Working backwards

[Rockindaddy]

It all started in January at a local gun show where I stumbled on an old pair of Marlin Ballard rifles. One was a 22LR Schutzen and the other was a No. 9 Union Hill gun that appeared to be a 32 cal gun. The case colors were still strong, and the bluing on the barrel was nice. The bore was gorgeous! Made a deal and bought the 32 cal. A great fellow on this site, Marlinman93 looked a photo I posted of the rifle and told me it was a Marlin built Ballard with a forged receiver manufactured around 1886. He was so gracious to help me. Strictly a target gun these rifles were either 32-40wcf or 38-55wcf. I dropped a 32-40 cartridge in the chamber and closed the breech block.

Now the challenge begins. Where do I get ammo? Drove a soft 36 caliber round ball through the bore. It measured .330" Looked all through my moulds. Nothing even close to .330" Ordered a set of dies. Found an old Lee 308160R single cavity mould to use as a donor. Turned up a piece of 1/2" square stock 01 die steel to resemble a round nose 32 cal with an ojive conforming to the 30 cal. Lee shape but with grease bands slightly larger than my .330" groove depth. Milled several flutes on the cuttter and heat treated it. I chucked up the new cutter in my DeWalt drill and slowly turned it with a lot of cutting oil. The lead pot was heating up while I degreased the freshly cut mould. The new boolit mould drops em at .335" Ya Hoo! Had to make a new sizer for my Lyman 4500 luber-sizer and a new top punch that fit the new casting. The newly sized boolits came out at .333" Resizing a few old cases the whole length made the case mouths too small for my fat boolits. Just partially sized the brass. Made a new expander to flair the case mouth. Seated several boolits over 8 grs of Unique to try. Of course the new cartridges would not chamber. Thought about breech seating the new boolits and loading a charged case behind it. Nah! Wanted loaded ammo so that this rifle with the old telescope could be loaded easily. Woodchucks will be out in June when the hay is mowed.

Still not being able to shoot my 150 year old Ballard I had to be patient. Measured the neck of my newly crafted ammo and figured a .355" straight reamer would open the chamber neck. M & M Tools in Mentor, Ohio supplied a straight chucking reamer. Had to wait a few days for the new reamer to arrive. So with a small hand chuck I carefully opened the chamber neck till my cartridges chambered.

Next day was range day to try out my 19th century target rifle. The old brass telescope is about 6X. I bore sighted the old rifle at 50yards. The first loads were the 8grs of Unique with my 172 gr homemade boolit. They were on the paper. My next try was 17 grs of 5744. Wow! All three were touching. Success! Still plan on working the sizer die over so it is easier on the brass. Can't wait to to bang a few varmints this summer with my 19th century target rifle with home made ammo.

[M-Tecs]

Very nice. Thanks for posting.

[35 Rem]

Must be very satisfying to make your own mold and get such an old rifle shooting like that! I love this kind of stuff.

I don't quite understand how you go from that mandrel that you turned on the lathe to mimic your bullet, to creating a mold cavity. I mean you can't just plunge that down between two blocks of aluminum? How does that work? Do you bore a hole between the two mold blocks just a bit smaller than the final bullet diameter 1st? Then I still don't see how you secure the two mold blocks to do the final machining using the piece you made on the lathe.

[M-Tecs]

Must be very satisfying to make your own mold and get such an old rifle shooting like that! I love this kind of stuff.

I don't quite understand how you go from that mandrel that you turned on the lathe to mimic your bullet, to creating a mold cavity. I mean you can't just plunge that down between two blocks of aluminum? How does that work? Do you bore a hole between the two mold blocks just a bit smaller than the final bullet diameter 1st? Then I still don't see how you secure the two mold blocks to do the final machining using the piece you made on the lathe.

Per the OP,

Found an old Lee 308160R single cavity mould to use as a donor. Turned up a piece of 1/2" square stock 01 die steel to resemble a round nose 32 cal with an ojive conforming to the 30 cal. Lee shape but with grease bands slightly larger than my .330" groove depth. Milled several flutes on the cuttter and heat treated it. I chucked up the new cutter in my DeWalt drill and slowly turned it with a lot of cutting oil.

