In terms of modern production, that's undoubtedly true. In the sort of classical era of semiautos (ca. 1900-1940), China still holds the record in my book. That whole "competing warlords/Nationalists/Communists/old-school British China Hands/the Japanese and their hangers-on/the Russians, sometimes/mercenaries and like what" period led to some really interesting, creative, and often face-slappingly dumb stuff.

(That said, I totally want one of those Martini-Henry pistols, just for a desk ornament. I'd never be daft enough to try and shoot the thing. :)

--G.
"The bore is almost centered in the barrel! Which is a nice touch."
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

<clicky-click> Is that a Martini-Henry action shoehorned into a pistol? <clicks Play> It is! Holy Heath Robinson! I thought for a moment it might have been one of those el cheapo things I'd heard were intended for use by resistance groups in WW2.

--
Unable to save the day: File is read-only.

You mean the Liberator? I wouldn't have thought of that as particularly Martini-like, but...

Or were you thinking of the obrez idea? I... wouldn't be entirely surprised to find that someone had done something like that to an old Martini-Henry, honestly. (I'm pretty sure that's what the maker of the one in the video hoped buyers would assume it was.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Ah, I see now — I'd only read about the Liberator, I hadn't seen any pictures. Sounded like it was a similar sort of idea. Neither of them looks all that safe to use, anyway.

--
Unable to save the day: File is read-only.

The description of the reproduction makes it sound a bit safer than the originals, which were literally disposable firearms—the idea was that you'd use your Liberator exactly once, to kill a German, and then you'd have the proper gun that he used to have. Although, that said, I'm sure they were perfectly adequate for that purpose. All the descriptions I've seen of them breaking/wearing out in testing or postwar recreational use were after several firings.

It doesn't strike me that firing a Liberator would be terribly recreational, but DGBM. They're intriguing, but $500-$600 seems like a lot of money to pay for a reproduction of a disposable product, even a ruggedized one. (To be fair, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than the few remaining real ones go for.)

That repro packaging is pretty sweet, though.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"

There's no skipped post number, so I'm going to go with "you previewed but forgot to click again to post" as the most likely explanation.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

First, I went looking for a picture of Ian's weird and wonderful gun to show a friend, what with the markings and such(since trying to show a video on a phone is a miserable pain). And, during said search, I found a picture of exactly such an obrez as mentioned, side by side with a Martini Henry it would have been made out of...so, of course, I can't find it now.

On the other hand, I did find THIS, which I found both interesting and at least tangentally connected, as it were. They're chambered for notably less punishing rounds than a .303 British, but still.

I also found THIS out of the British National Army Museum, which on the one hand is claimed to be exactly such a gun, that is a cut-down Martini Henry. On the OTHER hand, it is also noted to be made/used by "North West Frontier tribesmen"...which, if you were to take a closer look at the meaning of that sentence, means "from the region of Afghanistan/Pakistan"...anyone care to guess how well that matches up to "Khyber Pass"? Yeah. Today, it's even called "Khyber Pakhtunkhwa".

BUT, on the THIRD hand, and I'm starting to run out of hands here, the gun doesn't have much in the way of markings. Now, that would ordinarily sort of indicate "not actually a rifle", there aren't any royal crown, no V.R., no "Enfield". But, there's also none of the MAD amount of wild-ass stampings and engravings that Khyber Pass-made guns tend to be covered in. This, along with the fact that it's in the actual army museum would, to me, tend to indicate that it is what it purports to be.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"

A specialist in gun history could probably say something about the time when they started using wild-ass stampings and engravings on Khyber Pass arms, and the probable age of something that is a Khyber Pass creation but doesn't look like a cargo cult firearm.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

Well, you know, the Khyber Pass gunmaking tradition does have its roots in the making of actual guns for the resistance of imperial interlopers; selling weird shit to the other imperial interlopers just grew out of that. So it's entirely possible that some such things are legit and others are marketplace hax.

Conversely, the lack of markings may not mean much. It's a Martini action, but that doesn't necessarily mean the "donor" was an actual British-arsenal-made government-issue Martini-Henry rifle. Craft-made rifles based on the Martini action abounded (and presumably still do abound) in that part of the world; or, if not entirely homemade, it could be based on a Turkish Martini, or a Nepalese Gahendra (which are not known for the consistency of their OEM markings), or who the heck knows. The arms trade to world crisis areas is a truly amazing thing. Stuff gets everywhere. I wouldn't be entirely surprised to learn that at least one guy in Syria somewhere had a Stoner 63, and no idea where the hell it came from or how it got there.

