Ralf Martini
Ralf Martini was born and raised in West Germany where he completed
his apprenticeship as a machinist.
Ralf's love of firearms and hunting started at an early age.
As a youngster he spent many hours in the woods enjoying nature
and worked on whatever firearm he could lay his hands on. He was
drafted into the military, serving in an Alpine force where he
honed his shooting skills in the sniping division. Whilst there
he received a gold medal for marksmanship as a sniper.
Ralf moved to Manitoba, Canada in 1986, working in the guide
and outfitting industry for a time. He then returned back to machining/
tool and die making. He worked in machine shops for twelve years.
The last three of those years he was the shop foreman for a large
firm in Fort St. John, British Columbia. In his off hours he
did gunsmithing work In 1996 Ralf decided to go into business
for himself as a full time gunsmith and custom gunmaker. His specialty
being highly customized rifles for hunting North American and
African big game.
In January 2000 he was accepted as a regular member of The American
Custom Gunmakers Guild. In the same year he accepted an offer
from Master Gunmaker Martin Hagn to work together to build the
fine Hagn single shot falling block rifles and bolt actions; and
relocated to Cranbrook, British Columbia were they worked as Martini
& Hagn, Gunmakers LTD. During this time the combined efforts
of these two men produced many extraordinary examples of singleshot
rifles and bolt action rifles. Many of these can be viewed on
the Martini Gunmakers website today.
In the early part of 2007 Ralf and Martin Hagn made an amicable
decision to cease co-sharing a workshop and Martin Hagn moved
into his own workshop. Both businesses agreed to continue producing
the high quality Hagn singleshots and Best Quality bolt actions.
Ralf was well underway making a name for himself as a highly competent
gunmaker adopting the classic British look on his bolt action
rifles and the Singleshots, additionally complimenting these
with his own innovations in/wood metal design.
Ralfs’ dedication to flawlessly completed rifles which
display the highest regard to function, design and finish, has
made his custom rifles much in demand throughout North America.
Ralf is a current member of the American Custom Gunmakers Guild,
under the category Metalsmith and stockmaker. Ralf exhibits his
work each year at the annual American Custom Gunmakers Guild show
in Reno Nevada, which is held in conjunction with the Safari Club
International event.
Ralfs' latest acheivement came after he was approached in early
2009 by Heym , Germany to design the new prototype for the Heym
Express bolt action rifle . The finished rifle can be viewed on
this website under Newly Finished Projects . The new Heym "Martini
"rifle is slated for production 2010 .
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As a young boy Jan spent countless hours tinkering on any air gun or.22 he could lay his hands on. He became an active member of several shooting clubs for many years in Holland. Sharing a similar trade background as Ralf Martini, Jan trained as a metal-machinist (both on conventional and CNC0 and additionally received training as a Toolmaker/Welder. 