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Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard (Read 5757 times)

Spud Oldtimer Offline Posts: 505 Location: Australia Oz Joined: Feb 24^th, 2005	Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Nov 5^th, 2011 at 1:47am	Print Post
	Hello all, I'm currently getting a Ball & Williams Ballard sporter (.44L RF, 26" barrel, factory sling swivels) back to firing condition (with some help from MerwinBray - thanks). It's in great shape with a near perfect bore and a tight action. It would appear that some of these rifles did make it out to Oz (probably with American miners chasing gold). I've come across a few here in .38 & .44 RF. The only thing missing from this one is a complete rear sight (the long range leaf was broken off). What are the chances of finding a replacement? Any suggestions on sources to try? My fall back position is to use part of a modern repro "L"sight for the .44 Henry that is close and solder the LR leaf onto the old sight. Not that you'd ever use the 250 yd notch...that would be a mighty optimistic shot for the .44 RF. I really like these early Ballards... here are a couple of phots. Spud


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Spud Oldtimer Offline Posts: 505 Location: Australia Oz Joined: Feb 24^th, 2005	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #1 - Nov 5^th, 2011 at 1:49am	Print Post
	And another


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Spud Oldtimer Offline Posts: 505 Location: Australia Oz Joined: Feb 24^th, 2005	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #2 - Nov 5^th, 2011 at 1:53am	Print Post
	Original sight on the right. Repro Win on left.


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MerwinBray Oldtimer Offline Aw Gees Posts: 938 Location: Kansas City, KS Joined: Apr 17^th, 2004	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #3 - Nov 5^th, 2011 at 9:41am	Print Post
	Spud, You had me excited when I saw your comment of some making it to Oz. Kansas if often referred to as Oz because of the movie, Wizard of Oz and I am in KS now! for a second I thought we could get together and shoot the old ballards together! oops! I will try to help find a similar sight. It seems I have seen the exact sight listed in other catalogs of the era. But let me look for a couple of days for a source of a close replacement. Merwin

	Great Plains Precision Rifle Club
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MerwinBray Oldtimer Offline Aw Gees Posts: 938 Location: Kansas City, KS Joined: Apr 17^th, 2004	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #4 - Nov 5^th, 2011 at 9:46am	Print Post
	In the mean time you may try contacting S & S firearms in Ne York. us number is: 718-497-1100. website is: (You need to *Login* or *Register* to view media files and links) not all of their parts are listed on the website and I do not know if they have an email link on the page but bet that they do. BINGO! Part number BD6. complete replacement for civil war ballards, 70.00 us. that is from the 2011 catalog. hope this helps! it is your sight! merwin

	Great Plains Precision Rifle Club
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Spud Oldtimer Offline Posts: 505 Location: Australia Oz Joined: Feb 24^th, 2005	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #5 - Nov 5^th, 2011 at 8:33pm	Print Post
	Merwin, thanks very much for that. I'll check out that Ballard sight at S & S, looks like it might be what I'm after! Even though its more related to reloading, some might be interested in the bullet I'm using with this .44 Long RF Ballard. The original round employed a heeled RN 220 gr design so I went looking for something similar to use with the .44 RF turned cases from Dixie. A local mold maker (CBE) made something very close, a heeled bullet for the .442 Webley revolver. I had him make me up a mold that threw bullets with two slightly different heel dia. (.408" for new unfired cases & .416" for the fireformed brass). A few licks with some emery paper & these are a snug slip fit in their repective cases. The bullets cast 40-1 measured .442" and weighed 225 gr. A quick run through a push-thru .440" sizer die and they were right to go. The resulting rounds fit the old Ballard's chamber nicely. Still working on the load but I'll get there. Spud


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marlinguy Frequent Elocutionist Offline Ballards may be weaker, but they sure are neater! Posts: 16302 Location: Oregon Joined: Feb 2^nd, 2009	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #6 - Nov 6^th, 2011 at 11:05am	Print Post
	I take it you've converted the old Ballard to CF to make it more shootable? If memory serves me, the B&W used a ladder type upright on the portion that's missing. I haven't had one in my hands for awhile, so I'll see if I can find a closeup in Dutcher's fine book.

