shooting the ballard 46 rimfire

[hp gregory]

john the purpose of my note was to maybe find a way to get the good out of the single shots without doing harm. like so many of the current guns we shoot they had to crawl a little before they took off running. if you think back way before my time at the way some of the carbines were shot its amazing how far things have come. its good to pool our knowlege for the good of the sport. just look at the evil smoothbore (the devils gun) and how far that has come in such a short time. i realy love the threads that realy get into the finer points of geting a gun to shoot. i think it makes things that much more fun. im looking forward to hearing your wealth of info on the ballard.

hp

[John Holland]

Shooting the Ballard Rifle Using the Original.46 Ballard Chamber

Hereare my thoughts on re-chambering a .46 Ballard Rifle to .45 LC, and why I feel itis not necessary along with how I shoot it myself.

1 – The original Ballard Rifle in .46 caliber has a borewhich is a gain twist and is rather unforgiving in what it will digest foraccurate shooting. The best bullet in my opinion is from a Lyman mould #454485.This is an old projectile originally designed for the early .45 Long Colt witha rebate at the base for a gas check. The gas check provision is veryimportant, which I'll explain shortly. In casting I have used pure lead andslightly harder than dead soft with virtually no variation in group size. Thisbullet comes out of my mould at .456”/.457” in diameter, weighs 254 gr. in softlead and 256 gr. in hard lead, and is 0.700” in overall length. I fire thebullet unsized, and lubed by nose dipping in GPS lube which I get from Mike& Brenda Rouch. I wipe the bore with a patch and Ballistol between events.

2 - For a .46 Ballard cartridge I use a .44-40 cartridgecase. It will fire form to the chamber easily, as it is very close to beginwith.

3 - Powder charge. I have found that 24 to 26 grains of 2FFGGoex works very well. I would start with 24 gr. and work up to 26 gr. to seewhere your tightest group is. I also experimented with the same charges of 3FFGGoex and found the groups to open up a bit more than I cared for. Try both tosee how they work in your rifle. The rifle will decide for you! The reason Iadvocate a lighter bullet (it is about 240-250 gr.) and a lighter powder chargeis because the frames on Ballards are cast and very prone to cracking underpressure. That is why one team has cracked more than one frame on their Ballards.They are using a heavy bullet and a heavy charge of Swiss. One of those teammembers and I had quite a discussion about this a while back. He says you haveto have a heavy bullet and push it fast to get it to be stable at 100 yards.Not so, because at one of the recent Single Shot Team Matches I broke all 5 ofthe 100 yard tiles myself in 6 shots, and I called the one that missed....Idrifted off at 3:00 just as the round went off. One of our competitors on yetanother team was experimenting with heavy bullets, so I warned him aboutcracking the receiver. It wasn't a week later that he wrote back and told me hehad cracked the receiver on his Ballard. The cracks always appear in the squarecorner of the clearance cut in the frame at the back end of the breech block. Ibelieve the reason for this is the heavy recoil causes the block to move backwardsand hit the back edge of the frame, which in turn causes a crack to form in thesquare corners. I have seen cracks 3/4 of an inch long running down both sidesof the frame because of this.

4 - Loading: Once the case is fire formed all you have to dois neck size the case for about 1/10th of an inch in depth, using a .44-40 necksizer. This sizes the ID of the case mouth to .427", which is exactly thediameter of the rebate at the base of the Lyman #454485 bullet. I drop thepowder charge into the case, top it off with about 10-12 gr. of white corn mealso that it is just about level with the case mouth. Cream of Wheat will workjust fine, too. Don't ask me why I use white corn meal, it’s just something Istarted with when I began shooting black powder cartridge matches at the age of16. Most likely it was what Mom had in the cupboard! I then hand seat thebullet into the case mouth, which just slightly compresses the load. It isgenerally a tight fit in the case because the rebate and case mouth are thesame diameter at .427”. I then then give it a light tap on the top flat of thebullet nose with a light plastic mallet to seat it tight. The finishedcartridge is long, and completely fills the chamber. The bullet touches thechamber mouth right at the rifling. That way there is no “jump” to the rifling.If I have a live round in the chamber at the end of an event I have to fire it,because if I try to extract the cartridge it will leave the bullet in thechamber.

