In 1888, A Captaine Marcel B, arrived in Africa, in what later became the Belgian Congo. He was sent in advance of Belgium taking over the guardianship of this troublesome (then and even now ) spot in Africa, through the International African Association. Captain Marcel, was an up and coming officer on a fast track. He graduated with distiction from the Belgian Royal Military Academy.

With him he took,a 16 gauge side by side shotgun, a single barrelled rifled muzzle loader, a five shot .50 revolver and a big bore Martini Rifle. The subject here.

Capitaine Marcel was the third son of a Belgian Count and well connected to the Court of King King Leopold II of Belgium. As one can surmise, the family was well off, and the firearms that Capt Marcel took with him were all commisioned to his order from the famous firm of Auguste Francotte. Papers in my possession show the Charles Francotte advised Marcel to chamber rifle in the 455/577 English Military cartridge as it was most likely to be available in Africa should he run low on ammunition. Charles Francotte also implied that Marcel could use the same round for all sorts of game. Which he did, from Elephants for throphies, to gazelle for the pot. He later wrote in his diary that meat of small and medium game was ruined unless he shot them in the head with this rifle. This fact also prompted him to order from the same firm, a neat Mauser 1891 model in 7x57 to shoot game for the pot.

This part of Africa was notorious for Malaria and other tropical fevers and Marcel was not immune. In 1899, a severely ill Marcel was returned home to recover. That same year he was commisioned Colonel. According to his diaries he was deemed unfit for regular Military Duties and after his recovery was sent to Rome as part of the Belgian Delegation to the Holy See.

In 1908 a HUGE earthquake devasted Messina in Sicily and Reggio in the southern tip of Italy. Marcel was at the forefront of relief efforts there and for his efforts and organisation in Messina he was awarded a gold medal by King Vittorio Emanuele of Itay in 1909.

In Sicily there is no game of the size needed to do this Martini justice, and the last time it was used according to records was before WWII on a wild boar drive. This rifle showed sign of neglect when I got it. I put it aside and concentrated on cleaning and sorting the others that were in better shape first.

Three years ago, I got around to it and found that I could not pull the lever down to open the action. I dismantled the action and found a spent shell "welded" to the chamber, probably due to an electrolytic effect of the very humid surroundings, Loads of penetrating oil and elbow grease was needed to remove this shell. Unfortunately, the chamber was well and truly F...d. Modern cases fired in it, either split or were so oversize as to be impossible to resize. The metal works was originally case hardened, but surface corrosion and spots of rust were prominent all over the action and the barrel. The buttplate was a mass of coarse rust. The woodwork was dinged and danged and so "oiled" that one was left with a slimy feeling in the hands after handling it.

Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced the original images that I had of this rifle prior to me dismantling it. It was never my intention to get this rifle looking like new, but rather to use original and REVERSABLE methods to primarily stop the condition of this rifle from worsening and secondly getting back in shooting order.

So this is how I started: I totally dismantled it, I soaked the action, block and other metal parts in a container of kerosene, ATF and acetone. I left the parts soaking for three months whilst I worked on the barrel.

I removed the Hexagonal Barrel from the action. The image below shows the markings on the bottom flat. The bore is 11.4mm (.449) and the rifling is 11.6mm (.4566") measurements, subsequently verified by slugging.

I was thinking of chambering this rifle to 45-70 Gov, but a when I put a case along side the chamber insert, I discovered that were I to chamber it so, the web at the neck of the chamber insert would be too thin and might be a future failure point.

and short chambered the insert.

I mounted the barrel and adjusted for headspace, by lightly polishing the insert. Once that was done, I took the barrel off again, reamed the insert to size and checked for head space again.

Thanks for sharing Marcel. You are very talented for an amateur. And I appreciate your sharing especially the pictures.

Marcel,
That was very well done, I really got a chuckle out of the reamer details - been there, done that.  After about 20 of them, things get a little better.  As with so many things, you either have time or money.  Early on I had no money but time to spare, now it's just no time but Dave Manson has become a good friend - at least from my side...
"If in the future someone wants to go back to the original chambering, gentle heat will remove the insert and cleaning the thin film of solder inside is not an  insurmountable problem ( I intend to leave instructions engraved on a thin alu sheet together with the original extractor in the recess of the stock where the through bolt goes )" 
That is a wonderful thing to do, I generally have intentions of similar considerations but rarely follow through.
Thanks for sharing this, I know you always have something cooking so we're looking forward to more.
Greg