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frnkeore Frequent Elocutionist Online Posts: 7324 Location: Central Point, OR 97502 Joined: Jun 16^th, 2010	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #7 - Nov 6^th, 2011 at 3:53pm	Print Post
	I think this is the sight. It's on my early JM Marlin barrel. The rifle has the B&W hammer and lever and is serial #490. The sight is adjustable for long range and slides with a finger nail notch. Frank

	ASSRA Member #696, ISSA Member #339
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Spud Oldtimer Offline Posts: 505 Location: Australia Oz Joined: Feb 24^th, 2005	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #8 - Nov 6^th, 2011 at 4:49pm	Print Post
	Marlin, no I haven't converted the Ballard to CF. It has the dual ignition RF/percussion breech block and I certainly wasn't going to remodel that little piece of firearms history! I use the turned brass cases that employ a .22 (CB cap or short blank) offset in the rim as the primer. You just have to align the cartridge with the hammer each time its loaded, slow but it works. As long as sensible low pressure BP loads are used the setup works fine with no sign of gas leakage. Luckily my rifle has a very tight action and this probably helps. Frank...thanks for those photos, that's definitely the sight that I'm after. One other question...has anybody ever used the percussion option on these Ballards? The theory was that once your supply of RF ammo was used up, you simply knocked a hole in the base (centre) of an empty case, reloaded it with powder & ball, capped the nipple & BANG. Reminds me of firing a percussion Maynard. Spud


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MerwinBray Oldtimer Offline Aw Gees Posts: 938 Location: Kansas City, KS Joined: Apr 17^th, 2004	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #9 - Nov 7^th, 2011 at 8:43am	Print Post
	Yeh, i tried that one time. One of the dumbest things i think i ever did as far as shooting an old gun. Not because of fault of design or anything, but because someone had told me they did it with one of the .44 cases just witn no primer in it. I dont recall what case, .44 special maybe?? Anyway, that primer hole is way to big for such antics and i got a face full of gas!! Wont do that again! If u try it, make sure you have a small hole in the case, similar to the maynard you speak of and which i have and have shot thousands of rounds with no gas in my face! And be sure the case fits nice to help prevent any gas escpaing that way, or at least cut down on it! But i am sure you know these things already!

	Great Plains Precision Rifle Club
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BP Frequent Elocutionist Offline Posts: 8039 Location: Westside Joined: Aug 27^th, 2006	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #10 - Nov 7^th, 2011 at 4:57pm	Print Post
	Not trying to take this off topic, but does anyone happen to know the drill size of the flash hole in Maynard cases used with nipple-style percussion caps?

	There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading, the few who learn by observation, and the rest who have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves. Proud Noodlehead
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Green_Frog Frequent Elocutionist Offline "It ain't easy being green" ASSRA Life #281 Posts: 4068 Location: Lynchburg, VA Joined: Apr 18^th, 2004	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #11 - Nov 7^th, 2011 at 9:53pm	Print Post
	BP wrote on Nov 7^th, 2011 at 4:57pm: Not trying to take this off topic, but does anyone happen to know the drill size of the flash hole in Maynard cases used with nipple-style percussion caps? I'm not at home right now, but I'll try to measure it and post for you. I will tell you the holes in the back of my Maynard cases are almost exactly the size of a nipple pick... they just barely will enter the case. Froggie


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marlinguy Frequent Elocutionist Offline Ballards may be weaker, but they sure are neater! Posts: 16302 Location: Oregon Joined: Feb 2^nd, 2009	Re: Rear sight for Ball & Williams Ballard Reply #12 - Nov 8^th, 2011 at 11:29am	Print Post
	Yeah, I tried the percussion thing on my old B&W Ballard using an old .44RF case with a hole in the bottom. It was a bit startling, even with a small hole punched in the case. I also used the adaptor cases I got from Dixie, and found removing the fired blanks to be frustrating. They expand so much that it was really harrd to punch out the emties. I finally gave up and stopped trying to shoot it.

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