I hope this will help you see another avenue to shooting anoriginal Ballard Rifle rather than re-chambering a collectible original arm. Ialso agree with Jack Conway’s approach to restoring a Ballard that has been “gunsmithedto death”, you aren’t doing anything other than making it useable once more.

So, that’s what I do, and if nothing else it will give yousomething to chew on!

John Holland

[Joe Plakis, 9575V]

I would think the least destructive would be to have Bobby Hoyt or another barrel maker just make you a new barrel.

[hp gregory]

thanks john for taking time to post your info. as always it helps greatly to keep us on the straight and narrow. its always better to get information from those who have been there and done that. it would also be good to hear from people who shoot other single shots. i think it would stir up more interest. the 17th will soon have a second single shot team and 2 more repeater teams. this should help stop the shrinkage at the nationals.

hp

[John Holland]

hp,

Thank you for the kind words but it is the accomplished shooters like yourself, who share freely of their knowledge, who help the rest of us enjoy the sport!

John

[Bruce Cobb 1723V]

If you go to a hoyt barrel try the round ball. In the Skirmish Line, one of the last ones has a dsitinguished shooter using this. If you can find a Merrimac or Brown, you can use the Brevort converter and not destroy the action at all. Good luck.

[Steve Blancard]

Reviving a really old thread.

I appreciate the info provided here and just thought I'd share what I've been doing. As described earlier in this thread, I soldered a brass plug in the primer pocket of .44 mag brass. Then drilled an offset primer pocket to take .22 starter blanks as the rimfire primer. I've not yet located a 454485 mold, but I may order a custom mold from Accurate Molds. Just as a trial, I cut down a 400gr .45-70 bullet at both ends, then cut a heel on it. Its still a but heavy at 315 gr. I'm also going the try the Lee 456-220-1R mold. It is light at around 220gr., but that's ok - no need to stress the old Ballard. All I need to do is cut a heel on them.

What loads are you guys using? any advice on other bullets?

Thanks,
Steve

[Bruce Cobb 1723V]

Words of wisdom: Use the very lightest weight bullet that works. From round balls to conical, tapered base, original style CW revolver bullets.

[efritz]

To start, heed the words of wisdom. Light loads light bullets.

I have had what I?ll call 50% success. Bullet shot very well at 50y. Key hold at 100y. Shooting an RCBS 45-300 gas check bullet (minus the copper gas check). Sized 458 with SPG. 26 gns 1 1/2 Swiss. Then dipped in my concocted lube. All loads in 44 mag case. Produced a 1 1/2? 10 shot group benched. Note no filler required. 26 gns 1 1/2 Swiss fills er up. The slow burning 1 1/2 helps to cancel out the 300 gn bullet and 26 gns powder. Someone suggested that it wasn?t traveling fast enough at 100y to stabilize. I
have also had success using a 457 RB in my 45LC. But 100y on a Windy Fort Shenendoah day was frightening. Otherwise shot well.

note in pic that I subtracted the one wide shot to get the 1 1/2? group.

[Steve Blancard]

I made the above rounds while waiting for the sporting rifle to arrive. I made these based on the seller saying it was a .46. That was a mistake. It arrived the other day. Turns out it's a .44. Those cases will work, but shortened .44-40 brass is a better fit to the chamber. I already had a 218gr heel bullet mold that will work nicely. So yesterday I converted five .44-40 cases to rimfire. Tonight I loaded up all ten cases. Those made from .44mag hold 25gr of Old E 2F, the 44-40 based cases hold 27gr. I hope to get to the range in the next couple days to test them.