Gun Show Gem

[Rockindaddy]

Did not make it to our local SW PA gun show on Saturday. Went and took my trusty ole 54 cal flintlock rifle for a woods walk. Cold, snowy, and the wind was howling. Last day of flintlock season. Bambi stayed hunkered down. Today was a good gun show day. Managed to buy a nice Marlin-Ballard rifle for $1800. Looked up the serial number which listed it being manufactured in 1889. Go home with my prize and slugged the bore. Came out at .330" No caliber markings but looked like a 32-40 Win. Haven't made a chamber cast yet. Has an absolutely stunning bore! Be a great cast boolit shooter. Look out woodchucks! Mom's bean patch will be deprived of the woodchucks!!! But now another caliber to load. Gotta find a mould that casts a .334" dia boolit and a sizer for .332". 32-40 brass is tough too. Excited to make this piece shoot. Must have had a nice tang sight on it. The base is still attached to the tang. I asked the seller if there might be a junk box with a ladder sight sitting in it. He said he would look! Its obvious the tang sight was removed when the target dovetail bases were installed on the rear of the barrel. The scope seems to be around 6X. No markings! The gun is no long range 400 yard varmint buster but could maybe smoke a critter out to 150 yards?

[Bazoo]

Awesome find, congratulations. Pretty neat old gun, in excellent shape, thanks for sharing.

[Gewehr-Guy]

I always wanted a nice Ballard in 38-55, set up like yours, but they always seemed too high. Oh well, I finally found a junker a few years ago, a .32RF someone made into a .410, they bored it out with a 7/16 bit, and crudely turned the front half of the barrel round. Some day I will make a .22 out of it.

[BobT]

Congrats on a great find! I have always wanted to find a decent old Ballard that I could afford.

[marlinman93]

Good looking Ballard. Have you determined if it's a cast frame or a forged frame? That will need to be figured out before you begin building ammo for it as a cast frame will need to be very mild loads in a .32-40.
How did you look up a serial number date? There are no records for Ballard rifles, and regular Marlin serial numbers wont work to determine date. If you post the serial number with last couple numbers x'd out, and post the exact rollstamp on the left side of the receiver I can get pretty close estimate of mfg. date for you.

Tony Maddox at The Original Sight Co. in Wy. has exact copies of the tang sights, and can sell you a staff to fit that base.

[old turtle]

Just a guess but that could be a 33-40 round. It was popular in target rifles. A favorite of Harry Pope in his schuetzen rifles.

[Shawlerbrook]

Very nice. We are lucky to have Vall(marlinman93) here as he is an encyclopedia on old single shot rifles.

[marlinman93]

Couple options on the .334" bullets. I've done both and have a Hepburn Match B that's closer to .33 than the .32-40 it's chambered in. I had a nice Saeco mold that measured .323" and 190 gr. I opened up the base band to my groove diameter, and that works extremely well. Seals the bore and they don't really need all the forward bands to also be groove diameter.
On another oversized barrel I just had Tom at Accurate make me up one he had in his catalog, and had the base band cut oversized to make it also fit my bore. Works great also.

[Bazoo]

Well, I'm learning stuff, thanks all for sharing.

[45workhorse]

One day, hopefully I can join the club.

[Rockindaddy]

Hey Marlinman93: I found an old Lee 309 mould. Will try to make my own cutter out of a piece of O1 die steel and heat treat it so I can open up this mould to conform to my barrel dimensions. Will try to make the last band .334 and the forward bands the bore riders. Have a pile of 375 Winchester brass. They might work for 33-40 brass! Will take a photo of the markings and serial no. Appreciate your advice.

[country gent]

If you want to follow marlinmans advice on opening up just the bottom band, Then set up is going to be the big thing. The set up getting the moulds square and centered will take longer than the machining. You can bore the bottom band with a HSS boreng bar in a boring head. If your lathe will swing the handles set it up in a 4 jaw and and boring bar for cutting oring grooves will do it. If you want a band or so more then a narrow cutter and you can open them up.

I would leave them a .001 small and lap to final size to get truly round and the best finish.

