Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Martini rifle curiosity

Dwayne
Thanks for the information. Apparently, the Martini rifle saw a lot of action throughout history. I need to look up the ballistics on that 577-450.

Fred

Zulu's didn't think much of it.

I bump into a .357 Magnum every now and then, I saw one in
.22HP a few years ago.

Yeah, the tools of empire. A pair inhabit a corner of my study, so I pulled them out for a pic, since you made the comparison.





The Martini is dated 1976....a pre-Zulu war rifle, that ended up, Heaven knows how, in the arsenals of the Kingdom of Nepal.



The trapdoor is a Model of 1878, and is a family piece, brought home by a great uncle in the Texas militia from the Spanish American war. While regulars had Krags, most militia still carried .45-70s.




The Springfield is a much handier piece, but they both beat hell out of a Zulu assegai or a Comanche lance.

virtual twin to the original black powder .45-70....400 grain bullet at 1330 fps.

Thanks for the pics. They are very much parallel pieces of history.

Dennis

Mr. Steve NO;
Thanks for posting the pictures.

I believe I read a Ross Seyfried article sometime back regarding Martinis and specifically their connection to Nepal. As I recall, which is not well, but as I recall the British were giving aid to successive governments in Nepal, including arms. It seems they didn't use them much.

I seem to recall a knife retailer in Atlanta that landed a bunch of these British arms from Nepal sometime back as well? I didn�t see any of that batch make it this far north.

The Springfield reminds me of one of my many firearm �shoulda�s�. Many years back I was in a gun shop in Oroville, WA, discussing rare rifles with the owner when he hauled out a near mint Springfield rifle with a mid 1880�s date stamped on it. They had apparently found something like 2 dozen in some sort of armory in northern Washington, perhaps Omak, but I forget.

As I recall he wanted something like $750 for it then, as nobody was into Springfield rifles at that time, only carbines. Oh well, I would likely have just shot it too much if I�d ended up with it anyway.

Thanks again for the very cool photos again.

Regards,
Dwayne

My dad used to shoot .410s through the Springfield at west Texas jackrabbits. He's also the one who beat on the action with a hammer to get it working when it was given to him in the 30s.


Somebody bought the Nepalese arsenal a few years back, and you could find long and short lever Martinis and Snyders for decent prices, although the maintenance was not good, and they are stamped all over with the odd runes of the Nepalese language.

I've got one in 12ga that I'm trying to trade off right now. It's a beautiful gun but I never use it.



The gunsmith that built it also made a VERY cool on that would completely break down and had 3 different 1/2 octagonal barrels one in 22 Hornet, one in 357 Maximum, and one in 25-35. Each had it's own 2 1/2X pistol scope mounted on the barrel.

Hunterbug,

That's got a beautiful stock on it. Those stocks don't come cheap.

Don

A friend of mine has one of the nicest Martinis I've seen, built by Duane Wiebe: