I'm looking for information on a rifle I recently picked up. I'm pretty green when it comes to foreign singleshot rifles. 
This is a Martini, marked "Made in Belgium" and "RB Rodda and CO. Calcutta" Also, "Francotte's Patent" and "The Deerstalker"
It is an engraved takedown, with 28" full octagon barrel, and express three leaf sight. It was once checkered, but that's nearly worn off. Caliber is .310 Cadet, marked 7.62 under the forearm wood.
Can anyone add any info on this gun?-Vall

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There are a number of “improved” Martini designs and one of the more successful and popular ones was the Francotte patent, where the guts of the action can be removed as one unit by removing a single screw….which is indeed a big improvement.  Belgium was of course one of the bigger producers of Martini style sporting rifles with many if not most of them made for the British and colonial trade.  I can see the Liege proofmark in one of the photos and I assume it also bears British proofs as well, since it was evidently retailed in India by the RB Rodda and CO.  Since this style of sporting arm was produced in whatever form and markings as any given retailer wanted, there really is not much significance attached to the vast majority of the trade names and such, since there was a wide variety found on essentially the same rifles from the same factory made at about the same time.

And yes, in its day the .310 was considered to be a good round for smaller deer out to 200-300yds.  Nowadays, we would barely call it suitable for varmints and rabbits...  It is a very good round, however.

Quote:


Not quite correct Joe, In Britain the commonest species of deer is The Roe Deer, weight 40 - 63 lbs, depending on the sex of the animal.

The largest species here, the Red Deer, weighs in between between 264 - 418 lbs, again depending on the sex of the animal. 

The Roe Deer is a forest dweller and is usually shot at fairly close range, most often well under 100 yards. 

Fallow Deer come midway in the weight range between Roe and Red Deer.

The Red Deer is a moorland/mountain dweller, a very difficult animal to stalk when the only cover is short Heather, and is usually shot at ranges of 150 - 250 yards. The .310" round would not be a good cartridge to select for this species. 

In fact in the UK under The Deer Act 1991 the .310" is likely to be an illegal round to use for shooting deer of any species in Britain where a minimum muzzle energy of 1.700 ft pounds is required and only soft nose or hollow point bullets are allowed.

Harry

Sorry for the misinformation, Gert. My estimate came from conversations with my friend Zimjohn Taylor (John Taylor originally of Zimbabwe). He's a retired UK army officer who, when he was a serving officer in England, was tasked with killing a certain minimum number of the smaller Roe deer. This was due to the game laws which had ensured a massive overpopulation of the species with all the concurrent problems in a populated area. John used a 257 Roberts to very good effect.

I believe his quota could have been as many as 4 deer per month, and he was expected to eat all the meat. I remember that he said he and his wife sometimes got very tired of venison!
Regards, Joe

thop wrote on Apr 9^th, 2008 at 1:04pm:


Hello Thop,

The British Red Deer Cervus elaphus was indeed, until fairly recently, considered to be the same species as the North American Elk (Wapiti) but recent DNA testing has shown that they are actually two seperate species. They both belong to the same Genus, Cervus, but the specific name for the NA Elk is canadensis.

I suspect they both taste very much the same though.  

Harry