Take a better look at that pic (the enlarged one) - those are Martini-actioned rifles, not Ballards.

You're almost right.  The left-hand and center rifles are indeed Martini-actioned, most likely by Christian Patt (in fact, if I remember correctly, one of them is on display at the Alma Historical Society).

But the right-hand rifle if you look carefully at the action's length and what you can deduce from its profile and shadowing and from the lever profile, is not a Martini but almost certainly a Ballard.

Bill Lawrence

MartiniBelgian wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2017 at 5:35am:


Excluding Big Bertha!

Well,

I just took a look at rifle 1 and 2, not 3, my mistake...  I thought that the 3 ladies had all made the right choice

Now, now, marlinguy.

In the spirit of devil's advocacy, I will point out that the two sisters display their rifles prominently, while the third lady, not so much.  Could it be that Lady No. 3 was not quite as proud of her Ballard?

Or perhaps the Ballard simply wasn't made up by Patt.  For while he was not John Meunier, Christian Patt's reputation was such that his rifles dominated the firing line in the Alma area.  Moreover Alma was a Swiss-German community, so it's not surprising that Patt and many or most of his clients preferred Martini actions, at the time the standard actions of their home country's army rifles.

In short, a person's choice of rifle is sometimes nothing more than what she likes or knows best.

Last - and this is not speculation - the two Martini-holding sisters are Julia & Emma Protz.  Source: SHUETZENVEREIN, THE ALMA SHOOTING SOCIETY, eleventh in a series of articles on the 19th century photography of Gerhard Gesell, all researched and written by Katherine Goodman and published by the Alma Historical Society.

Bill Lawrence