Some cool pics Huey will like. Martini Cadet

This was some work I did on my custom .25-35 WCF Martini Cadet. It was originally a .310 (actually .321") which is sort of like a .327 Federal with a heeled bullet. The conversions on these have a limiting factor of very thin metal at the action threads when you go bigger. The action is basically a .22 RF action adapted to that old weak CF .310 after all. For target shooting practice and maybe pegging Wallabys. There is no fancy hangar for the forend, it must be screwed directly to the barrel.

You seldom get to see the "guts" of one of these.

When it was presented to me after hundreds, and hundreds of dollars of work it would not fire! The near 100 yr. old spring was sacked out. I remember several customs on this small and the larger actions in the 50's and 60's. They have quite a following. The simplicity is appealing but the trigger's are far from the stock wrist and there is no conventional modern safety, you are the safety. I installed Wolff springs and all is well. I'd go to a wilder improved ctg. but the threads are thin to begin with so I'll be happy with what I have. It was very common to rechamber the original .310's to .32 Winchester Special but the twist is wrong for the 170 gr. bullets. A fine oldie you may one day encounter.

The extraction is accomplished via cam lever action.

The firing pin is rather large and you can see the very sacked out or maybe once modified spring on the left compared to a new replacement Wolff spring.

A tempting rechamber might be the .256 Falcon shown here. This is a .30-30 necked to .25 in the FL sizer die and loaded (center) firing forms the cases. The old brittle case on the right split a hole in it, seems it was an older fired case. Now it will become something shorter like a .300 GNR. You can see the obvious gain in capacity but the sharp shoulder improves burn efficiency and greatly enhances case life by limiting case stretching at firing. The .256 Falcon is a fine specialty handgun or carbine caliber. Flat shooting and virtually no recoil, its in between the .257 Roberts and .25-06 factory load performance. Plus it has a lovely rim on the plentiful .30-30 brass. (*making .256 Falcon from .25-35 ends up too short, use common .30/30)