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Here's a piece of history you don't see often
I saw the very nice vintage 44 Rimfire last year and told its owner I would love to make some brass for it and we could try shooting it.
And mentioned if he ever wanted to sell it I would be interested
Well HD contacted me recently and it is now mine.
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It's a Ballard's 1861 Patent
Made by Ball & Williams in 1865
Sporting rifle
30" barrel
Cambered in 44 Ballard Long Rimfire
How do you make the rimfire brass
Hey how about making a reloading tool to go with it. Pocket of boolits, 3 bits of brass, flask of powder and off ya go!
Here are some of the rimfires I now shoot
22 LR
25 RF reloadable and an original
44 Ballard long rimfire dummy
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The 44 Ballard long is the biggest of the 44 RF cases of that period
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Ball & Williams made 16000 Ballard's between 1863 and 1865
Most were military for the Civil War
This rifle is sporting and in the last 500 made of the
16,000
Haha - a .44rimfire semi-auto anyone? Gold...
Long or extra long? Ballard made rifles for the 44 long before he developed the 44 extra long in 1870. There's only 1/4 inch difference in case length. Either way that's a cracking piece
It has the 1894 patent dual ignition.
Rimfire and percussion
You can punch a small hole in the fired cartridge base.
Fill with BP and seat a bullet
Place a percussion cap on the nipple and fire
It was highly regarded at the time
This breech block is missing the nipple but the threads are still good
You can see the thread halves on each side of the breech block halves
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The Ballard breech block has all the hammer and trigger moving parts fixed in it which is why the triggers are so good
So I made a dummy case from a 7x57R case much modified
Turned a standard 210 grain .429 bullet into a heeled bullet by turning down the last band in the lathe to fit thumb tight in the case mouth
And tested it for case length and cartridge over all length
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The extractor is the little finger lever under the fore end
It is perfectly parallel to the bore and gave reliable extraction with the variably sized 44 RF brass of those times
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could you make a steel case that's rimfire? one shot brass screams $$$
lots of work there mate dressing up some of those munted screws - but you will do it
Hi Its great to see this ole gale get some love and attention Good luck to see the job through and hopefully the barrel will shoot well too Cheers
These cases are rimfire reloadable
Drill trough the primer pocket 5mm
Tap it M6x1
Screw in an M6 machine screw
Solder it in
Cut it off and mill the case base flush
Drill, ream and rebate to take a 6mm blank cap
Cut relief for the firing pin nose
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Test fire a few blanks to check ignition
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So I could cram 24 grains of BP under the 210 grain heeled bullet
And outside to fire the first shot about 4 hours after I started
In that time I've stripped and reassembled the entire rifle
Cast the chamber and muzzle to get meaningful data to make the case from
Made the one reloadable case
First shot from a rough rest at 25m and of course safety glasses so not a perfect sight picture
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Two more trips inside to deprime and reload the one case and this result
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I think that's as good as you could ever hope to do first up.
Once I've made 20 reloadable cases it will be off hunting asap
Just think of it as being as effective as a sub sonic 44 magnum
And way cooler
It's around 8 pounds so a joy to shoot and being a Ballard it has a superb trigger at 3 pounds
I look forward to seeing photos WHEN you have it set up for percussion too.thats almost an modern inline sort of arrangement years before it's time.
amazing. i thought it was like a 22 case but huge
Wait till you see a 56 Spencer rimfire then that's "huger"
There are some that look like rimfire but are not.
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That inside priming never really caught on an evolutionary dead end like pin fire
The 56 Spencer would be a fun case to make and shootQuote:
Originally Posted by Marty Henry
Shame its a repeater and against my religion
That should have been [B]1864[B] dual ignition patentQuote:
Originally Posted by akaroa1
220 grain bullets and 28 grains of BP in the originals so your on the money so to speak.
So very close to the peacemakers/henrys 44/28 then. I BELIEVE the colt dragoon was more powerful than the rifles of same time for a while,till they caught up.
The Henry case was a little shorter so would hold slightly less now
You just can't match those original load numbers
Typical of all sales hype
But my 24 grain load is very useful
And the mint bore and perfectly sized bullets from a 30" barrel will very giving me some decent speed
