New addition to the safe . (Martini Cadet )

[BigEyeBob]

Just acquired a nice cadet converted to 222Rimmed , heavy Tobler barrel ,custom stock from Australian Ironwood .
The action is drilled through from the rear to enable clean from the R-send .
Its a heavy rifle due to the barrel and the heavy hardwood stock .May restock it later with less dense timber.
I've added a 8x42 Lynx scope and rings mounts since the pics were taken .
Waiting for some Bertram Brass to show so I can load up some crackers and see how it shoots.
Previous owner has fired only 40 rounds through it since the conversion so the barrel is not even run in yet .
I think it is going to be a very accurate rifle once I get a load worked up for it and will be used on feral dogs ,cats and the odd wallaby .

[JeffinNZ]

Superb. Bertram can be hard and brittle so might be worth annealing to begin with.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That is a very nice rifle. Cadets in original condition are a source of frustration to me, as they are too valuable and historically sgnificant to alter, and yet converting them is extremely seductive.

My first conversion was simply made from .222 Remington reamer and dies fed .357 Maximum cases, and the rim recess cut on a lathe. I had to shorten the reamer neck slightly, but it let me out of finding .222 Riimmed cases (actually more like the rimless .222 Magnum in length), which I don't believe Bertram did at the time. Nowadays the German 5.6x50R furnishes cases which are probably more durable than Bertram and cheaper, and can be used in any length up to the original.

[BigEyeBob]

I was unable to source any RWS 5.6 x 50R Brass here , I could order loaded ammunition , but would take months to get here from overseas , not to mention the Bullsh*t that I would have to go through with the local Police and Australian Customs , empty brass is hard to import let alone live stuff.
The cost was prohibitive anyway at over $70.00 for 20 rounds .The 5.6 x 50R case ends up .100" short after forming .
If I could get RWS 5.6 brass here at a reasonable cost I would certainly give it a try
Bertams offering was much easier and quicker for me so went that option , plus it keeps local jobs and keeps his business alive ,
after all what would we do with out his products .
I have plenty of experience with Bertram brass and annealing is the first thing I do when I buy them .If you saw the machinery he uses to make the brass you would wonder how he gets it done .All old WWII machinery well past its prime.
I have some Super brand brass ,which is the original brass from the Super Cartridge company who loaded this cartridge commercially for a few years .
I don,t have many ,maybe 35 of these and the brass is excellent .

357 Maximum cases are out of the mix here , I have never seen them advertised for sale either as loaded ammo or brass ,same deal with the authorities importing them

The seller sold it to me as he was having trouble with extraction and thought some thing was wrong with the rifles action , He didn't have a lot of experience with reloading and I believe was loading too heavy loads . A lot of the empty fired cases I got with the rifle have split,necks and cracks around the neck shoulder area ,most of which are Bertram made and only two out of 50 split cases being Super branded .
I also need to investigate the neck diameter and thickness to determine if that was causing the extraction problem .

I want to keep this rifle in the 222Rimmed chambering as it fits in with my Australian collection of unique cartridges , it sits next to my 303-25 and the 303-270 in the safe
I would not consider changing it to 222 rimless.
Cadet rifles are still easy to get here , most run between 200 to 600 dollars depending on condition and the markings .
I have no problem converting them ,as I already have a nice cadet in full military dress and another as a sporter in 310 .
Same deal with SMLE's , convert them if you so desire .

Kev

[scaevola]

Nice looking rifle and interesting information about ammo difficulties in Australia.

Thanks for posting and let us know how it shoots.

