A .50-70 Govt. Ballard!

[john.k]

I havent seen a bargain at a clearing sale since mobile phones became common.Even the laziest auctioneer now has values at his fingertips.The days of $5 sleepers are gone until the big depression hits.

[marlinman93]

Midway finally sent my dies, bullets and brass! So I have two different weight bullets to try and work up loads now. See which weight, and powder charge the Ballard prefers.

[OlDeuce]

Midway finally sent my dies, bullets and brass! So I have two different weight bullets to try and work up loads now. See which weight, and powder charge the Ballard prefers.

Your Ballards love it No matter what....... every time you take them out for a shoot!!! Tehehe Have you found in some cases lighter bullets become more accurate ! and the heavier ones are great for the windy days !!!!

Ol Deuce

[Bigslug]

Just make sure if you wear a PAST recoil shield when you shoot this thing, you refer to it as "your baseplate"

[Jedman]

You will enjoy shooting the 50-70. To me the cartridge looks like a GIANT 22 rimfire but has a considerable thump.

Jedman

[marlinman93]

My previous experience with Ballard rifles having the early Brown style deep crescent buttplate have taught me to always wear my Past recoil pad when shooting them!
I located a cheap mold today that drops a .512" bullet at 425 grs., so bought it also. It might end up being the best weight for this .50-70. So I'll wait to load until I cast some of the 425 gr. bullets also. I already have 365 gr., and 500 gr. Not sure if the heavy bullets work well that I'll want to shoot many?

[John in PA]

What a delightful find! Congrats on your .50-70 #4. Now you'll have to put up some target pics once you find a diet it "digests" well.

[marlinman93]

In my usual fashion, I forgot to order a shell holder! Well actually I just thought with about a hundred shell holders for various calibers I had one that would work. Well that was wrong, so had to order a shell holder too. But of course forgot to order two, so I could cut one base off to use in my Lee hand priming tool.
But I did muddle through with the one shell holder using my Rock Chucker press to load and prime the 40 cases I have. Hope to take it out in the near future and see how the 8 different charges, with 3 different bullet weights work out.
I ordered an inexpensive Lee two cavity 450 gr. mold also, so I'd have a 3rd choice for bullet weights.

[sharpsguy]

The Lyman 515141 is all you need to know.

[marlinman93]

The Lyman 515141 is all you need to know.

I've always been a huge Ideal and Lyman mold fan. That 515141 looks like the same design that Lee used on their 90255. They could be twins, except Lee is their typical aluminum mold, which is not up to the Lyman steel molds.

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/43...rain-flat-nose

But I wont be shooting this gun a huge amount (I think) so the Lee should be acceptable for my use. Thanks for the tip on the Lyman though!

[missionary5155]

Good morning
Nice rifle ! I do enjoy our Marlin / Ballards out for a walk. And a caliber 50 Gov to boot ! That will slew a corn cruncher ! Or horse or...
Mike in Peru

[Bigslug]

Round out yet?

Inquiring minds want to know!

[marlinman93]

Round out yet?

Inquiring minds want to know!

As a matter of fact I did just finally get a break in the cold, rainy weather last week and took the big .50 out to do some testing. I only fired it at 100 yds., and my best group was with the 425 gr. bullets cast from the cheapo Lee mold I bought, and 18.0 grs. of 2400.
The 5 shot groups were all in the 2" black bullseye on my targets, and smallest group size was 1.5" with the largest 5 shot group just inside the 2" bull. I am using the gallery style non vernier tang sight, so adjusting elevation took some fiddling, since the aperture needed to be loosened and carefully slid up-down. But once I found center it did the job well. I also want to swap the front German silver blade out to something more squared and easier to see if I start pushing the distance out farther.
Probably wont get out often this winter unless we get another warm, dry spell.

[Bigslug]

So. . .you've got a 2 MOA rifle that you haven't even fit a bullet for yet, using a light smokeless powder charge that's probably - what . . .only about 20% load density rattling around in that case?

I's happy fer ya!

[marlinman93]

"Haven't fit a bullet for"??? Not sure what you might mean by fitting a bullet? I slug my bores and try to buy bullet molds that cast the correct size for my various calibers. I only own a few custom molds, and a few more old Lyman molds I've opened up to make them custom sized. The rest of my 4 dozen molds are all factory Ideal, Lyman, RCBS, Saeco, etc. Never fit a bullet to a gun, but never had much trouble with factory molds sized to a gun's bore.

I've had good results with reduced loads using 2400 and Unique over the decades.

[Bigslug]

"Haven't fit a bullet for"??? Not sure what you might mean by fitting a bullet?

I get these strange calls from my dad from time to time, asking me to come over and help pound a chamber slug for something that was made in 18--. Sometimes the off-the-shelf mold drawing gives us the "EUREKA!" moment, but more often than not, Tom is increasing or decreasing diameters, adding or removing grooves, or moving ogives around. Such is life in the pre-SAMMI world. The Lee mold is working for you (HUZZAH!) - the universe usually doesn't like US that much.

[marlinman93]

I've heard of people "pounding a chamber slug" and it gives me the willies! I never liked the idea of pounding anything into my gun's chamber. I usually do a chamber cast with Cerrosafe to look at the bore and first part of the rifling. I did one on this gun, just because I wanted to confirm it was an unmessed with chamber. I did slug the bore to get the groove diameter, and make sure I cast the correct bullet size.
Most of the best Ideal/Lyman molds have been around for a decade or close to it. I've always felt any design that was still being offered today must have been pretty darn good. I wish they had kept offering some other great designs they dropped decades ago, but they determined molds like the old Doc Hudson for .38-55 and .32-40 to be specialty molds they didn't sell enough of. I have both, and they're one of my most prized possessions in molds!