Ballard Rifle from Cody has them:

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Dale53

Incidently, there is no difference between a high-wall and low-wall firing pin.

I strongly suggest that you do two things to your new Ballard wall firing pin.

First thoroughly anneal it, please see the thread on case-hardening for suggestions on annealing. Excessive hardness is one of the primary causes of broken firing pins & Ballard pins are known for their breakage.

Then, check the protrusion & retraction timing. The protrusion IMO should not exceed 0.040", a protrusion of as little as 0.030" has actually been shown to be slightly more accurate than, for instance, a protrusion of 0.060", and a protrusion of as little as 0.025" has been shown to be 100% reliable with proper headspace. Excessive f/p protrusion is another one of the primary causes of broken pins in falling block rifles.

The f/p retraction is a third very critical area for falling block rifles, since a late retraction is almost the same as having a too-long f/p nose. If not retracted on time, the f/p nose will hang in the primer indentation & bend or break just as if it was too long.

Ballard walls IME & IMO are known for having f/p problems, at least they've been problems in the past. I've repaired the pins in two BPCRS Ballard walls after the owners had broken several originals & replacements from Ballard because they were too hard & dimensioned wrongly. The bench-repaired replacements are still apparently going strong after a couple of years, and these two guys shoot a LOT of BPCRS, so I'm confident that the correction in these two areas (dimensions & hardness) did the trick.
Good luck with yours, Joe

My comments still apply even though I personally haven't encountered any broken Ballard RF pins, yet. My particular specific repair method for the CF pins won't work on the RF ones but the hardness & dimension issues still apply, and repair shouldn't become an issue if your smith pays attention in these areas.

Protrusion on a RF should be limited to a MAXIMUM of 0.040" and IMO 0.030"-0.035" is better. Nominal RF rim thickness is ~0.042" so any protrusion greater than 0.040" will almost certainly dent the chamber edge if the rifle is dry-fired.

Actually on the wall RFs this isn't specifically true since the f/p would strike the extractor instead of the barrel, but this merely means that the f/p nose would be damaged instead of the chamber edge. So make sure the RF protrusion doesn't exceed 0.035" and you'll be safe.

Some of you will say that a RF should never be dry-fired under any circumstances. My reply is that any quality RF will stand almost unlimited dry-firing if properly annealed & dimensioned. I've dry-fired my RFs literally hundreds of thousands of times with no problems & so IMO if dry-firing causes damage then the rifle is faulty; just as simple as that, period and end of discussion.
Sorry for the mini-rant but this is a sore subject with me, good luck, Joe

Would this firing pin protrusion issue also hold true for the Extractor

I recently had a low wall rebarreled and the original extractor broke after firing it about 20 times, I replaced the extractor and heat treated it and it broke after firing it 3 times.

Both broke right where the firing pin hits it, the third and hopefully last extrctor is on the way. What do I need to do to insure this one lasts awhile?

Gary

Smoke, now I can't find the thread either so I'll try to give you a rundown below.

Gary, obviously the annealing issue does apply to the extractor as well. Also you obviously have a too-long firing pin nose (too much protrusion), it should protrude no more than 0.040" at the MAXIMUM, IMO 0.030"-0.035" is much better. This amount of protrusion is plenty for good ignition but is too short to hit the chamber edge, or in the case of the walls, too short to hit the extractor.

But your extractor should not be so hard that it breaks if struck. This is waaaay too hard, actually no additional hardness is needed on this non-critical part and so you didn't need to have it heat treated. I would suggest that you limit your f/p protrusion & anneal your next extractor and firing pin.

To anneal, heat the part to a red heat & soak for a few moments, then allow to cool VERY slowly. You can heat with a propane or oxyacetylene torch, an oven, a forge or a stove. Just make sure that the heat is higher than the red heat of the part, and cool it slowly. If you heat to a red heat of 1200-1400F then the part will become fairly soft, soft enough so that it will deform before it tears or breaks. If you heat only to ~600-800F as with the self-cleaning cycle of the kitchen oven, then the part will sometimes retain enough hardness to cause problems. It probably won't crack or break but may remain somewhat hard to file or polish easily.

To prevent scale, coat the part with soap before heating red. To cool slowly, cover the part with either sand or ashes or some other insulator or leave it in the hot oven to cool overnight. I have also air-cooled parts somewhat faster by continuing to play the torch over the part while gradually withdrawing the flame farther and farther away over a period of several minutes. That's minutes, not moments, about 3-5 min is usually enough to do an adequate job. That's 3-5 full minutes before finally removing the torch flame, the part should still be at ~600-800F when the flame is finally removed.

You shouldn't have a problem with your new extractor if you'll limit your f/p protrusion to the proper dimension, but if it was my extractor then I'd be inclined to anneal it as well as the firing pin itself.
Good luck, Joe

Thanks Joe

That makes sense, all but the do not heat treat part, but I will take your advise and anneal it and try that for awhile (I will keep an eye out for axcessive wear however)

I will also take a critical look at the firing pin protrusion

Thanks again

Gary