[marlinman93]

Yes, setup will take many times as long as making the cut to open up base bands. Since my molds have removeable handles those aren't a concern. But if they had fixed handles I'd remove them to gain more clearance if your lathe doesn't allow this.
I've also opened up molds using valve lapping compound applied to a bullet and spinning the bullet to open up the base band. But this only works for very small increases in size.

[Rockindaddy]

Marlinman93: Per your advise on checking on a cast frame Ballard, I have taken a photo of my Marlin Ballard and serial no. Perhaps you might look at the photos and shed a little info on this piece. Thanks !! Hope to work up some ammo for the ole target rifle. Have a pile of 375 Winchester brass. The difference in case length is around .100" Might be able to get them to work.

[marlinman93]

Your Ballard is a #9 Union Hill model with a forged frame. They also made a #8 Union Hill and those had double set triggers. So yours being a forged frame is plenty strong for .38-55 cartridge. The .375 brass is OK, but if you can eventually find the longer .38-55 brass I'd sure want to use it instead.
The early Ballard rifles made by Marlin have the JM Marlin rollstamp from 1875-1881. Then when the company incorporated the stamp changed to the Marlin Firearms Co. from 1882-1890. Your serial number and the later stamp should put yours a little earlier than 1889. I'd estimate with the highest number being almost 37,000 that yours is closer to 1886 range.
You did really well, as the Union Hill models go quite a bit more than you paid. Does that scope have any markings on it? I'd like to see a closeup of the scope also if you could. It might be something neat too?

[Rockindaddy]

MM93: You made my day! A No. 9 Union Hill Wish it was 38-55 I am all set up as I have an 1893 Marlin with a bright bore that I shoot cast boolits thru. This Ballard is a 33-40. .330 groove. Figuring to squeeze 375 Winchester brass down. Or I have plenty of 32 Win Special that would work too and have 38-55 brass. Have an old Lee mould that I plan to make a cutter and open up to .332 Have several lathe's with good 4-jaw chucks that would allow me to open up the mould. The brass scope has no markings. Thanks so much for your info. I'm all excited to make this old dog hunt!

[pworley1]

Very nice!

[marlinman93]

Not sure why I keep calling it a .38-55? Maybe the mention of .375 brass got me mixed up again?
Since .32-40 brass is unobtainable you may still want to use .38-55 long brass if you can find it sometime. It would be nice to have full length brass.
It's tough to say if the chamber is still a standard .32-40, with a re-rifled bore to increase to .33" or if it's got one of the larger chambers also? I'd make up one test case and put about 3 grains of pistol powder in it, and fill the rest with Cream of Wheat and a wax plug over the end. Then fire it, and measure the test case to see how it compares to .32-40 dimensions.
Likely it's just a larger groove, and a standard chamber, and not a true .33-40 with larger chamber too.

[Rockindaddy]

When I convert the Swiss Vetterli 41 cal rim fire rifles to centerfire, I also ream the chambers to accept a .446" dia cast boolit. The original Swiss rifles shot a heeled cast lead boolit crimped into the case just like a 22 rim fire boolit. Made my own dies to form .348 Winchester brass into 41 Swiss. The rifles shoot like they have eyes!!! I would do the same to the 33-40 Ballard. Just have to fire a test cartridge to determine the neck dimensions so I will know what size reamer to grind up to open the neck. I will use your Cream O Wheat and wax trick to measure the chamber. Lots of putzzy work making these old rifles shoot accurately.

[marlinman93]

Some of those old guns were used as match rifles and never saw an assembled cartridge after groove diameters were increased. Instead they breech seated bullets and charged a case with powder and seated it behind the breech seated bullet. This method gave the gun it's optimum accuracy so shooters didn't care if a cartridge with bullet in the case fit the chamber or not as they never fired them this way.
A lot of these rifles with oversized chambers get sold cheaper because guys buy them and give up trying to get accuracy with undersized bullets when correct sized wont allow the cartridge to chamber.
I have a Hepburn Match B with .33" groove, but wont accept a fixed cartridge and chamber. I use a breech seating tool to shoot it, and the Saeco mold opened up to .33 to cast bullets for breech seating. Here's my Ballard breech seating tool Jerry Cleave built: