THE MARTINI HENRY.

[A. G. Maisey]

This is probably off topic, but I love the Martini action, and I just couldn't resist throwing this comment into the pool.

There is a small version of the Martini action that is known as the Martini Cadet, in Australia it was used to train school cadets in use of the rifle, which at that time was considered to be essential for the defence of our country, the idea was that every man in Australia should be able to handle a rifle with competence.

In about 1958 the Australian defence forces sold these Cadet Martinis and they became available to the general public through firearms retailers. When they first hit the market they sold for ten shillings each. After a few months the price went up to twenty shillings (one pound) and it bounced around at that level for a long time.

As soon as they hit the market I bought 6 or 8 of these Martinis, I had a Sydney gunsmith named Don Black do conversions on them to various calibres --- .218Bee, .219 Zipper, and in the early 1960's to a rimmed version of the .222 Remington, plus a few others. One of these Remington conversions was done by a precision gunsmith named Bill Marden, it used a sleeved barrel and for a short time held a benchrest record for its weight class. I made the wood for all these conversions, used each one for a short time, then sold it.

Over the years I did perhaps as many as 20 or so Martini conversions. I've still got three, a couple of .218 Bees and a .22 rimfire.

I love Martinis, they are a purely beautiful action.

Apart from the Martini Cadets, I've also owned a couple of Hammerli Free Pistols, again, beautiful machines.