Buying a Martini Henry antique abroad

[fat tony]

RE:

http://www.atlantacutlery.com/webstore/eCat/Military Items/P 1871 MARTINI HENRY Rifle.aspx

No pal required?/will customs put you through hell getting one into the country?

With regards to rebarreling to a more common round, say .45/70, would you have to stick to trap door style blackpowder equivalent loads if you are going to use smokeless? are they accurate? Does rebarreling it to .45/70 take it out of the antique class?

 

[mooncoon]

RE:

With regards to rebarreling to a more common round, say .45/70, would you have to stick to trap door style blackpowder equivalent loads if you are going to use smokeless? are they accurate? Does rebarreling it to .45/70 take it out of the antique class?

If rebarreling to a smokeless crtridge, you might want to bush the firing pin because most black powder pins were quite large and could allow the primer to rupture into the firing pin hole. The caliber must remain over .34 cal roughly to retain antique status.
One criticisim of using them for blackpowder is that they can only be cleaned from the muzzle. Shells are available for reloading but you may find them fidly to get an accurate load.

cheers mooncoon

 

[fat tony]

So it's good to get a Neidner style firing pin installed. Otherwise they will take the pressure of a say a modern Marlin 1895 .45/70 smokeless load? Or maybe just a Trapdoor Springfield equivalent load? I would avoid blackpowder for the fouling reasons, if it was kosher.

 

[Flobalob]

RE:

http://www.atlantacutlery.com/webstore/eCat/Military Items/P 1871 MARTINI HENRY Rifle.aspx

No pal required?/will customs put you through hell getting one into the country?

With regards to rebarreling to a more common round, say .45/70, would you have to stick to trap door style blackpowder equivalent loads if you are going to use smokeless? are they accurate? Does rebarreling it to .45/70 take it out of the antique class?

I imported two antique rolling block rifles from the US and a swiss revolver from Switzerland, before I recieved my PAL. I had no problems at all. I did get the vendors to print out two copies of the Canadian antique regs to acompany the packages, one to go inside the box, and one in an envelope marked "for Canada customs " on the outside. None of the packages were opened. Rebarreling to 45/70 does not affect the antique status.

These rifles are very accurate with trapdoor pressures, rainbow trajectory but great accuracy. Good bullets cast from wheelweights and at least one month old, with 24grns of XMP 5744 and a 1/4 sheet of toilet tissue to keep the powder over the primer should give you 2" groups at 150 yds.

 

[jaguar]

Though I'm not a purist, messing up one of these nice originals would be a shame and also devalue it quite a bit. By the way, Lee now stocks 577-450 Martini-Henry dies for these and brass is available from several sources so reloading is not an issue.
Lots more info on M-H at http://pub7.ezboard.com/bbritishmilitariaforums
Also moulds etc from the following www.oldyoti.com/moulds.htm

Cheers
Jaguar
p.s. Shooting one is addictive