Browsing through the latest Australian Arms auction catalogue over my morning coffee, I see two cadet Martini rifles, both stamped for Australian service, but one has a Francotte patent stamp and the other is just BSA.
Can anyone explain why BSA would acknowledge Francotte's patent on their Martini? Or maybe this is a misprint? Did Australia purchase Martinis from Francotte?
B.S.A. MARTINI ACTION CADET RIFLE: 310 Cal; std barrel length; vg bore; std front & rear sights; COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA & Victorian issue stamps to rhs of receiver; lhs has B.S.A. trade mark & address; blue/plum finish to barrel, action & fittings; g. profiles; clear markings; g. stock with minor bruising & has W stamped twice on both sides of stock; gwo & vg cond. #68774 L/R
668
FRANCOTTE CADET MARTINI ACTION CADET RIFLE: 297-230 Cal; 27½” barrel; g. bore; std front & rear sights with front sight having another sml addition of a v. sml target sight sleeve; lhs of action marked COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA, FRANCOTTE PATENT; B.S.A. SMALL ARMS CO to breech; g. profiles & clear markings; bluish/grey patina to barrel; grey to bands, action & fittings; g. stock with minor bruising; unusual marking to butt A.C.C.C. N.S.W. (Australian Commonwealth Cadet Corp); issue date 6th month 1907; all complete; gwo & cond. #69005
The calibre gives the answer, the 297-230 short and long cartridge was the first approved calibre for the smallbore training rifles, and predates .22 and .310 cadet.
This was also the first calibre the War Office Miniature Rifle was made and approved in.
No, these are Francotte made rifles. I understand there were a few batches of rifles ordered from Francotte in the early years (pre-Federation/1900). I think most of the BSA rifles are post-Federation.
These 297-230 Cadets were made by A.Francotte and W.W.Greener,the barrels will oftern be found with BARREL MADE BY THE BIRMINGHAM SDALL ARMS CO.LTD.BIRMINGHAM 1907.These barrels are replacment barrells on earlyer rifles an will be seen on booth A.Francotte and W.W.Greener marked actions.I looked at the add and this apears to be the case ,just a confusing description
Not sure as to when the Francotte action was patented but the small frame Australian 297-230 cadets were in diffrent contracts firstly by the diffrent colinial states in the late 1890s I think(Francotte marked) and then the comwelth goverment of Australia(booth Francotte and W.W. Greener marked)after 1907 I think the .310 cartridge was yoused on new contracts,and the 297-230 was fazed outslowly untill 1911 when the .310 took over and the 297-230s were either sold or put into stores.I may be wrong on some of the dates as I am going from memory.I made the mistake of lending my refrence and the selfish bardtard died and his family trashed the old papers
You have to remember that firearms manufacture was contracted by the Dept. of Supply. A firearm could be made by Greener, Enfield, BSA etc. and made to the pattern required, so if there was a requirement for X amount of training rifles in a particular calibre, the order would be dispersed over available manufacturers.
I have not immediate access at the moment to my research material, but you can find all this information at UK NRA HISTORICAL ARMS RESOUCE CENTRE website, look in Miniature Calibre Rifles Research Site.
The two classes of cartridge (rimfire and .310 centrefire) uses by cadet trainees applied to completely different uses. Rinfire was used on miniature ranges, often indoors while the centrefire was used outdoors and usually at 200 and 300 yard competitions. No doubt there were longer ranges shot but senior cadets were allowed to use a .303 rifle before WW2 when they gained marksman skills.
The question on patents in the later post above. Francotte took out various patents which improved the Martini design between 1897 and 1907. These related to a new extractor, cocking indicator, various takedown designs etc. One of his most commercially successful was the improved safety indicator of 1907.
Other manufacturers recognised their usefulness and would have paid Francotte to use a particular feature on rifles they manufactured.
GB189710082A Improved Indicator for Breech Loading Firearms. 1897-04-09
GB189800076A Improvements in Cartridge and Cartridge-case Extractors for Breech-loading Fire-arms. 1897-09-20
GB189726147A Improvements in Martini Firearms. 1897-11-10
GB189800596A Improvements in Breech-loading Small-arms. 1897-12-23
GB189800251A Improvements in Breech-loading Small-arms. 1898-01-04
GB190216583A An Improvement in "Martini-Francotte" Firearms. 1902-07-25
GB190216582A A New or Improved Breech-block for "Martini" Firearms. 1902-07-25
GB190611093A Improvements in Martini-Francotte Rifles and the like. 1905-10-21
GB190704736A New or Improved Safety Device for Fire-arms with Pivotted Breech-blocks. 1907-02-26
Some here should also realise there was no Commonwealth of Australia prior to 1901......the Francottes (belgian made) were purchased by state governments/education departments /boards of public instruction/etc ,and in some cases schools associations ,and passed on the the Commonwealth at some later time when the 1908 Cadet scheme came into being.......here I might mention the somewhat well known fact than some cadet martinis were bought from Japan in the 1890s.
I would also mention that a 287/230 with a good bore is a considerable rarity,and the cartridge is a ringer for 22 Hornet ,if you want to shoot the gun.
an old thread, but i once owned a small frame martini with the action stamped greener, the barrel BSA, but every internal action part was stamped AF (auguste francotte) i can only surmise that francotte supplied the bare action, greener bought the action and BSA barrels and combined the two, putting his own stamp on the action.
Greener relied heavily on Belgian manufactures.....the BSA barrels were later replacement parts fitted in OZ ....Greener also made replacement barrels for the Cadets......incidentally ,the Francottes had a different tenon thread to the 1908/1911 Cadets.
.230 calibre cadet rifles had a 27.5 inch barrel while BSA cadet rifles (.310) had25.2 inch barrels.All these barrels have 14 threads per inch .Only the .310Westley Richards martini had a receiver of 1 in 16 threads per inch.Greener were very busy at the time making high class shotguns so FRANCOTTE and many subys in Belgium supplied the Greener company.Greener sourced barrels from BSA
On the subject of the Martini Francottes ,I read an interesting detail about Greener ,Braendlin,and Tranter.,who were all tied together in Belgian imports....Anyhoo ,G.Tranter died in (about) 1896,and his son had been an alcoholic and predeceasd him,leaving a grandson to inherit the Tranter business and fortune .The grandson was a minor ,and did not gain controll until he was 21 in 1908.....He promptly liquidated all the Tranter and Braendlin properties and business ,and was instantly wealthy .......followed was a picture of a yacht he bought that looks like something a king or prince would own......then ,he came out to Australia,and lived in Sydney until 1914,when he enlisted as a private in the AIF.....as he was a gunsmith,he served in the engineers,returned and lived in Sydney presumably on the harbour ,with a slection of boats to keep him occupied.
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