doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Martini a la Hoffman

Dennis ...

I enjoyed every update to this incredible rifle. You've incorporated a number of custom features that you rarely see nowadays such as the ovate barrels, integral scope bases, etc.

I wish I had your patience and skill in metal and wood.

... Joe

What Joe said.
Mike

The stock work is far enough down the road now with all of the forearms and the buttstock close to the final dimensions that I can now concentrate on getting the chest and case materials together, determining the dimensions and creating a final design.

I got the last of the wood today. These will be the side panels for the chest.


I have a very nice 30's Ambercrombie and Fitch case that came with a gun that I purchased some time ago and dimensionally it is what I will use. It is just roomy enough at 30�x9 1/4�x3� to accommodate one of the barrel sets, the action/buttstock, one of the scopes and an ammunition block. I have a very nice board of Honduran mahogany that is 8' long, 16" wide and 3/4" thick and I should be able to get the entire case from it.

This case will slide into a compartment at the base of the chest. This is the plan; Two side-by-side drawers will be above the case compartment and finally above the drawers will be a compartment with a lid where the four barrel sets and the action/buttstock will reside. The purpose of the case is a travel vessel for one of the rifle configurations.

The left drawer will be wider to accommodate the two scopes, four ammunition blocks and additional gun parts. The right drawer will house the .25-20 WCF loading tools.

Like a Gerstner chest, a panel will shutter the drawers and the lower case compartment.

I have nearly 30 board feet of black walnut on hand that will be used for the chest.

I have no experience with lining a gun case or a chest so that needs to be figured out too.

Here are some images of things that have to be housed in the chest somewhere. I'll describe the reloading tools later. The last of the hardware is in transit from Lee Valley. Oh for the old days of Garrett Wade's huge high quality hardware inventory.


And some of the hardware that I already had on hand.

This week I did the final shaping of each forearm and they are ready for the final sanding as soon as the screws are slotted and the heads can be brought flush with the exposed escutcheon surface.

Today the screws got slotted to properly index and the extractor cuts got done.
This is the setup using Morris' dovetailed jaw fixture which gripped the barrels in a perfectly aligned position.

Using a 1/8" end mill an indexing longitudinal cut was made so that each screw could be locked in a collet for slotting.

The screws were slightly under-indexed to ensure no over rotation when the screws are pulled down into the escutcheon with a bit.

The saw is .023" wide which will give me a screw slot that allows use of a thin bit.

All of the forearms were removed and one by one the barrels were again installed in the dovetail fixture by the scope bases.

The top edge of this BSA Martini extractor cut is .032" below bore center and is tilted to the 6 o'clock position by 6 degrees. The mill head was tilted appropriately and cut with an end mill to the depth that would allow the original extractor numbered to the action to lie flush with the breach of the barrel.

Here is the completed cut.


Morris' metal work is simply incredible.

I finished shaping the lever, got it inletted, got a small Fisher steel grip cap installed and a lot more wood removed. I need to bring the comb height down about 3/16" to 1/4" and then the final shaping of the nose and cheek pad can be done. The wonderful photos on this website of Dubiel rifles gave me ideas about a pad shape and although an interpretation, it will be a shape I've never used on a stock. I don't know how all these photos will survive on this forum with the Photobucket dependencies but hope someone is paying attention to those details.

The lever end treatment has been finalized and I need to get a piece of round stock welded on. A Martini sold at Julia some time ago provided the inspiration for the design.

The action, barrels, escutcheons, butt plate, grip cap, sights and lever are scheduled to go to the engraver in February.

We are having historic high temperatures and hope to get outside and do some thickness planing of the mahoghany case pieces. I'd like to do blind dovetails on the top and bottom of the case and need to plan that out with everything at 5/8" thickness. I have all of the hardware now except some kind of lock for the case. All of the chest hardware is now here and have baize samples coming from England.

