Francotte made those Martini rook rifles from the late 1880s through the 1930s. Generally they were nicely made and the equal of British made Martini rook rifle. Its a shame Colin Greenwood elected to leave Martini rook rifles out of his otherwise fine rook and rabbit book.
Actually IIRC one of the first Francotte Cadet production runs was an 1880 contract with the Victoria, Australia government for training rifles. I've owned one of these early Victorian Government military contract actions (3-digit #) and also at present own 2 other early commercial Francotte Martini Cadets (4-digit #s). Interestingly, all repeat all the parts, pins, blocks, levers, etc will fully interchange between the Francottes and the BSAs except the deluxe Francottes with the rare side-mounted cocking indicator, some of their parts are different in order to accomodate the indicator. One of my Francotte Cadets has the side indicator and the other has the top-mounted one like the later BSAs. None of the commercial Francotte Cadets I've ever seen (admittedly not very many) have had the usual BSA split pin to retain the TG subassembly, all repeat all have had some variation of a solid pin with various types of lock-screw arrangements and spring detents on the left side.
I personally like the Francottes a LOT more than the BSAs even though they're visually and functionally identical. The only difference I can find is in the later BSAs' use of a split retainer pin for the TG subassembly rather than the Francottes' solid (and therefore IMO somewhat more elegant) pin.
Colin Greenwood DEFINITELY missed the boat on the Cadets IMO. I kept waiting for another volume devoted entirely to them but so far no joy. Either he couldn't find a publisher or else he musta had a brain fart (grin).
Regards, Joe
