bioLogic has released a free set of violin samples.

He writes:

Recorded with a Rode NT3 small diaphragm condenser about 6″ from the strings, fed to a Really Nice Preamp and into my M-Audio 2496.

Violin Ricochet features

• 16 Samples, 6.3MB extracted.
• 32bit, 44.1KHz.
• 4 Strings: G, D, A, E stretched to fit.
• 5 Alternate Strikes: for round robin playability.
• 1 Velocity Layer: ricochet style (bow held several inches high, and dropped).

The sampleset includes HALion 3, sfz and wav and can downloaded here.