We’ve all seen the Indiana Jones movies.  Ever since seeing Indy take out the sword wielding attacker in the Cairo marketplace with his big break action, I’ve been hankering to get that type of pistol.  That pistol was a S&W Hand Eject Model 2.  In the later film with Sean Connery, Indy uses a Webley VI revolver.¹  In this day and age of 15+ round pistol mags and high speed reloads, the thought of having to flip open a pistol for a reload has some weird appeal.

So I started my search.  First, it was for a Webley type pistol, in the .455 caliber.  To tell you the truth, when I saw the price tags, I went into sticker shock.  So I had to do a bit more research.  I had seen a smaller type pistol that looked nearly the same as the big Webley’s, that is it had the slab sided barrels and the thick heavy looking grips. After a few go arounds at some gun shows I figured that I should look for an Enfield instead, specifically the Enfield No. 2 type pistol. After about half a year of doing some searching at shows I finally found an Enfield No. 2 one that was in good shape and at a decent price.

After the Great War, England decided that the .455 Webley Mark VI was just too bulky and heavy and started to look into a smaller .38 caliber revolver.  A first sample was submitted in 1921 to the War Office by Webley and Scott that was a .38 caliber version of the Webley pistol.  Subsequent testing between 1921 and 1932 lead to changes in grip shape, cartridge size and power, and barrel length.  Finally in 1931, the No. 2 Mark I was approved.  Interestingly, Webley and Scott “lost out” on the manufacturing of the approved pistol and instead the state run Enfield factory made them.

Caliber:  .38/200 (.38 Smith and Wesson) .38 caliber, 200 grain (Mk I) or ~176 grain (Mk II)  bullet

Capacity:  6 shots

Weight:  1 lb. 12 oz.

Barrel length:  5 inches

Rifling: 1:15 7 grooves right hand (Mk 1), (.360” to .364” bore diameter, see note below)

Enfield No. 2 Mark 1 -  Single/Double action, approved in 1931.  Traditional styled wood grips.  Many, if not most, were converted to I* models some time in their service careers as so called FTR (Factory Thorough Repair) actions.

Enfield No. 2 Mark 1* - DA only, missing the hammer spur with a “lighter trigger spring” (reduced from 13-15 lbs to 11-13 lbs) brought about by a request by the Tank Corps to minimize catching on items in the confines of a vehicle.  First made in 1936 and approved in 1938.  Grips have a better thumb hold compared to the unmodified models.  A recess in the grip was used for a unit marking disc was also added to the bakelite grip (discontinued in 1941).  Declared obsolete in 1948 but continued to be used into the 1960’s by police and overseas forces.

Enfield No. 2 Mark 1** - DA only as the Mark 1*.  Descriptions of this model are nearly the same as the Mark 1* with the addition of the removal of the safety stop details in the frame, hammer and trigger.

The Enfield Royal Ordnance Factory England was the main manufacturing and refit location of the No. 2 pistols.   Mark 1* and I** models were also manufactured by Albion Motors in Scotland (1941-43) as well as Howard Auto Cultivators (1941-44) in Australia, although apparently records only show about 350 pistols being made by HAC. 

On the barrel, one will see the markings  .38 - .767”  Interestingly, this took some thought on my part, but what this means is the caliber (.38) and the LENGTH of the round (.767”).  Also, you may see the “3 ½ tons” mark.  This refers to Birmingham Nitro Proof testing.  On the barrel rib, you may find a two digit year (like “42”) which denotes the year of acceptance for the pistol.

The English went through several modifications of ammunition for the Enfield No. 2 pistol.  The first .380-in MkI cartridge consisted of a 200gr lead beeswax coated bullet on top of a 3.7gr cordite charge.  Some sources gave the revolver using the MkI round a muzzle velocity of 600 ft/sec and 190 ft lbs ^{1  of} energy.  The Mk1z cartridge was the same except the powder charge was made of nitrocellulose powder.  The British Tank Corp had noted that the 200 grain RN Mk I lead bullet may be considered a “dum dum” bullet and could lead to issues, which led to the development and adoption in 1938 of the Mk II 178gr jacketed bullet.

Something that I may not have completely set straight is that this pistol does NOT use .38 Special ammo, which is NOT the same as .38 Smith and Wesson (.38 S&W also known as 38 Colt New Police) ².  .38 Special ammo is too long to be used, measuring 1.155” compared to only 0.780” for the .38 S&W.  Also, the .38 Special has a bullet diameter measured at 0.357” as compared to 0.360” of the .38 S&W.  This we saw on the barrel markings as noted above.  The issue of the different diameters of bullets could lead to difficulties in procuring the correct ammo or making reloads that will work properly, however, as we’ll see, it is not as tough as I first thought.

.38 S&W ammo is actually still being made by Winchester as a 145gr LRN round.  Magtech also makes a similar loaded round, both are available from MidwayUSA.com.  Beware, though, the cost of this non-standard-not-so-common caliber is not cheap.  I paid more than $24 for one box of 50 rounds from a local gun shop.  Obviously, hand loading is another way to shoot this pistol. 

For reloading, you have two ways of dealing with .38 S&W brass, you can buy it (Starline makes it) or you can make it.  Oddly enough, you can make it out of cut down .38 Special brass.  Bullets are a harder thing to deal with.  Because there is a .003” diameter difference between standard .38 bullets and what the Enfield barrel is made to take, some “fudging” needs to be done.  Of course, you could either cast correctly sized .360” bullets or get one of the many commercial small scale casters to make them for you.  For this article, I opted to go with another idea, which was to see if .357” bullets could work.  The idea that I had seen was to use various easily available cast bullets, some of them with a hollow base, to see which would work the best.  The results were actually pretty good.

As I mentioned, one can buy some Starline brass, which I did.  Next, I took some .38 Special cases and cut them down to size.  I would not recommend using a standard case trimmer to remove the entire 0.375”.  Rather, I used a tubing cutter to remove something less than the amount, and then finished up the trim job using a RCBS trimmer. ³  Okay, I’ll admit right now, I would only recommend this cutting down of .38 Special brass to people who want to be REALLY frugal (i.e., CHEAP).  The amount of time required to rough trim, finish trim and chamfer the mouth is not worth it, not to mention the sore hands and fingers.  But, in the interest of presenting one more option, I did it. 

I chose three different commonly found .38 bullets.  These were Magtech, Hornady and Speer.  My initial load was 2.4 grains of Bullseye pistol powder which I adapted out of “Cartridges of the World, 11^th Edition”.

¹ See the website: http://www.indygear.com/gear/guns.shtml 

² ”Cartridges of the World, 11^th Ed.” gives the following info about the .38 S&W: Designed in 1877 by S&W.  Many U.S. revolver makers made models for this caliber, well suited to pocket guns.  The British determined that their 380/200 (200 gr bullet) had about the same stopping power in combat as the .455 cartridge. 

³ See my article on reloading for the Type 99 for an example on how to use a tubing cutter at: http://surplusrifle.com/shooting2006/srtype99/index.asp