webley tempest .22 review

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Average Ratings

Value for Money	7.9/10
Reviewer Rating	8.8/10
Overall Rating	8.4/10

90% Recommended18 out of 20 Reviews

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By Anthony on 10th Aug 2003

Anthony's Ratings

Value for money	8/10
Overall value	8/10
Anthony's recommendation

Good Points

rugged. Able to shoot long airgun darts if you can have them made up, or find them for sale.(not the chrome plated ones with nylon fletching.) rearward recoil. provides a good solid base for customization.

Bad Points

Accuracy is about 1-1/2 inches at ten yards, as a pistol, with me doing the shooting. Factory grips are not good for a left handed shooter. Safety just gets in the way. (I guess it's designed for training people who want to be policemen). As the other guy said, the point of impact changes because of the front sight being on the barrel and the rear sight being part of the standing breech.

General Comments

I bought my .177 Webley Tempest some 15 years ago and I still have it, and it's in good shape. That's enough to recommemd it as far as quality is concerned. I didn't use it quite so often because I'm left handed, so I eventually got around to making customer grips out of some scrap birch. I had to make some modifications to allow this. The grips are held together by a 3/8inch brass piece threaded for 6by32. There's a depression in the grip frame that I drilled out to 3/8, to provide a basic foundation for the grips. one screw per scale, joining in the brass piece. To prevent the grips from spinnning around, I turned some more shallow brass pieces of about the correct depth. I only faced one side completely on the lathe, I left a little nipple on the other side to act as a locator. When I got the pieces done(I can't remember how many I did, I think I did only three because there is a projection for the safety on one side of the gun which acted as a locator. I placed the 3 brass pieces, and tightened up the grips, this left an impression of where the brass pieces should be located on the grips. Then, I somehow held the brass pieces together on the grip scales, and drilled them to accept some brass wood srews, probably #3 screws, although I don't remember. I then screwed and epoxied them into place. Steel screws would have been better, because as you all know, brass is weak when you start using the small wood screws. So I had a slightly customized tempest, more suitable for either right or left handed use. I decided I couuld live without the safety, although I'll allow that it might be a good Idea to leave it there, especially if you are planning on selling it some day. So I went along like that for a while, I was happier with it as it was. Then, one day, I got the idea of rigging up some sort of shoulder stock for it, an Idea I got from British airgun magazines. I must say, I made it a little heavier than is probably required, first, I had to hand file and scrape the bottom of the grip frame square and flat, I did a lot of checking with a square to make sure the bottom was square, It's the first time I ever scraped metal to obtain a high level of accuracy. You learn something new when you do this type of work. I then laid out the plan for the (I guess you would call it the anchor point for the stock). I laid out and drilled two holes and tapped them for 10 by 32. The most difficult thing was ensuring that the lay out and set up on the drill press was good. The holes were spaced one inch apart. I then started working on the clamp part of the stock. I somehow took a piece of aluminum, drilled it on one inch centres for #10. It ended up to be about the same width as the grip frame. I made sure it was finished nice and square on all sides on a lathe again, then I laid out and drilled a 5/16 through hole at right andgles to the #10 holes. This big hole was for the stock material, which I'll allow is probably too heavy. I could have gotten away with 1/4 inch steel. I made up another aluminum block about 1 1/4 inch on a side by about 3/8 inch in width. A through hole was drilled 5/16 to accept the stock wire. It was a slight interference fit, so no fasteners were required to connect it. Another 5/16 hole was drilled to make up the "butt plate". the long stock piece was left straight, the butt piece was about 5 inches long. As you can probably guess, the stock was held on by two 10 by 32 screws. That left me with this problem, no cheek weld, so I cobbled up another ugly metal clamp type piece, I used up my creativity by this point, so the cheek weld piece definitely looks like it was made from a piece of an old snow shovel. It works though. The reason for making up the buttstock was that I was living in a large house that had a pidgeon problem. It was too difficult to make shots at pigeons on the roof. I managed to make quite a few kills on them, considering they all flew off everytime I fired a pellet at them. I had to go for neck or head shots to make it a clean kill though. The Tempest is a little light for this type of duty. I also attempted to customize the mainspring performance, I bought an aftermarked spring from TR Robb, and sliprings he also sells for the same gun. I don't think it increased the muzzle velocity any, although I don't have a chronograph to test out that theory, and it did seem to make the action a little smoother. The accuracy at sixty feet was about 2 1/2 inches, just about good enough for the pigeons, but there was that damn problem with the shifting point of impact. By the way, I don't bother with special pellets, I just use what is available locally, which are the good quality Crossman pellets anyway. Here's a funny story, I thought I'd be smart and use Moly-Slip spray on lubricant to make the action a little smoother(It had Molybdenum Disulphide!!!), which was being really pushed in the gun magazines at the time as some kind of wonder product. I thought it would be a good idea to spray it in the cylinder real good. So I put it back together, and decided to test fire it. I just sort of wrapped a blanket around the muzzle to protect against ricochets, and fired it at a thick steel plate. I was wondering what was happening to the pellets. I couldn't find much more than tiny little fragments. Then, I saw a darkened spot on the blanket I was using, and noticed that the pistol had cocked itself!!! I then found pieces of the pellet I had fired last, it was spread out into a little sheet of lead about half an inch long, and in pieces. Yup, I fired it once more with the room darkened, and there was a substantial muzzle obturation!!! Please, don't try this yourself, I just want the information to get out there, it just goes to show you that Webley makes good firearms, a lesser air pistol might not take the stress of the punishment the dieseling gave it. Thanks Anthony.

Total Respect: +2