Some Questions about Antique Cartridge Rifles.

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Tyockell18

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Hey everyone.

Well I'm pretty new to the world of Antique Rifles. I'm interested in buying an antique rifle thats single shot bolt action and in a caliber bigger than 8.3mm to meet antique status.

Since I know very little about old rifles and whats around I'm looking for some recommendations on what could be a good possible affordable candidate.

Something I could hunt with If I wanted too and that wouldn't be a nightmare to reload for.

I'd like a military style carbine of some sort perferably but it must remain antique status.
 
Something of a tough question to answer, particularly with the qualifier of "not difficult to load for". There are several good actions and perhaps the cheapest might be a rolling block with a new barrel if you could find one in a gun show. Calibers such as 45-70 or 38-55 would meet your loading criteria. Most of the older obsolete cartridges are not terribly difficult to load for but can be expensive to do so if you have to buy dies and molds. If you have access to a metal lathe and can make your own dies and molds then there are very few limits on cartridges.

cheers mooncoon
 
how much do you want to spend ?
i can tell you where to get something nice with pre-rolled ammo .
send a pm.
 
Have a look at the custom Snider Sporter I have on the EE. 1871 Mausers are great too but 43 mauser is rather hard to get brass and bullets for... I have another project up my sleeve at the moment (Gras rifle in 357mag :D ) which may be sold when completed as well....
 
Something cool I came across (a few times, actually) is people taking a good condition Martini-Henry action and adding a .44 Magnum barrel to it. That way you can use 44 Magnum or 44 Special brass and bullets, yet still retain antique status on the whole rig. Would make a nice hunting gun too, surely able to bring down a decent-sized meal.

As for the loads... I am not familiar with how much pressure a Martini action can take, but can assume it could probably take the 44 Magnum with ease, especially if your barrel is new modern production (since the barrel/chamber does all the hard work anyway). Besides, they can take .303 British pressures also (since many were converted to that caliber), so 44 Magnum should be no problem either with the proper barrel.

The price would be pretty good too... you can get a Martini action for nearly dirt cheap from IMA or sometimes in the EE. I saw a complete action once for $150 that another CGN'er was selling (and I should've grabbed it, lol). As for the barrel, you can get whatever pleases you... then you'll only have to worry about making it fit onto the action and modifying the extractor if you want the cases to pop out automatically whenever the lever is pulled down. The cost of components (brass, bullets and dies) would be minimal as well... nothing fancy! ;)

Oh and one last thing... such a rifle could be fired at pistol ranges too, since it is chambered in a pistol caliber (which is a nice plus).

Here's an example of a "converted" antique Martini-Henry rifle:

greenerNRA-MHrhs.jpg


:)
 
762mm said:
Something cool I came across (a few times, actually) is people taking a good condition Martini-Henry action and adding a .44 Magnum barrel to it. That way you can use 44 Magnum or 44 Special brass and bullets, yet still retain antique status on the whole rig. Would make a nice hunting gun too, surely able to bring down a decent-sized meal.

As for the loads... I am not familiar with how much pressure a Martini action can take, but can assume it could probably take the 44 Magnum with ease, especially if your barrel is new modern production (since the barrel/chamber does all the hard work anyway). Besides, they can take .303 British pressures also (since many were converted to that caliber), so 44 Magnum should be no problem either with the proper barrel.

The price would be pretty good too... you can get a Martini action for nearly dirt cheap from IMA or sometimes in the EE. I saw a complete action once for $150 that another CGN'er was selling (should've grabbed it, lol). As for the barrel, you can get whatever pleases you... then you'll only have to worry about making it fit and modifying the extractor if you want the cases to pop out automatically whenever the lever is pulled down.

Here's an example of a "converted" antique Martini-Henry rifle:
greenerNRA-MHrhs.jpg
Click to expand...

Hmm very interesting, something like that would do nicely.
 
Martini-Henry barrel thread

And here's a post I've found which actually tackles the topic of rebarelling a M-H (more specifically, the barrel thread, which is key). If you decide to go this way, it should make your job much easier:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/gunsmithing/martini-henry-barrel-thread-193791/

First you need to be sure its a Martini Henry and not a Greener Martini. They are different.

A real Martini Henry/Martini Enfield will be .700 x 1.00 14 V-TPI. I have never been able to clearly tell if the thread on these rifles are Whitworth or not. I do not feel from the ones I have done that they are Whitworth---the pattern antidates standardization. 60 degree works just fine. Although it predates standardization, the MH-ME tenons and threads are very uniform and cutting to the dimension will fit most actions.

Warning however they are a great number of counterfeit Martini's and they should be avoided. There have been failure reported, mainly in the knuckle seat. If you have a question about the authenticity of one of these rifles, visit the Martini forum on www.Gunboards.com or the Martini forum at www.martiniforum.org.

The Greener action has a larger barrel tenon. The one I have here is .710 x 1.090 x 14 V-tpi This tenon is always very uniform except in form. Early ones are clearly 55 degree Whitworth, later appear to be 60 degree.

