Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots Martini cadet- which good varmint cartridge?

I have a Martini Cadet I'm considering rebarrelling.

I need experienced opinion on the action about what would be a good varmint cartridge that would not exceed moderate pressures, would "turn the corner"in the loading groove, and extract well?

I think a .17 Hornet would be the "Bee's knees" in a Cadet ..:)

A man after my own heart. I have two Cadets waiting patiently for conversion too, and have played with/sold/swapped away maybe 6 or 8 more in my life.

I've owned a few converted Cadets too: two .22 Hornets, a .357 Mag, and a .30-30. By far my favorite was the Hornet, but I already have a couple Hornets and don't necessarily need another one at the moment. I believe the Cadet is tailor made for the Hornet- .22 or .17 flavor, standard or K'ed/AI'ed. .218 Bee is another one that comes to mind but brass availability is sketchy. I would seriously go for a .222 Rimmed or 5.6x50R, but again with the hard to find brass. How about one of the .22 wildcats based on the .38 Spl/.357 Mag?

Best to stick with rimmed cartridges. Rimless extractors exist, but are hard to find and tricky to fine tune, and fussy to make work reliably. The regular rimmed extractor is kind of a weak link at best- it won't deal well with sticky cases- their leverage kind of sucks.

They are quite fun to play with in their original caliber too, once you find the right bullet/bullet mold to feed it with. Brass can be made from .32-20 stuff. I ought to leave one of mine alone as such.

In reality, according to a couple single shot 'smiths I know who've converted dozens of them over the years, pretty much anything you can get to make the bend into the chamber with, the action will hold ok. The other caveat is everybody knowledgeable agrees that cases of .44 Mag and larger in diameter will push the boundaries- there's only so much wall thickness around those small barrel's chambers. I purposely kept pressures in my .30-30 really low, as strictly a cast bullet target rifle, with that in mind. On the other hand, a plethora of the little beasties were chambered for .32 Winchester Special "back in the day" in order to cheaply take advantage of their bore diameter, and by all accounts did quite well holding that large a cartridge. So, who to believe? Having shot one once in .32 W.S. I'm here to tell you it wasn't a pleasurable experience in that tiny rifle.

Cadets make great varmint rifles. I've owned a slew of them over the years in both factory and wildcat cartridges. My favorite was a .20 KCF, which was based on a blown out .218 Bee case. I sold it like a dummy. I've also owned them in .22 Hornet, .218 Bee, .219 Zipper, .357 Mag, .256 Win Mag, .20 Tactical, and a couple of others which I can't remember at this point. I still have a .218 Bee, a .22 Hornet and a .223, along with a couple of .22s built on the rimfire actions.

If you can locate or have your gunsmith build one of Bob Snapp's rimless extractors, you can load any of the cartridges based on the .222 family (.222, .222 Mag, .204, .223, etc.) I have one in .223 and it shoots very well. Snapp was "the" Cadet custom gunsmith and I talked to him a lot about what these rifles would do. His personal deer rifle was one he built in 7x30 Waters. Basically, he said stay with the .222 family if you were going to hot-rod, the .30-30 family was safe with factory loads. According to Mr. Snapp, the one weakness in the design is that the barrel walls at the threads are not very thick and excess pressure from the larger diameter cases will eventually bulge the walls at the threads into the action body. The action won't fail, but the chamber bulges and the barrel is ruined.

If you want something hotter than a .22 Hornet or .218 Bee and need to stay rimmed, consider the .219 Zipper. You can make Zipper cases by running a .25-35 case into a .219 Zipper die and usually don't even need to turn the necks. You can also make them from .30-30 brass, but that's a bit more work.

Thanks for the additional insight.

I'm aware of Bob Snapp's rimless extractors but haven't encountered one to date. Is he still alive, and are they still "out there"? .221 Fireball is another one kicking around in my head.

.20 KCF: new one on me. Details?

