Well Brian, the facts are that nothing made before cannot be made again. It is the economy of scale though.
As a hobbyist and enthusiast I think nothing of spending a couple of weeks - on and off - refinishing a stock or several hours making a retaining block for a pistol, deciding which steel to use and ordering a piece, setting up the drill press, cutting and dressing the part, gettinkg it Blued or electroplated.
Nobody would do that for a couple of pounds. If I worked out how much time I have spent doing this sort of thing I could pay myself a fortune!
No, as a hobby I find it extremely rewarding, but as a job......
This is why, when Nick (from Magic9design.com) or UK Neil give me a price for something I either pay it or don't have the job done.
Sadly, in these "modern times" I see more and more youths with real potential sitting in front of a TV -playing games- wasting their lives when they have so much potential but there are NO real hands on practical courses they could attend to allow these talents to flourish. I know very, very few talanted, capable young artisans - but I see a load of old fogeys such as myself who have spent a lifetime mending and making do with no-one to pass on our skills. Thank God for forums such as this!
Good points. The way technology is changing most jobs (and the rate of change is increasing) "making stuff" is going to be more about automation, more about designing stuff on CAD followed by 3D printing, then these skills are dying out. I think the only way to keep them is if younger people are attracted to these things as hobbies or pastimes. Like knitting or weaving: automation killed off hand weaving as an industry except for high end expensive clothing. The only way the skill survived is via handicrafts.

But the problem with that is, there don't seem to be the ways for those interested to learn the skills. You can take all sorts of craft courses at the local college but I'm not aware of much around these sort of engineering skills on a hobbyist level.

But, in the Internet age, how do you learn to do something? Google, forums and youtube! I re-sealed my car doors last week (perishing seals a known problem on Mk1 SEAT Leons) from a blog post with photos. A work colleague taught himself to change brakes etc the same way. In this way, forums like this, and the guides posted up by Tank et al could be a very real legacy for the future.

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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Possible" Air Pistol

Post by Tank » Sun Aug 09, 2015 6:16 pm

Well, guns are like buses, if you wait long enough, one will turn up. This is a mint, untouched, unmolested example.
It was bought from Westley Richards by George Sheard who was a soldier in the Lancashire or Cheshire Regiment during the First World War, the Great War. He was killed just before the Armistice in 1918 and it has been in a drawer ever since.
Amazing, a one hundred year old pistol in absolutely pristine condition.

Interestingly, this is numbered 1063 and up to now, it was thought that the last production number was 1052 so it appears this is quite possibly, only possibly, he last one made. Dennis Hillier in his book makes the suggestion that only one thousand were made and that the last known example was numbered 1052. It is really impressive in the hand.
Attachments
Higest Possible09.jpg
Higest Possible05.jpg
Higest Possible02.jpg
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Re: Westley Richards "Highest Possible" Air Pistol

Post by Certus » Mon Aug 10, 2015 1:31 pm

Hi Graham,

Thanks for sharing the pictures of the 'non-concentric' Westley Richards 'Highest Possible'. Although a bit ungainly, I'm attracted by it's large, Victorian revolver appearance which Westley Richards attempted to streamline with the introduction of the much less successful 'Concentric' version in 1921.

The 'Highest Possible' patented in 1907 has the honour of being the first 'production' air pistol to be manufactured in Great Britain. The lowest Ser No recorded for the type is 11 and there are unconfirmed reports of a Ser No as high as 1222 with a confirmed Ser No of 1212 being sold at a Wallis & Wallis auction in March 1992.

Regards

Brian

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