218 Bee

I am a big fan of Martini action rifles with currently a couple of dozen of so in my collection. I am also a fan of interesting calibres with a special affection for small and large bores. So when I was offered this rifle as part of a collection I was buying a year ago I just couldn’t say no.

This Martini is an interesting rifle and is probably a one off, perhaps an apprentice piece when you see all the jobs that had to be done to make it.

The receiver is a small frame Francotte with the action being by BSA, now as you will know these Martini actions were fitted with two part stocks, for end and but. However this one has been fitted into a one piece stock that originally came from a Vickers Martini action rifle. To fit this stock to the receiver a tang has been added to the rear of the receiver, the tang has been drilled and tapped to take a BSA rear peep sight which came with the rifle. The lever has also been cut off and replaced with a new one to fit the stock. Internally the action has been polished and break very cleanly at 3 1/2lbs. The stock itself has been refinished, chequered and an end cap fitted to the half pistol grip.

The action has been fitted with a Lothar Walther .22″ barrel that has been chambered for the lovely little .218 Bee cartridge with a ramp and blade foresight.

The rifle came with a rather large Zomz scope with I replaced with this little Dinox 2.5-4 scope from my collection which sets the rifle of nicely I think. So here are some pictures of the gun:

As well as being a Martini the calibre was very interesting as I have fondness for these early CF small bore cartridges that were all trying to better the 22 Hornets performance and knocking at 3000 fps. I have played with most of them over the years and it was nice to get a Bee back in my hands.

My initial load was just 2 1/2 gns Vihtavuori N310 under a NOE 225107 37Gr GC giving me just under 1500 fps and 1/4″ 25yrd groups however I wanted to up that velocity so yesterday I shot some different loads.

These were loaded with 4 1/2 gns Vihtavuori N320 under the same NOE 225107 37Gr gas checked boolit cast from range scrap BHN 12, sized to .225″ and lubed with 2500.

The photo below shows, right to left, loaded 218 Bee round, empty case, a couple of lubed and sized boolits, a couple of as cast boolits and a 315299 boolit along with a 30-40 Krag case for scale.

These chronographed at a tad over 2000 fps and gave the following 100 yrd group shot in a stiff wind blowing right to left.

Another keeper.