Martini anyone?

[houserocker]

Once owned by a guy named "Lefty".http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=144002843

 

[leroygibbs]

Were they ever made that way, or is that some 100 year old bubba-ing?

 

[Jimbob2.0]

Ya buy that and go shoot it with a modern cartridge, wow..........oh wait wheres my hand?

 

[LostSoul]

That's pretty cool, reminds me of the "Obrez"

 

[hole punch]

gorgeous. i'd love to hear the story on that one!

 

[houserocker]

Really, Does anyone know whats up with this? Are all the Enfield Martini .303's safe only with blackpowder cartridges? I thought some were safe with modern .303.

 

[boothdoc]

not all were 303s

A .577/.450 Martini-Henry Mk. IV «Long Lever» converted from a .402" Enfield-Martini from 1887. The rifle is made at the RSAF in Enfield.

Part 1: Background History
The Martini-Henry rifle was the British Empire’s first breech-loading military rifle that was not a conversion of a muzzleloader. The Snider conversion of the old Enfield muskets of the .577 family had been going on since 1865-66 and was just a temporary solution until the Army had found a reliable breech-loader that could serve the Crown’s soldier all over the world. The British found this rifle in 1871 when the .45 calibre Martini-Henry rifle was adopted along with the famous .577/.450 cartridge.
The action.
The rifle is named after the Swiss-Hungarian weapon constructor Friedrich von Martini and the man who constructed the rifling, Alexander Henry. The American Henry O. Peabody claimed it was unfair that he was omitted in the model designation and he had his reasons for claiming so because it was Peabody who invented the basic mechanism. Peabody’s falling block mechanism had an external hammer, but otherwise the mechanism in the Martini-Henry rifle and Peabody’s rifle is quite similar. Peabody’s rifle was patented in 1862 but arrived too late to play any major part in the American Civil War. The Norwegian and Swedish armies also considered the Peabody-Martini rifle, but finally decided to adopt the Remington rolling block rifle.

Note that the cocking indicator is changing
position when the lever is lowered.
The Peabody rifle’s breech block was lowered when the combined trigger guard and operating lever was lowered, but the external hammer with the old fashioned lock had to be cocked separately each time the gun was to be loaded. Friedrich von Martini improved this and made an internal coil spring mechanism that was cocked when the loading lever was lowered. When the lever was lowered the soldier could insert a cartridge in the chamber the same way as with the Peabody rifle. When the lever was raised the action closed and the rifle was ready to fire.

Different Infantry Rifles
There are four different models of the British Martini-Henry infantry rifle. Mark I (i.e. model one) was in service from 1871 to 1876, Mk. II from 1877 to 1881, Mk. III from 1879-1888 and Mk. IV from 1888-1889. The only model that noticeably differs from the other in appearance is the last one, the Mk. IV. This one has a distinctly longer loading lever. The longer lever was adopted because reports from the Sudan campaigns during the 1880’s complained about difficulties when the empty cartridge case was to be extracted. Most of the Mk. IV rifles were originally so called Enfield-Martini rifles chambered for a new .402” cartridge, but most if not all were later rebuilt and re-chambered for the old .577/.450 cartridge. The reason was the Lee-Metford rifle that was introduced in 1888. The Lee-Metford was chambered for the new .303 British cartridge and the Army decided that it would be confusing with three different service rounds and converted the Enfield-Martinis to the old round. The .303 British cartridge was by the way loaded with 71.5 grains of compressed black powder until 1891.

Closed and opened action.
There were also other countries that used the Martini-Henry in their armed forces. Turkey was one of them and these rifles are called Peabody-Martinis despite the fact that they are almost identical to the British Martini-Henry rifles. The Turks bought several hundred thousand Peabody-Martini rifles which were made in the USA by the Providence Tool Company. The new model designation was in favour of Mr. Peabody, but this time Alexander Henry felt neglected and sued the Americans. The reason for his suit was apparently that he demanded royalties from the sale but in the bottom of this the fact that his name was omitted in the designation was probably the most important reason for his lawsuit. The Turkish rifles were in calibre .45 Turkish or 11,43x55R and they were supposed to be as identical as possible compared to the British issue rifles.

 

[houserocker]

Thanks for the info boothdoc. I was wondering about the Martini-Enfields that the Brits converted to use the more modern, smokeless .303.