[swamp]

I have two of the Cadets. Both original 310. Bought them and a Snider from a dealer in Australia years ago. They are two of my favorites. Took a little while to get the hang of loading a heeled boolit, but was worth it. I would like to find one to make into a 32 H&R mag. They are just plain fun to shoot.
swamp

[Artful]

The problem with finding 357 Max cases is they run them just periodically so nothing, nothing, wow everyone has them, then back to nothing again.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I was unable to source any RWS 5.6 x 50R Brass here , I could order loaded ammunition , but would take months to get here from overseas , not to mention the Bullsh*t that I would have to go through with the local Police and Australian Customs , empty brass is hard to import let alone live stuff.
The cost was prohibitive anyway at over $70.00 for 20 rounds .The 5.6 x 50R case ends up .100" short after forming .
If I could get RWS 5.6 brass here at a reasonable cost I would certainly give it a try
Bertams offering was much easier and quicker for me so went that option , plus it keeps local jobs and keeps his business alive ,
after all what would we do with out his products .
I have plenty of experience with Bertram brass and annealing is the first thing I do when I buy them .If you saw the machinery he uses to make the brass you would wonder how he gets it done .All old WWII machinery well past its prime.
I have some Super brand brass ,which is the original brass from the Super Cartridge company who loaded this cartridge commercially for a few years .
I don,t have many ,maybe 35 of these and the brass is excellent .

357 Maximum cases are out of the mix here , I have never seen them advertised for sale either as loaded ammo or brass ,same deal with the authorities importing them

The seller sold it to me as he was having trouble with extraction and thought some thing was wrong with the rifles action , He didn't have a lot of experience with reloading and I believe was loading too heavy loads . A lot of the empty fired cases I got with the rifle have split,necks and cracks around the neck shoulder area ,most of which are Bertram made and only two out of 50 split cases being Super branded .
I also need to investigate the neck diameter and thickness to determine if that was causing the extraction problem .

I want to keep this rifle in the 222Rimmed chambering as it fits in with my Australian collection of unique cartridges , it sits next to my 303-25 and the 303-270 in the safe
I would not consider changing it to 222 rimless.
Cadet rifles are still easy to get here , most run between 200 to 600 dollars depending on condition and the markings .
I have no problem converting them ,as I already have a nice cadet in full military dress and another as a sporter in 310 .
Same deal with SMLE's , convert them if you so desire .

Kev

I agree that it is by far the best to keep the Cadet in a rimmed chambering. Rimless extractors have been made, but they are expensive to buy, troublesome if you do it yourself, and I don't give much for their chances of staying reliable long-term.

The information on Bertram's machinery is interesting. When Jim Bell started making limited-production brass several decades ago, he used a process of impact extrusion. But if Bertram's is WW2 machinery, it is more likely to use orthodox hydraulic pressure. I know the cut rifling machine for small-scale barrelmakers is the WW! Pratt and Whitney, since the WW2 versions were just too large and mostly go scrapped.

[BigEyeBob]

The problem with finding 357 Max cases is they run them just periodically so nothing, nothing, wow everyone has them, then back to nothing again.

Never seen any 357 max cases ammo or firearms here at all . The process to import brass case and projectiles into Australia is indeed a process of frustration .
I recently along with two other friends imported 300 25-20 Long SS cases from the US to make cases for our 300 Sherwood rifles which are Martini actioned ,mine has a Francotte action one of the others is a Greener ,not sure what the other is .
This is how we did it

Firstly we needed to find a company in the US that had the brass and was prepared to export it . One company made the brass ( Captech ) but would not ship overseas ,one company had the brass in stock ,but again would not ship overseas ( so much for the so called free trade agreement the US has with Australia) .
The third company would sell and ship the brass and would arrange the paper work for export from the US at a cost .They had none is stock and had to order it from the first company that makes the brass.

Once we were sure we could buy it and get it shipped we then had to apply to our local Police to get permission to obtain the brass , two of us live in the same state the other person lives in another state , so we should have applied separately to the Police .
Two of us would have had to pay $57:00 each to the Police for our application to purchase .
the other person had to apply but the application fee was nil.

