Martini Enfield

[Patrick Chadwick]

Get hold of at least one of the Type 3130 Hornady bullets. These have a long cylindrical portion. (Ithink that Speer has a similar bullet)
Close the breech. Take a 1/4"brass or wooden rod about 1 yd long and insert it into the chamber until it touches the lands.
Make the point where the rod exits the muzzle.
Now open the breech, take on of the 3130s and push it into the breech until it hits the lands. This will also push the rod forwards out of the muzzle.
Make another mark where the rod exits the muzzle.
If the distance between the marks is longer than the length of a Martini-Henry case, then that rifle is probabl never going to shoot well, because in the free flight between leaving the case mouth and being engraved by the lands it will develop a skew. The bullet then has a corkscrew-like trajectory. This effect has been documented for revolvers (wher it occurs because of the free flight from the cylinder into the forcing cone) but I have not seen it documented for rifles.

In such a case, all you can do is use the 3130 set out as far as you dare.