Connecticut Yankee
Member
I am looking to purchase a stripped uncut Webley Mark VI cylinder in good used shape. It has stamped on one of the cylinder flats DP in capital letters. This appears to be a later stamping and not in the same types of fonts that I am used to seeing on Webleys.
The only meaning I know of for DP is "Drill Purpose" for a rifle that is either too worn to use any more and deactivated or is otherwise operable but specifically deactivated for drill use only. I also know that sometimes rifles in the British Army that were marked DP that were fire damaged. But all of this information regards rifles, not revolvers. (Yes, there is the USN designation of, for example, the 5"/38 as Dual Purpose but I find it hard how one would have a 'Dual Purpose' revolver cylinder - what would the second purpose be?).
I am leery of purchasing a cylinder that could have been fire damaged or is otherwise metallurgically unsound.
Does anyone have any factual knowledge of the use of DP markings on Webley cylinders? If I can't get a factual response I will not buy this item. Thanks for any help that can be supplied.
The only meaning I know of for DP is "Drill Purpose" for a rifle that is either too worn to use any more and deactivated or is otherwise operable but specifically deactivated for drill use only. I also know that sometimes rifles in the British Army that were marked DP that were fire damaged. But all of this information regards rifles, not revolvers. (Yes, there is the USN designation of, for example, the 5"/38 as Dual Purpose but I find it hard how one would have a 'Dual Purpose' revolver cylinder - what would the second purpose be?).
I am leery of purchasing a cylinder that could have been fire damaged or is otherwise metallurgically unsound.
Does anyone have any factual knowledge of the use of DP markings on Webley cylinders? If I can't get a factual response I will not buy this item. Thanks for any help that can be supplied.
