& Scott Ltd is owned by both the Fuller Group and John Bright. John Bright is also co-owner of Highland Outdoors Limited who are the UK distributors for Webley, Webley & Scott and AGS. Production Until 1979 Webley & Scott manufactured shotguns and revolvers for private use, as well as producing sidearms for military and police use. This came to include both revolvers and self-loading (semi-automatic) pistols. Webley's production originally consisted of hand-crafted firearms, although mass-production was later introduced to supply police and military buyers. The first Webley production revolver appeared in 1853. Known as the Longspur it was a muzzle-loaded percussion cap and ball pistol. Some consider it to be the finest revolver of its day as it could shoot as fast as the contemporary Colt revolvers and was faster to load. However the hand-made Longspur could not compete in price with mass-produced revolvers such as the Colt, and production never equalled that of Webley's competitors Adams (Deane, Adams & Deane) or Tranter. Webley's first popular success came with its first double-action revolver, adopted by the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1867. There is a well-known story that a pair of Webley RIC Model revolvers were presented to Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer by Lord Berkeley in 1869, and it is believed that General Custer was using them at the time of his death in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. There is some question whether the gun or guns presented to George Armstrong Custer were Webley RIC's. Other sources indicate that Lord Berkeley Paget presented Custer with a Galand & Sommerville 44 calibre revolver (manufactured in England by the firm of Braendlin & Sommerville) and gave another to Tom Custer. Of course, it is possible that Lord Berkeley Paget may have given Custer two revolvers, both a Galand & Sommerville and a Webley RIC or even given the Custer brothers, in some combination, a pair of Webley RICs and a pair of Galand & Sommervilles. A cased Galand & Sommerville revolver certainly formed part of Tom Custer's estate. Galand & Sommerville 44 revolvers were made to use the same ammunition as the first Webley RIC's, i.e. Webley's .442 centre-fire cartridge. Almost all of Webley's subsequent revolvers were of a top-break design. A pivoting lever on the side of the gun's upper receiver was pressed to release the barrel and cylinder assembly, which then tilts up and forward on