Martini Action

[The Doc]

Last weekend I shot a little with a Belgian shot gun , martini action & ejecters. I really liked the crisp action and the minimal recoil. I was using IOF ammo.

Experts,

What are the good and bad points of a shotty with MARTINI ACTION ?


best,
RP.

[cottage cheese]

Last weekend I shot a little with a Belgian shot gun , martini action & ejecters. I really liked the crisp action and the minimal recoil. I was using IOF ammo.

Experts,

What are the good and bad points of a shotty with MARTINI ACTION ?


best,
RP.

Hi Doc,

In civilian hands, the martini action should be fairly robust and trouble free. The British army armed with martini rifles received a clobbering in the hands of the Zulus at Isandlawana, in Jan 1879. The rifles failed miserably, mostly as I recall vaguely, because of excessive fouling from the use of black powder cartridges and of course overheating of unsuitable steel(?).... and of course misplaced faith and overconfidence in the rifles capabilities didn't help too much

Modern ammo shouldn't present fouling problems. Even less with a 12bore in Indian '50 Shots a year ' circumstances. Should be a fairly OK gun though I suspect because of the inevitable age thing, the metallurgy may get dangerously fatigued from 'rapid' fire. Extraction may get temperamental in certain instances.

regards,
cc

[Grumpy]

Falling block actions are generally strong and reliable. The British Martini Henrys problems in service were nothing remarkable and they were more reliable than any bolt action rifle using black powder loads. The Martini Henrys major problem in the Zulu wars was its slow rate of fire compared to a bolt action.
Does this Belgian made gun have any indication of the maker ? I know that Pieper made a .22 rf falling block and have an idea that I`ve seen a Francotte centrefire rifle with a falling block action. I have a vague memory of a Belgian shotgun with a British Martini Henry action - or a very close copy - as well.
Interesting that you say that the recoil is mild.......Something that can`t be said of the Greener GP which is a thumper. To do with the stock design more than anything else I suspect.
I can`t comment too much on this particular gun without seeing it. As with all Belgian guns, there were some good ones......and a lot of awful junk !
I`m a fan of falling block actions because they can be extremely elegant - both in style and design. I`d love a System Hagn falling block rifle but doubt that I`ll ever be able to justify the cost of one. I lost out on a .303 sporting falling block that was at a remarkable price about 17 months ago...........even more annoying was tht it was a dealer friend that sold it !
I`ll probably have to make do with a Ruger No 1 but it will require some extensive reworking of the action, stock and barrel because the Ruger is not very elegant at all - It`s decidedly chunky !
In the mentime I`ll continue with one of my hobbies - sporterising BSA 12/15 .22lr target rifles.
Any chance of some decent pictures Paul ?
See the pictures below of a rather remarkable falling block shotgun that I know of........a bit of a beast !

[Grumpy]

Have a guess what this is:

[The Doc]

Grumps,

The shotgun in question is

Janssen Fils & Co liege Belgium


It has a 30 inch barrel, a long fore end leaving only the terminal 4inches of the barrel bare.

Another thing that I noticed was that the fore end slides forward on the barrel by a cm or so (away from the chamber) after 2-3 shots are fired. There is a single stirrup holding the fore end and the barrel near the muzzle end and it is tight.

Comments/ remedies welcome.

best,
RP.

[Grumpy]

Janssen was a good maker - I had a lovely sidelock ejector of theirs a few years ago - didn`t make any money because Janssen wasn`t/isn`t a `major` name. Augers well for the quality of this falling block action.
Obviously the fact that the Janssen name is on the gun doesn`t mean that they built the action but it can reasonably be assumed that they didn`t pick a dud.
Can`t comment on the fore-end latch unless I see it.

Does anyone have an idea what the falling block shotgun shown above is ?

[HSharief]

A friend/co-worker of mine John just bought two Martinis and he sent me this link about info on Martinis, pretty good website.

http://www.martinihenry.com/

[Grumpy]

For some reason there are several very good websites devoted to the Martini Henry rifles and to the BSA Martinis. Makes a very pleasnat change from some of the Wiki junk on other rifles out there !