So what we did to avoid all the bullsh^t was to get the person who lives in the state that dosen't charge a fee for applying for permission to purchase ,
to buy the 300 25-20 cases and import them .We had to pay a fee to the company in the US for their export paperwork and two lots of postage ,one lot internal in the US and the other overseas to Australia
Once the cases reach the post office here Customs need to be informed and the granted permission application from the Police is forwarded to them , once they receive that then the post office is cleared to release the parcel . The parcel some times is intercepted and opened by Customs when they xray over seas parcels and you may get a notification from them rather than the post office .
In total 100 cases I bought cost me $247 AUD ,so it was rather expensive ,but worth it as I can now shoot my little Francotte sporter in 300 Sherwood .

Bertram does make 300 sherwood cases but the cost was considerably more than what I paid for the Captech brass including post and all the other BS fees.

I would hate to try to bring live ammo from overseas , Its bad enough we cannot ship live ammo or loading powders or primers here through the post .
We have to send it all Dangerous goods and at tremendously exhorbitant prices for DG transport .I was quoted 100 AUD to transport a 1LB canister of powder from interstate to me not so long ago.

Too much Bullsh*t

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I have had to pay quite a bit due to Australia Post's ban on international posting of even antique guns. Australian Arms Auctions have worked out a system of bulk shipment by air freight to a clearing agent who has them delivered in the destination country. It is passably priced in the UK, and may be cheap if there are a lot more purchasers in the USA. But it is a nuisance, and I lost a lot when another now defunct auction house did a deal with a more rapacious agent. One of their employees spammed me with outrageous opinions on religion too.

In a sense export requirements have relaxed. My first government declaration for export included a statement that my Cadet rifle wasn't necessary for the defence of Australia, but they seem to take that as given now. Just think of the beating Cadet Martini crime is taking from all this.

I have a Francotte Martini in .297/.230 which was used with younger children, and it is about as well made as any. Not many people realize that the removable action frame was Francotte's invention, not Greener's. Not all Belgian firearms are of good quality, though mostly safe, but large and small Martinis seem to be one thing on which they came well up to other people's quality.

[BigEyeBob]

I have been working on a Rim thinning tool for a friend of mine to convert 22Hornet brass for his 297/230 Long Morris .
Originally it was meant to be a swage and punch , but .020" was too much brass to move by the flogging with a hammer method .
Now its a block with a recessed hole .040" deep that the case rim fits into ,the case is clamped by the mouth onto a mandrel in a drill chuck and spun with a power drill and a safe edged file used to reduce the rim thickness .It works well and Im due to post it off tomorrow.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Unfortunately my .297/.230 bore isn't really worth putting into action. That rim thinning block looks good, but if you don't have access to a press, a large vice would squeeze the rim thinner. An alternative with a low pressure round like that would be to thin the whole rim from the rear, getting rid of the now inaccurate Hornet headstamp, and cut or press the primer pocket deeper by the same amount.

[BigEyeBob]

Unfortunately my .297/.230 bore isn't really worth putting into action. That rim thinning block looks good, but if you don't have access to a press, a large vice would squeeze the rim thinner. An alternative with a low pressure round like that would be to thin the whole rim from the rear, getting rid of the now inaccurate Hornet headstamp, and cut or press the primer pocket deeper by the same amount.

The block in the image I posted previously has a pin set into the recess which fits the primer pocket.





My friend has very few tools and I've made a lot of reloading tools and bullet swages, case length gauges and a myriad of other gadgets for him the last couple of years , his gift of the Francotte in 300 Sherwood was quite a surprise though , and recently Colin Greenwoods' book on rook and rabbit rifles turned up in the mail unannounced .

He has a loading press of course ,but I tried swaging in my Rockchucker and it wasn't up to the job. Hydraulic workshop press may work but neither he or I have one , but I plan to build one soon I have all the guts of a 2OTon floor trolley jack which will be used for the grunt .
He scored big time , when he stumbled on his Morris chambered Martini , it was close to new condition and hardly ever used ,the bore is like new and to make things worse he paid a low price for it .
Thought I had some images of it but I can't find them ,I'll ask him to send some and post them .

