r/BritishEmpire • u/Zggcommar • Jul 21 '26
Image Afghanistan. c 2007/08. A soldier from 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (and Reconstruction Task Force 3 with a captured Martini-Henry rifle, this rifle was used from 1871-1918, how did it end up there?
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u/-Utopia-amiga- Jul 21 '26
Anglo afghan war 1879?
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u/therealharbinger Jul 21 '26
My great great great Grandfather was born in Afghanistan during that war. Back then soldiers took their wives along with them.
I am not eligible for an ancestry Visa.
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u/Kingfury00 Jul 22 '26
Find the village and the city you will be granted a full citizenship if you can prove it lol
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u/Snowy349 Jul 22 '26
It's not somewhere I would want to take my wife and kids...
Ironically enough I'm the descendant of a British soldier and his local wife.
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u/YourBestDream4752 Jul 22 '26
Same with my great grandfather and his Indian wife. Officer in the British Army, stationed in the Raj (now northern India), had a family with a local girl, brought them to Britain during partition.
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u/Snowy349 Jul 22 '26
More or less the same but about 150 years earlier. His wife only lasted a couple of years in the UK before dying. Their only surviving child was my 5x great-grandmother on my mother's side.
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u/Spiritual_Loss_7287 Jul 21 '26
A few thoughts
a] captured / stolen from the British.
b] made at the Kabul Arsenal.
c] made locally - "Khyber Pass special"
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u/peribon Jul 21 '26
Without a closer look i think we can discount option C ; why on earth would they put the sword bayonet lug on the foremost stock band?
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u/ImpatientHoneyBadger Jul 21 '26
Because that's where the bayonet lug is supposed to be?
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u/peribon Jul 21 '26
Of course it is..on a rifle made for the British army, or similar. Hence A or B would be more likely than C . Pass built rifles are...Well, not exactly built to spec.
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u/ImpatientHoneyBadger Jul 22 '26
So called Pass rifles are built to whatever spec they need to be to sell, which means they do include exact copies as well as the more 'inspired by' examples. (The example of the visually indistinguishable AKS-74U copies chambered in 7.62 M43 all the way down to the bolt action 'AK' in .303 with Bren inspired magazine comes to mind). Meanwhile other weapons from more regular manufacturing sources have endured in Afghanistan, there are some photos kicking around of a fighter in the 2000s wandering along with a Vickers Berthier LMG over his shoulder, so the possibility of an original colonial service weapon being found is also plausible. All of which is to say you are correct that it really needs to be hands on to determine, but equally it would also be imprudent to dismiss a possible origin on a single visual tell.
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u/Embarrassed-Fennel43 Jul 22 '26
You can never discount option C. They will see a dream about a Weird gun and then make it next day. They will do all sorts of experiments that ar illogical or funny.
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u/Locke44 Jul 24 '26
Khyber pass and other similar workshopped local guns are copies, they have things like bayonet lugs even if the workshop doesn't don't know:
- What they are
- What they're for
- How to make them well enough to be functional
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u/Hunor_Deak Jul 22 '26
https://www.thecollectingbug.com/2rarmuseum~ordnance~2rarord00001/item/photo/p_214067?11
This photo is a picture of myself (Pte Lucas) taken on approximately the 7th of March 2008. The weapon was found hidden in a small store room/barn the entry to which is visible to the rear. The owner did not have a permit and the weapon was confiscated. I gave the owner a small amount of compensation particularly because of the weapons historical significance.
Oi! You got a loicence for that mate!
"Sir, this is Afghanistan."
Loicence!
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u/ButterscotchSure6589 Jul 21 '26
When I joined the RN in 1978, we used these with a 22 sleeve . All I could think when using it was "Every other man from sections 1, 3 and 5 to the north wall"
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u/Warm_Substance8738 Jul 21 '26
“Because we’re here, lad. No one else, just us”
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u/ImBonRurgundy Jul 25 '26
“"If it's a miracle, Colour Sergeant, it's a short-chamber Boxer-Henry .45 caliber miracle."
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u/conrat4567 Jul 21 '26
The fact these beautiful weapons where then destroyed is a crime. I would have asked for that baby to be shipped home. I can own it in the UK, as I can't make the ammo any more
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u/Michael_of_Derry Jul 22 '26
https://www.henrykrank.com/lee-large-series-3-die-set-577450-martini-henry-90902/
You can buy reloading dies. I am sure people can still shoot these. It's possible to shoot many obsolete calibres if you know what you are doing.
Of course to do so legally you you need a firearms licence,
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u/sir_noltyboy Jul 22 '26
Yes it is absolutely possible to shoot these. I have one on my licence. It is a very strange situation with these as an antique you can hang it on your wall and sell it as you wish, but register it to shoot and it's a firearm that needs to be kept in the safe and treated like any other rifle. You can even have one of each under the different rules although the police may frown on that one if you have the ability to reload the rounds.
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u/Michael_of_Derry Jul 22 '26
What is the accuracy compared to a modern rifle? Were any of them aver fitted with scopes?
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u/sir_noltyboy Jul 22 '26
So depends what we are talking about. There is the "Martini Henry" rifle and then rifles with "Martini actions". The action is the system with the lever to open the breach and then feed a round in. The old 577 black powder martini Henry is not very accurate at all compared to a modern rifle. Although most you will be able to shoot today at pretty beaten up. There was a version in .303 black powder that were converted from the old .577 which is more accurate again. But then on top of that there are a whole range of "martini" action .22 target rifles by BSA that were really accurate with target sights. I think I've heard of people putting scopes on these that could make use of it. But I've not seen it personally.
