Greener Martini

woodchopper

woodchopper

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so I have a Greener Martini MkIII in the wonderful and impossible to find (economically) caliber 12/14gauge. Issued to the Egyptian Police.

so what to do with it?

I'm thinking that it would be a good candidate for a conversion to nice old (Victorian era) dangerous game cartridge, like the 450 NE / 450-400 NE / 500NE, done up in a nice handy little compact 18" barrel... :eek:

at least that brass might be a little easier to find.

so open to comments, what would be a good choice to pick for caliber.
 
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Check the firing pin. Some of these Martini rifles issued to the "Native" troops had a special three pronged firing pin that took special cartridges. This was so that the rifle could not be used against the authorities or government.
 
Can you rustle up some brass 12G cases and size them to make cartridges?

In the end, it can be anything you want it to be, if you don't mind spending the time and money upon it.
 
I'm not trolling here, but I have to ask why the short barrel? You'd be better served with at least 22 or 24 inches. It would look WAY better and you'd get better performance and much less blast. Please don't say it's so you can hunt in the bush; if you need a big caliber for the game you're hunting there's better calibers and you need a gun that holds more then one anyway.
 
buffdog said:
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Check the firing pin. Some of these Martini rifles issued to the "Native" troops had a special three pronged firing pin that took special cartridges. This was so that the rifle could not be used against the authorities or government.
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took it apart already.

It did as some point in time have the extra prongs but they were filed off, fairly roughly, need a little cleaning up in the lathe. I would be looking to dovetail in a new breach face and reduce the firing pin diameter anyways.
 
sahara said:
I'm not trolling here, but I have to ask why the short barrel? You'd be better served with at least 22 or 24 inches. It would look WAY better and you'd get better performance and much less blast. Please don't say it's so you can hunt in the bush; if you need a big caliber for the game you're hunting there's better calibers and you need a gun that holds more then one anyway.
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no this one would be mostly for fun. I have 2 x 300WM a 7mmRM and a 325WSM for my hard hitting hunting rifles. Oh and a few 30-30 for bush guns.
 
If you choose to shoot it as is, you can make shells from Win AA shells. Field load shells of various brands will not work. If the gun still has its original 3 firing pins, the two outside ones are on a ring and removeable. I made a sizing die for 14 guage police shells from a piece of steel and brazed a handle to it. That allowed me to put the die in boiling water then put the AA shell into a home made wooden press and press the die over the plastic shell. The formed shell can then be pushed out with a dowel from the top. The reason for AA shells only is that the various field load hunting shells I tried, collapsed when I tried to size them, the AA shells did not. The only catch in all of the above is that you would probably have to use black powder only and muzzle loading fiber wads in 14 guage. A smokeless load probably has too little volume and a plastic 16 guage wad would both be too small and extend down into the large diameter portion of the plastic shell

cheers mooncoon
 
I too have one of these guns that has been sitting in the closet for some years now. Never got around to getting serious about it. The idea that keeps floating to the top is one I found on an internet search. Here's the link http://www.odinarmsgunsmith.com/

I think this would be a pretty cool rifle. So one day.....
 
commonman said:
I too have one of these guns that has been sitting in the closet for some years now. Never got around to getting serious about it. The idea that keeps floating to the top is one I found on an internet search. Here's the link http://www.odinarmsgunsmith.com/

I think this would be a pretty cool rifle. So one day.....
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That link is hilarious. I am most inclined to edge in the opposite direction from anyone that touts their one of a kind guns, on the same page as a picture of a whole rack of essentially identical ones.

To my eye decking a Martini out in anything that looks other than classic English Sporting, or classic English Target, reeks of putting gogo boots and ##### red lipstick on an old granny from the convalescent home. Just...not...quite...right...
 
Quite a few Martini's were originally built as .450/400's, and that cartridge would likely be the least onerous to shoot in a light rifle. Something like a 9.3x74R might be easier to feed.
 
uglydukwling said:
What would the original 14 ga ammunition be worth?
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there is a guy in the US that makes brass from bar stock, you can get brass Rocky mountain cartridge - $85/10 it seems.


the Greener Martini is not the same as the regular Martini Medford / Enfield I have several of those as well all in 577/450. The Greener as I understand has a larger barrel shank, somewhere around 1.1" while the normal Martini's shank is 1"


the 45-70 conversion just does not float my boat, its just not ###y enough.

