Yes.

I have not researched the shotguns much. A gentleman who has published an article in "Shooting Sportsman" a few years ago. He found that the overwhelming majority of the shotguns were delivered to the retailing gunmakers complete. A few were delivered as proven barreled actions "in the white" to be stocked and finished by the retailer, but this was by far the exception.

My research into the double rifles is a work in progress but is fairly well along. The rifles were numbered separately from the shotguns. Webley's shotgun records survive. Their rifle records do not. Fortunately, the records of many of the retailing gunmakers do survive, and are a great help.

The number of Webley built double rifles that bear the names of other gunmakers rather than Webley's may well be greater than 90%. Given the specialized nature of the product, that isn't surprising. Of the 100 or so Webley double rifles I have written notes on, only four were retailed by Webley.

Further, it's possible to fairly accurately determine which rifles were finished by the retailing gunmakers, and which were finished by Webley (delivered complete). A gun delivered as a proven barreled action "in the white" and stocked and finished by the retailer would obviously have different finish details from those stocked and finished by Webley, particularly so engraving. When a hand made double gun is ready for engraving, it's virtually complete - only engraving, blacking and hardening remain. Would a retailer wish to "buy in" a gun "from the trade" stocked, engraved and finished except for blacking and hardening? No, the cost has already been incurred, so there's no incentive to do so and, by the 20th century, the trade was already avoiding doing blacking and hardening in house.

For example, when you find a Webley PHV-1 double rifle retailed by Webley (bearing the Webley name and serial number), and then find the same model rifles, bearing Webley serial numbers, with the same engraving patterns and finish details bearing the names Holland & Holland, Gibbs, Evans, Lancaster, Lang (the Webley brothers owned Lang), Army & Navy, Alex Henry, Rigby, Wilkinson, Manton, etc. - no differences but the names engraved on them - it's clear that these rifles were retailed only, and delivered complete by Webley. Of the rifles in my database that were built by Webley and retailed by other makers, those that share the same engraving patterns and finish details are about 90% of the total. Also, Webley offered engraving to order - I have a couple in my notes done for Army & Navy that the A&N records show to have been finished by Webley - so not all of these with non-standard engraving patterns, as rare as they are, were necessarily finished by the retailer.

That said, these rifles were handmade, and what was delivered was what was ordered. For example, the PHV-1 was the basic boxlock DR, and was not offered with removable hinge pin or intercepting sears. In my notes are several PHV-1s with removable hinge pins and intercepting sears.

A friend of mine was with William Evans for many years, and said that the old records were contained old correspondence between Evans and Webley that said things like "You've fouled up the Maharaja's stock dimensions again". He said that there was no question that they were only retailing the Webley guns in those days.

Here's a string that I posted some links to photos on - 13th post.

http://forums.nitroexpress.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=143415&page=2&fpart=1&vc=1