Another thing to caution the OP regards the firing pin. A conversion to a higher pressure cartridge, wildcat or not, entails bushing the firing pin hole and installing a smaller diameter pin. Perhaps not a tremendous concern unless pressures above pistol cartridge levels are in the offing but why skirt the issue if doing the job right?

One of my current Cadets may have just moved up the list of "round tuit" projects. Thanks, ya bunch of enablers!

I might also recommend Treebone Carving for new wood as the project unfolds. Great folks to deal with, nice pattern options for Martini cadets.

Regretfully, Bob has passed on. https://www.stephenson-wyman.com/obituaries/Robert-Snapp-2/#!/Obituary . He was one of the nicest people I have ever talked to although I never had the pleasure of meeting him face to face. He was quite different from a snottty West Virginian well known for his handgun sights that has to be the rudest p*r*i*c*k I have ever met.

I have 4 of them.. A 22 K Hornet, a 17 Ackley Hornet, a 223 improved, and a 204X223 Improved. 3 of these were built by my late cousin from ABQ. New Mexico.

He hand made the extractors for the rimless cartridges. Pretty involved process.

I would bet the rimmed 222 would be a nice way to go if a person could find brass

I have one in 5.6x50R, and it works well. I don't have any difficulty getting S&B factory rounds or RWS brass here in Oz, but I can't speak for what supply might be like in the US. Of course once you have brass it is easy to get all of the other components, and you can use .222 neck and seating dies for reloading.

Mine used to be a .222 Rimmed, but brass for that is limited to one maker (and I didn't think much of it) unless you make it from 5.6x50R. The 5.6x50R also offers a step up in velocity, if you want it, over .222 R and smaller cartridges. When the .222 R barrel had exceeded its service life a faster-twist Lothar Walther barrel in 5.6x50R was an easy choice.

I definitely would not go to a cartridge with a greater body diameter, such as .219, as the barrel shank diameter is, as mentioned above, quite small and so you may risk chamber bulging or failure if you get ambitious with pressures on a fatter cartridge.

I had a 17 bee couldn't keep the brass from splitting at the necks, I now have a 22 k hornet very accurate and too much fun to shoot.

I actually have two of the Cadets.

The one I'm most interested in rebarreling for varmints wears a bull barrel in 218 Mashburn Bee on it presently. It is about shot out, and balances so heavy and forward that it does a bit of a disservice to the action. Maybe I should rebarrel in 22 Hornet, though that is one of the few chamberings I don't reload for already, mostly because I've heard it is a PIA with short brass life. The 223 Rem. sounds OK too, but how does it extract without the rim? I want to keep this one as a varmint platform, because it is covered with very nice engraving of prairie dogs.

The second is in 32 Win., and I agree it is not only unenjoyable to shoot, but also not very accurate. And it doesn't extract for beans. The possibility of changing barrels to a 7 Waters intrigues me. A 120 gr. pill might almost be pleasant to launch out of that petite receiver.

Thanks for your suggestions. Keep them coming!

Morning, I also had a 218 bee, & a couple of 22-hornets one imp. question? Would 357 maximum brass work for the 222-rimmed? Thought I read that somewhere. I donet have one now but if I find one it's coming home, need a 17-fireball. Reeeely bad. Bill out. 🐾👣🇨🇦 Ps is 357-maximum brass hard to find.

If you're a handloader, I'd say K-Hornet, if not Hornet. Also requires slight extractor mod; .218 doesn't but the ctgs are harder to find.

If you ever intend to shoot deer with it (when encountered), I'd say .25-35. Just my favorites. .25-35 for varmints would also need handloading, but not for deer.

not really. Prophet river has star line and Remington instock

Saw Remington for $30 a hundred at Midway not long ago. You can buy from Starline directly.

The .357 Maximum would be a bit short I think, at a nominal 1.608", for making .222 Rimmed (1.70"). It would be better to make it from 5.6x50R if you couldn't get .222R brass such as is made by Bertram. Or just go with 5.6x50R in the first place and have rather more velocity at the same pressure, and the availability of factory loads and of good quality brass.