I guess I could go with a more reasonable length barrel, 20-22" :)
 
Mine is marked "Greener Police Gun" on the receiver and "Greener Special Bore" on the barrel, so I thought I needed the special ammunition. So I bought a box of it (I can't remember where; it was a long time ago). When I tried to load it, I discovered that the special cartridge wouldn't chamber, but a standard 16 ga round would. It appears to be a 16 ga barrel, even though it's not marked as such. The firing pin doesn't have the extra points, and the breech face only has one firing pin hole.

The cartridge has the groove around the primer to accept the extra firing pin points. It's a bottle-necked cartridge, crimped over a top wad. It's smaller than a 12 ga and bigger than a 16 ga. I have to just assume it's for the police gun, because the writing on the box is in a script I don't recognize. It probably has information about the manufacturer (apparently not Kynoch), loading, etc, but I don't know anyone who can decipher it.
 
Took a barrel from a 12ga single shot, threaded it to fit, altered the diameter as needed to fit the forend, and installed it on a Police gun. Worked fine.
 
trevj;14565052 To my eye decking a Martini out in anything that looks other than classic English Sporting said:
Well whatever floats your boat I guess. But a Greener Martini shotgun action is obviously not at all related to English Sporting or a Classic Target rifle. Its a big heavy shotgun action, designed by a man who built some of the best shotguns to ever come out of England. It is built to handle some pretty good pressures to, for a shotgun. Now most Greener shotguns that I have seen are awesome old pieces, real pretty. This shotgun was built to fire it's one round and then be a hell of a good club for in close fighting, but it ain't pretty. Now I read where Greener himself suggested that folks building 303s on this action were asking more of it than was intended by the design, but what did he know, eh. But folks have been successfully building rifles such as the 45-70 on the action, not loaded to the pressures that some modern 45-70s are, but then its not a modern action is it?

Oh, and Trevj, many of those grannies in the convalescent home may still have their original real gogo boots, and if they like the red lipstick, so be it. It would be the modern "chicks" that are playing dress up, not the grannies. :d
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tiriaq said:
Took a barrel from a 12ga single shot, threaded it to fit, altered the diameter as needed to fit the forend, and installed it on a Police gun. Worked fine.
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I did the same thing . I put rifle sights on it , I could still see them back then , and it shot foster slugs really well . I've always wanted to try it with a rifled barrel , that would be something truly useful ....... and cool . I seem to remember , an iffy exercise at best , that you couldn't use anything longer than 2 3/4 inches long in the Martini . Anything longer won't fit through the radius cut in the top of the breech block , I may be wrong .
 
so last night I had another look, had a Martini MkII MkIII and MkIV action for Comparison to the Greener Martini.

the Greener action is a little wider, and not as nicely finished, the breach block is longer (about .2") with a deeper wider groove in it for loading.

I also noticed that he barrel on the greener is not properly indexed, never noticed that when cleaning it.
 
So hows about a 33 WCF .

Of course I'm not a very good judge of what folks would classify as a ###y cartridge, but it was designed for the Winchester 86, is that ###y?

A 348 Winchester would be good to, but the cases are hard to find for them as well I think. The 33 WCF looks like it can be formed up fairly easily from...... you guessed it, a 45-70. So you can think of it as a 45-70 with a nicer figure if you like.
 
The 348 Winchester would be an interesting experiment in finding a barrel to fit. I don't think that a take-off barrel would do the OP any good, since the threaded shank would be way too small for the receiver on the Greener. He would have to make a threaded collar to bush up the shank to fit the threads of the Greener.

Not that I've looked, but how common is it for a barrel maker to make up a blank in 348? Pretty sure that is one rare bird. Depending on budget, I'm sure someone would make a barrel to spec, but the tooling cost would make it less practical than knocking out a gun in 450 or 500 Alaskan...Or one of the big African thumpers that throw baseball sized chunks of lead
 
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