Does anyone recognise this action?

[corbinace]

I am considering purchasing this rifle. It is in a 41 caliber, likely 10.4x38.

[bdicki]

Martini

[corbinace]

Hey!!! They are twins.

When I Google a Martini action I get all kinds of actions that look similar but none exactly as your post.

Is this a commercial action as opposed to military, or why the difference?

Also most of the pictured ones have the trigger group on the bottom of the action as opposed to set back.

Also many different pin counts and location in receiver for those pins.

Thanks for the insight, Tim.

[Dan Cash]

It is a Martini but doubtless built by a French, Belgian, Swiss, German or Austrian gun maker, not one of the British military armories. Triggers are set back to make room for the double set mechanism. It looks like a wonderful rifle and I would buy it in a heartbeat had I the chance.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It is a Martini but doubtless built by a French, Belgian, Swiss, German or Austrian gun maker, not one of the British military armories. Triggers are set back to make room for the double set mechanism. It looks like a wonderful rifle and I would buy it in a heartbeat had I the chance.

I would agree with the above, and I think Swiss is the most likely. The sight is very much like that of the Swiss Martini or the Millbank-Amsler which preceded it, only with fine adjustment added.

http://www.collectiblefirearms.com/RiflesMartini.html

It is undoubtedly a civilian rifle, although the action may have come from the military production run, and a view of the butt would tell us more. At present it could be either a sporting rifle or for targets in pretty much the Scheutzen tradition of medium-range standing shooting. I can't make out the markings, but they might give useful information.

The bad news is that if it is Swiss, and really 10.4x38, it is likely to be rimfire. I wouldn't exclude the possibility that a centrefire version existed, but it is something to check up on.

[corbinace]

The markings do not give me any Googleable help. Maybe French or Belgian.
I have an offer on the rifle at the moment and have not heard back on acceptance.
Does anyone have a ballpark figure as to value to know if I am offering a fair price.
Here is a pic of the stock.

And a pic of the bolt that has been converted for either rim or center fire.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I would say the rifle is Swiss. They liked that cartridge. The action was never on a military weapon. It has a logo on the barrel. If you can read it, what does it say? A friend of mine had a Swiss target rifle in that caliber and it looked very much like the pictures you posted. Since the rifle is complete, it will have proof marks on it someplace. They will be easy to check for country of origin.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Ah, the dual ignition breechblock is very well worth having. I am not sure that it was a conversion, as it might have been made that way from scratch. It could be used for hunting of chamois etc., but is just as likely to be intended for target use. Maybe more likely than the one illustrated in the Collectible Firearms link I posted, since that one has a full length stock, bayonet bar and cleaning rod.

They are offering theirs for £1975, as many a dealer might. But they are dealers who put a lot of work into research and their website, and are content to take a while to sell at high though not unfair prices. It is unfamiliar enough to have no very clear value, and the occasional dealer might try for quite a bit moore. For a private sale, non-specialist gunshop or auction website sale you would expect to pay quite a bit less.

That screw-head under the front of the receiver is interesting. It could be a takedown action. But more likely it is just a plug for a screwhole, currently unused but intended for a two-point shooting sling.

[John Taylor]

From what I have read someplace, the English sold actions to many places to be finished as civilian rifles. Most were made into very fine rifles with set triggers and did not have any of the military markings or safeties. These are high end rifles and will bring much higher prices than a military action.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

They did indeed, but I don't think this is one of them. British actions were generally completed in the UK and in British style, which didn't include that kind of trigger guard and very rarely a set trigger. A few had a good sear-locking side safety like the Greener GP shotgun, which is much better than the trigger safety which only a few early military Martinis had.

The actions illustrated on this page have the action pins differently located, and are probably a shade smaller. The rimfire firing-pin makes it virtually certain that it was for the Swiss market, where they did make actions of this type.

Incidentally bdicki should check that his buttstock is tightly fitted, which may or may not be by a lengthwise bolt under the buttplate. I can see daylight between wood and metal, and if it is loose the recoil may remove a large chip from the wood at the top of the joint.

[Pavogrande]

I have a similar weapon -- beautiful but unfortunately a wall hanger
Maker is F R Boeckle Glarus -- owner plate on butt stock is F W Fgli Zurich
Barrel is fluted and both front and rear sights move for and aft on reverse dovetails --

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Ah, a name, and the expected nationality! The owner's name is probably Egli, a common one in Switzerland. I didn't know anything about him, although a search for Scheibenbüchse and Martinistutzer with his surname and location brings a few similar rifles, including one chambered for the 7.5MM. GP90 military round. That was the early version of the Swiss military round for the M1889 Schmidt-Rubin, and although it didn't generate as much pressure as the later versions, it was quite a bit more powerful than the 10.4x38.

[Pavogrande]

Thank you on the name -- it is in "germanic" script and I never mastered the "funny" letters -
Me granda would write that way at times -- took hours to decipher --
The original chamber on this weapon was a 7.5mm with perhaps a mauser "A" base about 58mm long. Perhaps even a 11mm mauser necked to 7.5mm

[corbinace]

Another beautiful close copy to the OP rifle, although with different labeling.

I found the fluted barrel to be interesting. I guess I thought that was a relatively recent development in rifles.

PAVOGRANDE, Why do you consider it a wall hangar? Is there something unseen making it so, or are you just unsure of chambering?

A beautiful specimen you have there.

Tim.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

This interests me! 7.5mm could cover a lot of imprecisely named things, and if it was a tapered case without shoulder, there were probably more of those than we could hear about nowadays. It is very unlikely to be the 8x58R Danish Krag.

I've got a straight-pull Mannlicher M95 sporting rifle for what appears to be the 7.7x60R. It would be very valuable if I hadn't restored it from a badly rusted barreled action. This cartridge is inaccurately described in numerous cartridge books (started by Datig I think, and copied by others) as about 2½in. in case length. But mine is 2.36in., which actually is 60mm. It is usually described as a single-shot or combination gun cartridges, but a lot of people didn't trust bottlenecked cases unless they needed them to fit a magazine. I have also heard that it was one of Professor Hebler's experimental cartridges, and Hebler was Swiss.

Datig also shows an 8x60R Hebler, which probably preceded Rubin's Swiss military cartridges. It does use the Mauser A head, which was unusual for him. No doubt there were others, which may have seen sporting use. The original 7.5x53.5 had a groove diameter of about .310 but an inordinately wide neck and throat for a cartridge so loaded. So it is quite possible that civilian shooters, aiming at the ultimate in accuracy, choose to use something similar, but different.

Yes, the old German script, usually termed fraktur although there are several varieties even of that, can be difficult. I have a book by Captain von Rintelen, who organized fire-bombing of arms ships, labour unions which struck all the time on German funds etc., during the non-American phase of the First World War. He was a most interesting person, who became a personal friend of Admiral Hall, who caught him, and was a guest at Hall's daughter's wedding with eleven British admirals, and Rintelen's daughter as bridesmaid. Later he turned down Hitler's offer of the ambassadorship in London, and became an anti-Nazi refugee.

Now there is a wall I wouldn't mind being a fly on. I bought, very cheaply, one of Rintelen's books, signed by him, because the seller didn't recognize it. But my wife is German, and insists that if it is a fake, it was faked in Germany.

[artu44]

My closest buddy bought few days ago an identical rifle. It was made by RUD ELMER in SAN GALLEN Switzerland. It's chambered for the 7,5 GP90 round but it could be a relined barrel.

[john.k]

Zellers patent.Gottlieb Zeller was a resident of Liege,and claims in the patent "easier and cheaper to make than a Martini."