On a side note, I spoke with Wayne Gibbs about how H&G did their cherries. All were turned on a lathe, the secondary clearance angles were cut on a mill followed by heat treat than all primary cutting clearances were hand stoned. Most of the cavity was machine cut but the last couple of thou was removed by hand with the same cherry.

[Shawlerbrook]

Great story, great gun and yes, Vall( Marlinman) is truly an encyclopedia of knowledge, especially in this arena.

[Rockindaddy]

You oil up the finished cutter and gently spin the cutter while slowly closing the mould handles. Aluminum mould blocks are easy. Cast iron takes a little more finesse.

Here are a couple of photos of a mould cutter I made to open up a Lyman 375248 2-cavity. My ole' 1893 Markin 38-55 has a groove dia. of .380 To make it shoot cast boolits well I needed a .382" boolit to drop out of the mould instead of a .375" dia casting. I only cut the lower mould bands to .382" So only had to cut .007" out of the cavities. Bore diameter cast boolits do not work! They don't spin going downrange and go through the target sideways making keyholes. Jacketed boolits are a bit different. The harder copper gliding metal jacket needs to contact just a small bit of the rifling to spin and stabilize to fly correctly. Jacketed boolits do not have to be .001"~.002" over groove diameter to stabilize.

[marlinman93]

Well I wouldn't have reamed the chamber myself, and would have gone with making a breech seating tool to shoot it as a breech seater. Most likely the original rifling was recut specifically to make it a .33-40 to breech seat it. But glad you got it worked out and it does what you want now.
You can easily make .32-40 brass by running .32 Win. Spl. brass into your sizing die. It will end up slightly shorter than the chamber, but seat your bullets out a tiny bit and it will shoot well.
As for over working brass, just don't full length size it once it's fire formed to your chamber. It's a single shot so you never need to size the cases again after the first shot. Just slightly bell the necks to let the bullet seat, and then set the seater die to just take the bell down and barely crimp enough to hold the bullet. Your cases will last forever, and you'll save a lot of time reloading. I use a Lyman M die with a larger expander set just enough to kiss the case mouth and give it a light belling before seating bullets.

[Rockindaddy]

Maybe the US government should have issued breech seating tools to the army recruits in 1874 when the newly adopted 45-70 cartridge was adopted along with the 1873 Trapdoor Springfield rifle was issued. The groove diameter was .461~.462 on these guns. Actually a 46-70 Govt cartridge. I had to size my cast boolits to .461 to get my old cadet 1873 Trapdoor rifle to shoot accurately! Breech seating does work on these old rifles. I made a sizer for my old Lyman Ideal 45 luber-sizer. Still use it.

[BobT]

What a nice old rifle and a great story, thanks for sharing!

[Rockindaddy]

Still working backwards! When I initally found the Ballard No. 9 Union Hill target rifle in January for a reasonable $1800 did not figure I would have so much time in makin it shoot! No caliber markings on the barrel it looked like a 32. The breech block was center fire. So my assumption was that I had a 32-40wcf gun. The bore looked like it was just rifled last week. Dragging it home the first thing I did was to slug the bore. .330" Wow! Now its a 33-40wcf ! Well I am not a big fan of breech seating oversize boolits. The chamber neck was too small to accomodate a .334" seated boolit. Reaming the neck with a straight chucking reamer allowed me to chamber a .002" over groove diameter boolit. Now to my surprise this ole dog shoots raggety 5 hole groups at 50 yards. Great difficulty in sizing my 30-30 wcf cases. They were too small for my fat boolits! Lee dies are made out of a free machining alloy and case carburized when finished. Had to order a .348" reamer and wait for it to arrive from M&M Tool in Mentor, OH. Another week! I annealed my Lee 32-40wcf sizer die and chucked it up in a collet. I turned it slow with plenty of cutting oil. Made up a wood dowel flapper stick and spun polished the ID of the die. Into the press the reworked die went and ran several 30-30wcf once fired cases into my oversize die. Wow! They came out beautiful. New primer, a flair on the mouth, powder charge and a .334" cast boolit was seated! They looked like 19th century factory loads for the 33-40 Marlin Ballard. The new loads slide into the chamber with ease. Lots of work for a little bit of fun! Just have to recase harden my Lee sizer die that I restamped: 33-40. Here are a few photos!