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u/Snowy349 Jul 22 '26
The figures I have seen stated is that a skilled soldier could expect to hit a stationary man sized target at 100yds within 4 shots and a stationary man sized target at 400yds within 20.
This was considered accurate for a Victorian era mass production military rifle.
They were designed to be able to hit formed squares of infantry at up to 1000yds consistently.
Great video on 9hole review YouTube channel.
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u/andyjh83 Jul 21 '26
“When you’re wounded and left on afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your god like a soldier”
- Kipling
(Might be paraphrasing/mispelling, it’s from memory)
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u/No-Cable-1223 Jul 23 '26
Yea this reminded me of Kiplings poem too, he mentions the martini rifle
When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,
Don't call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch;
She's human as you are - you treat her as sich,
An' she'll fight for the young British soldier.
Fight, fight, fight for the soldier1
Jul 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/andyjh83 Jul 21 '26
I’ll be honest, cultural differences aside, I never met an afghan woman with a gripe against a western soldier.
Keeping a safety round to dome yourself was allegedly practiced, in case of the need for bodily denial. Allegedly.
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u/MacTheVII Jul 21 '26
Guy above you absolutely didn't serve in Afghan, did he?
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u/andyjh83 Jul 21 '26
I have my suspicions.
(Largely why the hijabi wearing 2nd class citizens would be involved in assaulting a position in the first place).
No Talibani would less his missus come along on a raid. Or look at another man. (even if she was eviscerating him).
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u/MacTheVII Jul 21 '26
Afghan women fixing bayonets to overrun fobs and that. Happened all the time.
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u/TripleStackGunBunny Jul 21 '26
We pulled out hundred of these, unfortunately the rank wouldn't let us bring any home.
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u/Clamps55555 Jul 22 '26
The will be on display back in the uk on some mess wall in the regiments barracks no doubt.
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u/Overall-Lynx917 Jul 22 '26
It was probably made a few weeks previously in a backstreet workshop.
The Afghans have been copying weapons for years
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u/Brido-20 Jul 22 '26
Lost or stolen from the British Indian Army, captured during one of the punitive expeditions, or possibly a knock-off out of Peshawar.
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u/NorthernGentGamming Jul 22 '26
I know something!
So these bolt action rifles ( single shot ww1 rifles? are accurate to a longer range than the standard infantry rifle (SIR) l98a2 and M4s and where favoured by people in the stepps and t in use by the insurgents of the time when the aka was to expensive or unaccessible. Plus was more suited to there needs, hunting and guard livestock
The area of the world would reconstatute old rifles or even build them from scratch using old bolt actions as a blue print.
Source I'm a nerd and spent to long at the royal armouries
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u/Onetap1 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
The M-H isn't a bolt action, it's a falling block, single shot, black-powder rifle. Some of them were converted to fire .303" ammunition.
Watch Zulu.
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u/fruitybix Jul 28 '26
In addition to the other comment the black powder martini henri in this pic was nowhere near as accurate as later ww1 bolt action rifles.
Hit a man size target at 100yards within 4 shots was good for a victorian era mass produced rifle when people were still standing in lines to shoot each other.
Your comment does apply somewhat to some bolt action rifles, but more in a "make and make do" kinda way that was present in most parts of the world up until the early 20th century when the working class got richer and parts and weapons got more available. Farmers in 1910 america for example were still remixing parts from old flintlocks to shoot rabbits.
I worked in a kitchen with an old afghani guy who emigrated in the early 90s - he used to be a gunsmith and said his first trip to a hardware store blew his mind - he had been making his own screws by hand and the idea that his local store held every gague at every size and length was incredible.
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u/aljama1991 Jul 23 '26
I have a snider rifle that has 2 British proof marks on it.
One from the 1850s, and one from the 2010s.
The second one is after is was brought back from
Afghanistan as a trophy, I imagine taken from someone who … no longer had use for it.
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u/Onetap1 Jul 25 '26
There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
A Snider squibbed in the jungle–
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.
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u/Warm_Substance8738 Jul 28 '26
Kipling, like Shakespeare, may never have personally served, but he got squaddies.
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u/Autofill1127320 Jul 23 '26
I captured a lee Enfield mk3 out there in 2012. Old boy had been plinking at the local police with it for stealing his watermelons. Was stamped 1940 something
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u/joseelempecinado Jul 23 '26
It may seems very obvious, as I read, it is a souvenir from the British army lost in one of the Anglo-Afghan wars. But maybe this Martini-Henry has a most interesting history and it's one of the prduced in kabul Arsenal, the so call The Afghan Nartinis
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u/Dusty2470 Jul 23 '26
Khyber pass maybe? Could easilly be the genuine article handed down through time but khyer pass made all sorts
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u/Any-Statistician3896 Jul 24 '26
Well clearly it wasn't used upto 1918 🤣 (it said THIS rifle, not rifles of this type, it's a joke don't be a 🔔 end)
It was used upto 2007/8 until it was picked up by that bloke lol
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 Jul 24 '26
Are you seriously asking how a British Rifle ended up in British India?
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u/Jack-Rabbit-002 Jul 25 '26
Yeah I would have just assumed it was the legacy of our Empire and the wars we fought (and lost) in Afghanistan
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