I ordered USA made brad point bits for the ammo blocks and the mould handles and three of the six have points off center or warped shafts. They have to go back as a firmly held wood block with closely spaced holes in a 5x10 pattern cut with wobbly bits will have off center holes that will be visible.
Dennis

Morris machined a fixture to position the barrels with the 3 o'clock position up in the EDM and machined graphite electrodes to duplicate the profile of the Unertl and Fecker scope ring retaining screws. Each barrel was then clamped in the fixture and the detent was machined in the rear and front base.

Here is a series of photos documenting this process.




Dennis

Shortly after I got the Hoffman Martini some years back I tried Remington jacketed bullet .25-20 WCF ammo in it and the results were less than exciting. When I talked to Michael Petrov about this he gave me some 87 grain bullets from a Lyman 257420 (a gas checked bullet) mould and I never got around to trying them. When looking for loads, however, I found some extraordinary writing by Glen Fryxell on shooting cast bullets in this cartridge. It is posted on The Los Angeles Silhouette Club website at http://www.lasc.us/FryxellCB25-20Win.htm and for anyone wanting to load for this cartridge it is a very good read and source of information.

When a .25-20 WCF chambering became a part of this Martini project I started looking for an Ideal 257283 mould based on Glen�s results with this bullet and eventually found one on eBay. This is the plain based earlier version of Petrov�s 257420 mould. This mould is part of the accessories that will be included in the project chest.

I got a small Ideal mould handle and took the wood off. Woodcraft had a sale on its Gaboon ebony and I got a 12� section of 1 1/2� square stock. It came totally encased in thick paraffin which set off a flashing yellow light in my head and after turning the stock round it was apparent that this was wet wood. Grasping the round stock sans paraffin I could feel wetness. Two days later it developed a lot of narrow checks which continued to enlarge for about a week. Surprisingly, two months later most of them had closed significantly and this week I turned two 6� handles, drilled and fitted them to the handles. The final diameter is around .860� and this is about the maximum diameter that the small handles will accommodate.

Here again is the photo of the parts including the NOE mould discussed later.


I turned ferrules from 1018 steel and nitre blued them. This is the parts before assembly.


Glen Fryxell�s preferred load for the 257283 bullet is 8 grains of 4227 and I made a measure for this capacity. It is brass, has an ebony handle and a 1018 nitre blued ferrule.

With the original Lyman 310 .25-20 Repeater tools, this completes all of the reloading accessories for the project.




A quick side note on 25 caliber lead bullets. Al Nelson of NOE moulds duplicated the 257283 mould profile for me and it is now available from him. I got a double cavity brass mould from him that I originally intended to be the mould for this project but it is too large by comparison to the original Ideal for the chest. The NOE mould casts very consistent and clean bullets and is of the highest quality and will be used for bullet production. The Ideal with the ebony handles will be reserved for the chest.

Footnote: The bore of the Hoffman was noticeably dirty and after a thorough cleaning is now bright and shiny and my expectations remain high for it.

Morris finished all of the sight parts and the barrels came back to me this morning. Here is a teaser for the sights and I'll get a full description done soon with the details. Again, Morris has done an extraordinary job of shaping bases to mount MVA combination sights as well as cut a longitudinal dovetail on the Parker Hale globe sight.

With the barrels back I could finish shaping the forearms and getting them sanded and it has taken much of the day to do this. But they are done and ready to raise the grain in preparation of the first finish.

My final design is a bit larger than the Hoffman but not much. It feels a bit better in my hand with a little more bulk.


Dennis

Superior work, write up & pictures. What a great discussion thread!

Glad this is of interest to you fla3006.

The front sights are now done. The .22LR has a modified AGA Model 2 globe sight installed and the .22LR and 5.6x50R have the actual blade part of MVA combination sights installed.

Originally, the plan was to make some small bases that had a cross dovetail for mounting the MVA combo sights but Morris came up with a much better idea and created bases that would incorporate the MVA system using the 2-56 screws for mounting. Here is the base.


The AGA globe was modified by milling the integral dovetail off and then cutting the requisite longitudinal dovetail for mounting on the barrel. This was done on the CNC as were the MVA bases.

Here are some images of the end results.




And a quick one of my fan club.

Dennis

Nice work by you and Morris. I like the engineering for the front sights. Other than met al and wood finishing, what's left?

... Joe