Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots Martini small action/rook rifle

A friend passed away earlier this year, and his family decided to distribute some of his guns. I inquired about his "Winchester 43, in .218 Bee" which Bob had described to me, but I'd never actually seen it. He'd shot it and killed a couple of hogs, using factory ammo. I offered to buy it, and Bob's son generously gave it to me.

The "Winchester 43" indeed has a Model 43 barrel in .218 Bee, but that's all that's Winchester about it. The rest of the rifle is a Martini small action, the so-called cadet. This action, however, is one of the more ornate Martinis I've ever seen; the sides of the receiver are completely stippled, with a scroll engraved border, and various amounts of engraving on the lever and rest of the action. The wood is in very good condition, and is a higher grade with checkering and moderate figure. My guess is this rifle began as a higher grade rook rifle. and then at some point in the past the old barrel was bad, or they couldn't figure out how to get a rook cartridge running, and they screwed on the Model 43 barrel, and made a .218 bee out of it. A scope was mounted in a rather uncouth fashion, drilling & tapping the barrel, and shimming.

I'm working on the action now as it is having light primer strike issues. But once that is fixed, I'll have to decide what to do with it. Unless it shoots really well, I'd wonder about getting someone to rebarrel it, ideally to a cartridge that could be used on deer & hogs. That idea prompts the question, what cartridge can be safely chambered in the Martini small action? I've heard of .32-20 and .357 magnum conversions. It would also be nice to get a barrel on it that compliments the action quality, maybe with a 1/4 rib to mount the scope.

I know rebarreling won't be cheap, but the quality of the rifle deserves a thoughtful restoration. Comments and Suggestions are appreciated.

I've owned bunches of Martini Cadets in my life. My current love affair is with one in .357 Maximum, 26" barrel, easy 1900fps with a 200 grain soft cast bullet. If I (doubtfully) ever build another one I would consider a .222 Rimmed or 5.6x50R or .357 Max necked down to .22 (pretty much the same thing).

That's certainly encouraging! I noticed Starline did make a run of Maximum brass recently.

I like the 5.6x50r as an option mainly because commercial ammo is available & I do like rimmed cartridges in rifles like that. I would be curious how difficult it would be to get a small rifle like that chambered in .327 Federal Magnum. Then you could fire 5 different 32 caliber bullets out it. It seems like Henry is one of the few companies that chambers rifles for that round commercially so it's not a common rifle caliber. Which is a shame because it seems like it would make a nice versatile round for both revolvers & light rifles.

That's certainly a viable option also. I've been eyeing a spare Ballard cast action as a candidate for one of the .32's (a cast action is relegated to small CF's as opposed to a forged receiver which can handle larger/stiffer cartridges).

Just one fly in the ointment with chambering for a longer version of the .32 Long. While .32 Shorts, Longs, H&R's and Federal Magnums can certainly all be fired in the chamber, accuracy may be lacking with the shorter ones. The awfully long jump the bullet has to make before it engages the rifling isn't a good thing. If I did an H&R or Fed chamber I would stick with that case for all purposes and load the cartridges for the job at hand.

Bob Snapp, who was THE custom rifle guru for small frame Martini actions built a number of these using cartridges from the .30-30 family. They included his personal deer rifle which was, as I recall, a 7x30 Waters. His one piece of advice when I spoke to him about building one of my own was to avoid high pressure cartridges (those with greater pressures than the .30-30 family) with case diameters larger than the .223 family. The walls of the chamber are fairly thin under the barrel threads and the larger diameter cartridges have a tendency to swell the chamber.