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Posted By: tuna Martini Enfield - What to Do ? - 11/15/21
Digging around trying to uncluttered my life a little. Lo and behold I uncover a Martini Enfield 1874 action I bought over forty years ago. Crazy thing is I thought I sold it about fifteen years ago. Now the question if you had one of these what interesting build would you do on it if you were so inclined. If your answer is “sell it” what do you think one of these is worth ?
I would advise you to do a little research before you go too far, the .577-450 rim is the biggest that I know of at around 3/4 inch. Maybe not a big deal if you can fabricate a new extractor to work. But, it's something to think about.
flintlocke , thanks for your reply. I’ve been searching the web for whatever info that I can find. Hoping someone here might have built one up for something besides the .577-450 . Is worth a shot. Also trying to figure out exactly what it is I have. That hasn’t been real smooth sailing in itself.
Another consideration would be something on the order of .303 British (or .30-40 Krag). After all, a ton of sporters in .303 were built on that action in England during the period 1885-1920, and the British gov't converted them to .303 for use by colonial and territorial battalions after the adoption of the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield when they didn't want to simply schitcan the warehouses full of obsolete Martini-Henry's.

A .45-70 Martini-Henry would be a cool modern conversion too. Don't sweat the extractor. It's a simple device that any competent gunsmith/machinist can work around.

I knew a guy who built a heavy barreled .225 Winchester varmint rifle on one of those actions once. Kind of bizarre, but it worked.
gnoahhh, Thanks for the input. Going to keep up the web searching for info and to see what I can see.
Regardless of calibre, Martini rifles have the cool factor….
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