Any info you might have is appreciated. Friend from Belgium has this and asked if I might know something about it. I'm turning to you guys.

He says it takes cartridges as opposed to black powder.

I'm including the photos he sent me. It appears to be 19th Century French.

Attached File
Attached File
Attached File
Attached File

Attached File
Attached File
Attached File
Attached File
Attached File

Attached File
Attached File

Some type of target rifle, perhaps?

I remember something about a Schutzen?  rifle at one point.  Standing offhand w/ the ball rest thing used to support it.

http://www.shootingusa.com/SIGHTING_IN_SHOWS/29-16_SCHUETZEN/29-16_schuetzen.html

Zimmer Sheutzen .

Hey OP, unless this was some sort of riddle, there's this thing thing called...................wait for it..............oh yeah taking a picture OF THE ENTIRE GUN

Its not my gun, I was just contacted by a friend in Belgium and he sent he these photos.

It appears to be a Martini action schuetzen rifle.  It could be in a black powder cartridge or a smokeless powder cartridge (black powder does not necessarily mean muzzleloader.)  It could also be rimfire.  Pictures of the whole rifle, better pictures of the markings, and a diameter of the bore could help in providing further information.

EDIT:  Just looked through the pictures again and noticed some things I had overlooked.  The buttplate makes me think it could be Swiss.  They were also known to build target rifles on commercial Martini actions.  The apparently French language stock inlay would also support this theory, but being that it is in Belgium, that could also explain the language.

EDIT 2:  It appears this is on the right track.  See this listing:  STAR-D.E. MONTABLE SWISS SCHUETZEN TARGET RIFLE

Looks like a step in the right direction!

the price in that listing is a bit optimistic,

Mystery target rifle with set trigger. A picture of the complete gun and  something for scale would help.

French Martini-Style Target rifle is all i can find....Looks about the same.

A couple interesting articles:

From 1929:
http://www.issa-schuetzen.org/pdfs/westergaard-defining.pdf

And 1952:
http://www.issa-schuetzen.org/pdfs/westergaard-mydays.pdf

Edit: to be clear, it's info on the Schuetzen style of shooting, not specifically that rifle. My guess would be a smaller smith made gun. Maybe the guy's shooting team name was "Les Carabiniers" and he was #2 on the team!