Reviving an old Ballard in .44 RF

[oldrodder]

Buck has been working on & off, on getting this old girl to shoot. Years back he acquired 6 cases from????? These were turned on a lathe and allowed the use of .22 RF blanks as primers. Blanks were inserted into the cases and held in place with a smear of Crazy Glue. We then filled the cases with 3Fg powder to 1/8" from the rim. We had to turn down the base of the 200 Gr. bullet to be able to start the bullet into the case. Final seating was accomplished in the vise! We took the rifle to Buck's back yard and loaded her up! 25 yds away was an old stump, so, Buck lined up on it and touched her off! The rifle fired with a LOUD BANG and a big puff of smoke and it all held together, We walked up to the stump and there it was: a .44 cal hole, dead nuts in the middle of the stump!!! On the down side, the blanks are not stout enough to withstand the pressure of firing a cartridge and split & spit back residue. We plan on using either CB caps with the bullet removed or Hilti shots with the powder removed to continue the experiment.
Stay tuned!

 

[NorthCoastBigBore]

Love it! Keep the updates coming. Ballards have class, great to see it back in action.

 

[tiriaq]

I have a Merrimack Arms Ballard sporting rifle (octagon barrel) in .46 Long RF.
Dual ignition, either rimfire or percussion cap.
A .44-40 case fits. I took a fired primer, removed the anvil, flattened the indent, and drilled a tiny hole. Made a notch in the rim for the rimfire striker on the hammer nose.
Drop in a .45 bullet, add the charged case, cap the nipple, and BOOM.
The percussion cap option was there if no new fangled cartridges could be had.

 

[Incurable Collectoer]

Nicely done oldrodder, I have two .44 Ballard rimfire rifles and I got reloadable rimfire cases from the Roberson Cartridge Co. They are the same concept as the ones in the photos above and use a .22 rimfire blanks as primers. I modified a set of .220 Swift dies and it works just fine. The bullet are heeled and of course each of my Ballards has a slightly different bore diameter. The difference was big enough that I had two different bullet moulds made.

The Ballard company actually sold a bullet mould and tools for cutting or punching a small hole in the spent rimfire case to be used with a percussion cap as a capping breechloader.