[Milky Duck]

great stuff..inspirational in fact

[Griff]

For my new-to-me Miroku 1885 in .32-40 I had some 50 or cases gifted from a friend and slowly acquired some used cases over the internet. To build of a reserve supply over the typical 2-300 loaded rounds I keep, I bought some Starline .38-55 in the longer 2.125" length. They sized very easily in my RCBS .32-40 die set. I have correct length brass so I can crimp in the crimp groove. I message Starline every so often to make a run of correct headstamped brass for the .32-40... but their minimum buy is a bit over my budget constraints! I've been shooting a load of 15 grains of 5744 with a 170 grain bullet cast from wheel weights from a Accurate mold and also get cloverleafs at 50 yards and lightly less than 1MOA at 100. I have a newly made 6X 30" scope on it. It'd be nice to have a machine shop at my fingertips and skills to go with it. Great score on the rifle and congrats on getting it to accept your handbuilt ammo!

[Rockindaddy]

Nice to hear from another 32-40 wcf loader and shooter. Griff: you will have a never ending supply of 32-40 brass if you form 30-30wcf into 32-40wcf. I lube the inside of the 30-30 case with a Q-Tip dipped in #30 weight oil. The cases expand easily. I even tried empty 32 Win Special cases. But they are a lot harder to find. The 172gr boolit that drops out of my repurposed Lee 30 cal mould works great with 17 grs of 5744. Have yet to chronograph the load. Was thinking to make up some soft pure lead boolits with about 5% tin to use on Bambi this November! 32-40 wcf is not a bone crusher like 45-70 but a well placed round should put venison in the freezer. Hey put up a photo of that scoped 1885 Winchester.

[marlinman93]

Nice to hear from another 32-40 wcf loader and shooter. Griff: you will have a never ending supply of 32-40 brass if you form 30-30wcf into 32-40wcf. I lube the inside of the 30-30 case with a Q-Tip dipped in #30 weight oil. The cases expand easily. I even tried empty 32 Win Special cases. But they are a lot harder to find. The 172gr boolit that drops out of my repurposed Lee 30 cal mould works great with 17 grs of 5744. Have yet to chronograph the load. Was thinking to make up some soft pure lead boolits with about 5% tin to use on Bambi this November! 32-40 wcf is not a bone crusher like 45-70 but a well placed round should put venison in the freezer. Hey put up a photo of that scoped 1885 Winchester.

Just a heads up on ".32-40 wcf". There's no such cartridge. The .32-40 was originally called ".32-40 Ballard & Marlin" as it first was offered in the Ballard rifles, and shortly after in the Marlin Model 1881. There's a .32-20 WCF, but not a .32-40 WCF.

[dverna]

What a wealth of knowledge and resourcefulness on this forum.

[Griff]

Hey put up a photo of that scoped 1885 Winchester.

[Rockindaddy]

Nice rig Griff! That looks like one of the new Malcom scopes! Boy I stand corrected by Marlinman! 32-40 is Marlin&Ballard not 32-40wcf. The ole fart learns something everyday! But I am still makin 32-40 M&B out of 30-30Win. Save your 38-55 cases. They are too valuable. That High-wall should be a great long range gun. Hey show us a few of your targets!!! I'll send you some of my 172gr boolits to try.

[Griff]

Adjusting scope for POI


50 yard group


100 yard adjustments


Gonna try for some range time next week.

[Rockindaddy]

Griff: Looks like you got er shootin !!! Just love it when the holes touch!