Scotland’s Only WW2 Military Firearm: Albion Motors No2 MkI** Revolver

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One of the lessons the British military took from the Great War was that without extensive training and practice, most people were not very effective with a large-bore revolver. So in 1922, they undertook a program (via Webley) to develop a smaller sidearm that could be used with much less training. The result was the Revolver, No2 MkI, which went into production in 1931.

When World War Two began in 1939, the British government put out the call to civilian industry to take up war production. The Albion Motors company of Scotstoun (near Glasgow) was interested, and took a contract to make No2 revolvers. After a year of overcoming obstacles in tooling and skilled labor, the first Albion Motors revolver came off the production line in July, 1941. This was the first of 21,422 made by the company, and after the contract passed to the Coventry Tool & Die company in early 1943, another 21,094 would follow with the same Albion markings but assembled by Coventry.

Albion guns account for roughly 20% of total No2 revolver production, and they are the only example I can think of of modern Scottish military small arms production.