The 100 x 222Rimmed brass I ordered from Bruce Bertram turned up yesterday , looks very good and annealed correctly with the blue ring about half way down the case .
Lot of people complain about Bertrams brass but I have quite a bit of it in different obsolete calibres and I've never had a problem with it
Kev.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Ah yes, I might have had the first copy of that book outside the UK, as it was an advance order from Amazon while I was in Saudi Arabia. I felt a bit sold when I found he didn't tackle small Martinis, although a great many rooks would have given him an argument. But you can only get so much into a book publishers will go for, and his is all good material.

I wrote quite a few articles for his magazine, "Guns Review", and had hopes of becoming a columnist, when it was bought up and closed down by Michael Heseltine, a cabinet minister, when he had to make his bones over again after involvement in the plot to unseat Mrs. Thatcher. The story was that he bought a package of magazines to get the far more prosperous "Classic Car", but a friend in publishing suggested we might buy and resurrect the remains, and yet he was refused the most elementary information you would expect when someone is selling a magazine, and has the common preference for money over no money. Colin had been a tireless and formidable advocate of gun ownership, and even worse, a totally reasonable and courteous one, whom the government have since used as a consultant. They wanted "Guns Review" dead.

There is another way I may have fallen foul of Australian bureaucracy. I had a copy of "Elements of Ordnance", the West Point textbook for 1938, and only recently realized that a previous owner's initial L, which I took for some unknown friend of my First World War artilleryman grandfather, was actually an R, and therefore my Uncle Bob who was alive and well in Australia, and reading every day, at the age of 99. He had met his Australian wife while teaching in a military college in the UK, and then was transferred to India. They went directly to Australia after the war, and the book, like all his belongings, remained with his parents.

I sent the book from Saudi Arabia, just before retiring from work there, and the Saudi tracking showed it leaving for Australia. But it never arrived, and while waiting he had a stroke and a fall, and died after five days in hospital. It was an easier exit than many get, and right at the last he was looking forward to his arriving. I wonder if it was impounded as a book showing how to make explosives - which of course it did, in part, and they mightn't have realized that it bore his name, and had been pressed into his hands by the King-Emperor, acting through representatives.

I wouldn't expect any reloading press to swage the rim thinner. An item in my white elephant collection is an SAS (i.e. pre-modern) bullet swaging press, still unused by me, which I think would do it. Another now in a friend's workshop after a few years I had a small apartment as my UK pied-à-terre, is a ten-ton Enerpac hydraulic press. Alternatively you can do a lot of useful workshop things with an unaltered kcheapo hydraulic, two flat steel bars and two long bolts.

The .297/.230 came under consideration by people like the Greeners and AG Banks in the early days of the British smallbore, often indoor, rifle shooting movement. They found it insufficiently accurate (as commercially loaded), and too expensive. But Americans are currently inventing (if you can imagine anything so futile) new cartridges to cope with the recent cost and irregular supply of .22LR. The .297/.230 is surely close to perfection as a sort of centrefire rimfire small game rifle, and could surely be loaded to be very accurate. My .255 Jeffery, in an Army and Navy rook rifle, suits me. It can easily be recreated with a .25-20 reamer, cases, and dies ground shorter at the bottom.

[BigEyeBob]

I have the plans off this forum for building a swaging press , but that project is on the back burner for a while yet ,like so may others .
Since Ive retired I seem to have a lack of time to get things done ,I often think how I ever managed to hold down a full time job and go to work five days a week .

Just finished making a case length gauge for my 222 Rimmed , in the Lee style and trimmed the cases that came with the rifle ,now they are tumbling to clean them up .
Will start loading some for testing in the next couple of days and see how this rifle shoots.
Can't wait to whack something with it like a feral dog or cat ,even a corvid would do for testing .