The Cadet actions are supposed to be .690 x .750 14 V-tpi. Don't believe it. I have found a good deal of variance in the length of receiver ring and some diameter differences. If the action is a Francotte the barrel trenon wil be even smaller. I suspect the Francotte Tenon might be metric, but is close to a inch pattern and I have always been able to fit using inch dimensions.

In dealing with Martini's I find it a lot less "stressful" to measure the receiver ring and fit the barrel to that.
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sniderbayonet010.jpg

strapandrod006.jpg


The Snider is probably your best all around starter antique rifle "in my opinion".


1/Here in Canada they are rather common and thus affordable.

2/-Extremely- easy to hand load your own cartridges
-you dont need any special tools-;)

3/ brass AND spare parts are available and easily obtained

4/ can shoot either round-ball or slug.

5/ 577 cal makes it a excellent candidate for med- big game hunting

6/ very easy to repair and maintain

7/ absolutely beautiful aesthetically


I myself have 2 --a late pattern cadet carbine and a early pattern Canadian military marked 3 bander-

-fantastic rifles that carried our armed forces up until ww1 as the early repeaters were considered too fragile for our needs.
 
I personally have found the snider to be one of the most frustrating cartridges to load accurately, of any that I have shot. My next attempt will be to open up an existing mini mold to around .585 and see if that works. Others on the list have reported good results with oversize slugs. I have tried an oversize slug which was a sort of mini with straight sides and many tiny grease grooves; just as bad as all the rest if my memory is correct.
The skirt thickness on a snider mini is critical to good accuracy in my opinion, as well as the overall diameter.

cheers mooncoon
 
I have to admit at first I was frustrated, I tried a couple different mini's and they were all over the place.
-have since been told that is because the thin skirt design was made for the muzzleloading rifle muskets and the skirt blows out unevenly???

...I need to find a original snider conical to examine.

So lacking the proper conical/mini
I have been using round-balls topped with a mess of my beeswax/olive oil "grease" its got me doing fairly good "minute of Fenian:D"
until I can get a proper conical mould I'm sticking with it.


If were going to start talking frustrating/bloody maddening cartridges to reload---lets talk 12mm pin-fire;)
 
There are a few antique winchester model 1885 around but they tend to be pricey. I missed an antique M1885 45-70 at an auction some years ago. Still kicking myself.

Tradeex has some rolling block rifles in 12.7x44R, which i believe uses 50-70 brass. It's not common but it is possible to find.
 
greenerNRA-MHrhs.jpg


Me thinks bubba made Ricky Bobby's baby Jesus cry when he saw that poor Martini. Lets bow our heads in a moment of silence.
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Musketfire said:
...I need to find a original snider conical to examine.

If were going to start talking frustrating/bloody maddening cartridges to reload---lets talk 12mm pin-fire;)
Click to expand...

I have a couple of mushroomed snider slugs that I dug out of the berm that used to be at Clover Pt in Victoria (it is a park now). The diameter would tell nothing but the skirt is about .1" thick and about the same deep. The originals were supposed to be filled with a mix of bees wax and clay but this one after 100 years the mixture has the texture of a fine grained brick. Presumably the slug actually has a conical cavity filled with the mix but as above as found the plug/filler leaves a square topped or bottomed cavity about .1" deep

I actually had a double barreled pistol of 12 or 13 mm (around .53 if memory is correct); it was relatively easy to load and fairly accurate

cheers mooncoon
 
Upper is the custom Snider sporter I just built. Rescued from Bubba and tastefully rebuilt to a modern shooter. I've found very good accuracy with .590 round ball loads and my toiletbowlring-oliveoil-parafin lube..... :D

sniders001-1.jpg
 
Me thinks bubba made Ricky Bobby's baby Jesus cry when he saw that poor Martini. Lets bow our heads in a moment of silence.
Click to expand...

First off, that's a factory converted Martini by Greener and this one (I believe) is actually a 22LR. I just posted the pic as an example of how a converted Martini would look like.

Second, what would you say about all those junker Martinis with rusted out bores IMA is selling for dirt cheap (the "unserviceable" ones). There's two options for those: an external clean up/repair and a lifetime as a wall-hanger or... salvaging the action, restoring the action and rebarelling to something like a .44 Magnum. Personally, I'd go for that second option ANY day of the week and I don't care if it looks "Bubba". I would never convert my fully functional M-H to another caliber, but if the bore were shot on it beyond repair... then hell yeah. I'd try to keep the looks as much "stock" as possible though (reuse the wood, bands, maybe even the sights if possible).


Also, 577/450 is a b*tch to find components for and brass + dies are insanely expensive. That, plus cast bullet molds are as common as hen's teeth. Trust me, I've gone through the process of getting everything together and it's cost me probably almost as much as the rifle itself. :bangHead: Yet more reasons to consider a more modern & wallet-friendly caliber for a M-H action (if it is needy of a new barrel).

:popCorn:
 
y2k said:
Get a trapdoor 45-70.
Click to expand...

I am glad someone said this...I was about to chime in with the same suggestion.
You cannot beat a good 45-70 Trapdoor Springfield!!!!!
OK...I admit I do have vested interest here, having collected the Springfield since 1980...had over 40 of these in the collection at one time.
 
Poor Alonzo deluded again the Snyder or the Martini are far better choices in my very biest opinion LOL!
 
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