The Webley British Bulldog: A Pocket Monster on the Frontier

Most of the “pocket advantages” my FMCs or MMCs carried were a small derringer. Maybe, I should have had them carrying this little monster. The Webley British Bulldog was a compact double-action revolver, short-barreled, snub-nosed, with a stubby solid frame and a rounded bird’s-head grip made to disappear into a pocket or a purse. It was cheap, reliable, and it fired a serious cartridge for its size. Shopkeepers, gamblers, travelers and townsfolk who would never call themselves gunfighters bought them by the thousands, because the real danger in a frontier town was rarely a high-noon duel. It was a robbery in a dark street or a quarrel that turned deadly.

The Bulldog earned a grim place in history too. A variant of this very pocket gun was the weapon used to assassinate President James Garfield in 1881. It was the everyman’s revolver, unglamorous and everywhere.