Also, a tangential musing: the thing Gunnr Brynjelfr uses to take out the power-armor Psi Corps Enforcers in Hunter Rose is a future-generation Thompson/Center Contender, fitted with a barrel chambered for some absurd big-game cartridge. If I had known what I know now about weird firearms when I wrote that scene, it would probably have been a pistol cutdown based on either a Martini or a Remington Rolling Block, for the retro oddity value. (Or a Lancaster howdah pistol. Gunnr could totally make one of those things into an anti-tank weapon. :)

It occurs to me as I type the above that these things really have a fairly long history in UF; Gryphon's sidearm of choice back in the Golden Age was a Dark Forces-style Bryar blaster carbine cut down into a sort of obrez too, though I didn't know the term at the time.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Considering her character, Gunnr probably has all of those, and it was just the Center Contender's turn at bat.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

I'd be willing to bet she could make a rubber band gun into an anti-tank weapon. Might take a bit more work, but still.... :)

Michael C. Fortner
"Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

That comes pretty close to describing the Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank, (admittedly it uses springs, but it's the same idea).

Well, it uses a spring-driven firing pin. It doesn't launch the bomb by the spring.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"

Sure it does. It wouldn't need to be a 200-pound spring if all it did was actuate a primer. The propellant charge extends the range, to be sure, but the initial impulse comes from the spring.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Well, point.

>Conversely, the lack of markings may not mean much. It's a Martini
>action, but that doesn't necessarily mean the "donor" was an actual
>British-arsenal-made government-issue Martini-Henry rifle. Craft-made
>rifles based on the Martini action abounded (and presumably still do
>abound) in that part of the world; or, if not entirely homemade, it
>could be based on a Turkish Martini, or a Nepalese Gahendra (which are
>not known for the consistency of their OEM markings), or who the heck
>knows. The arms trade to world crisis areas is a truly amazing thing.
> Stuff gets everywhere. I wouldn't be entirely surprised to
>learn that at least one guy in Syria somewhere had a
>Stoner 63, and no idea where
>the hell it came from or how it got there.

All true, but the gun is noted, by the museum, to have been one. Of course, there is nothing to say THEY aren't wrong, I mean museum experts aren't instantly right because they have the title of museum expert, as it were. As for the Stoner, I don't think I would be surprised at all. Impressed, maybe, but not surprised.

>Also, a tangential musing: the thing Gunnr Brynjelfr uses to take out
>the power-armor Psi Corps Enforcers in Hunter Rose is a
>future-generation
>Thompson/Center >Contender>, fitted with a barrel chambered for some absurd big-game
>cartridge. If I had known what I know now about weird firearms when I
>wrote that scene, it would probably have been a pistol cutdown based
>on either a Martini or a
>Remington >Rolling Block>, for the retro oddity value. (Or a
>Lancaster howdah pistol. Gunnr could
>totally make one of those things into an anti-tank weapon. :)

Heh. How about a "Quigley"? THat's certainly both "ludicrous" and "Falling block", being chambered for something like .45-110(that's the real caliber, and it's mentioned to shoot a .45 round in-movie).

>It occurs to me as I type the above that these things really have a
>fairly long history in UF; Gryphon's sidearm of choice back in the
>Golden Age was a Dark Forces-style Bryar blaster carbine cut
>down into a sort of obrez too, though I didn't know the term at
>the time.

While Zoner, at least in the "deniable ops liberation of Salusia" carried a .650 Ares Predator. THERE is an impressive gun for you...

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"

One imagines Gunnr's working on a modern version of this for Anthy's next birthday. =]

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

I might not contribute much, but what I do contribute is generally weird shit nobody wants. =]

--G.
dammit, Karl
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Well, yeah, point. But, as noted, "most people" today have no appreciation of, or even knowledge of, history.

>(That said, I totally want one of those
>Martini-Henry pistols, just for a desk
>ornament. I'd never be daft enough to try and shoot the thing. :)

Put it in a display case on the wall, along with other wonderfully daft creations. Definitely.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"