Yes Joe, it's a tremendous sacrifice, but I will man up and and do this for the betterment of my fellow man.  And think of all the happy go lucky citizens I'm saving from disfiguring injuries, or worse.   

   My goodness, Marlinguy, how embarassing to be short of funds just when one of these hand grenades comes up for sale.  My sock drawer is all puckered up leading to tears over this.

agreed

Hindsight is always good stuff. We are supposed to learn by our mistakes but first we have to survive. Better yet design procedures so mistakes don't happen. I've been handloading for 68 years; very early on I inculcated priming and then placing the cartridges upside down in a block. Handle one by one from then on. Never had a problem but that also means using some common sense about the appropriate powder and load. 

But then there is Mark Twain and his quote " why is common sense so uncommon". 
Good design and implementation of that design is paramount to keeping one's head functional and attached to body. 
It is a shame that the Ballards were not forged. Can't win them all. The early Winchesters were 1008 for steel; not exactly fancy stuff but also they were forged which adds about 15% to to the strength. My winder is 1522 alloy but still not heat treated. Every once in a while I'm tempted to have it cased about 15 thou and then quenched (oil). I could then push it some but I am much more likely to simply make an action in 8620 or 4140 which would come up to modern standards.

Shifting gears; for those shooters that have access to "Double Gun Journal" Sherman Bell wrote a whole series of articles about substituting modern powders for black. It can be done if one keeps his wits. I rather like the approach of the Accurate Powder reloading manual which has a section on loading smokeless to replace black. Load BP in the recommended manner then test for pressure. Adjust the smokeless loads so the pressure is less than or equal to the BP pressure. No magic there. As always one has to preclude double or triple charging.   
Reloading is best done when one is not fuzzy headed. 

Every new and experienced re-loader should hang that photo wherever they charges cases. Obviously that was a detonation.  If you don't have a fool proof system to prevent a double charge of smokeless you should stick with black.  One virtue of 4759 was a double charged the case it was easy to detect.  Very sorry for the lady and her family.

I have read but I also don't know if it's true that an under charged load can also cause a detonation and can become just as dangerous as an overloaded cartridge can. Unfortunately Ballard's have gotten a bad name when it comes to them being safe. I have seen several forged actions being loaded to what some would seem to be pretty hot with smokeless. Not only did they hold together but it was also what it took to get the ver best accuracy of those rifles. I have sat one bench over from someone shooting one in a match that I thought might be a little bit on the hot side but I never felt unsafe by sitting next one. Some folks tend to think they are a time bomb waiting to go off but it actually takes more than just a few grains or a few tenths to have them self destruct.

I have heard bad things about H110 and I have stayed away from using it. All though I did test both H110 and 296 neither one of them proved to be consistent enough for my own use. It's been quite sometime back now but if memory serves right all though some claim them both to be the same. The H110 was quite a bit more tempreture sensitive than some of the others proved out to be. It is funny in that you mentioned it being used in a Ballard. One of the folks I sat next to was also shooting it in his Ballard. I could clearly hear a difference in his shots when it started heating up for the day. He is also one of those who loaded it on the hotter side and a 32-40 probably pushing 1500 fps.

All I ever shot in my Ballard was BP, 4227 AND 4759.  All were well proven and tested for nearly a century before I started shooting mine. I figure if they weren't OK in  Pope-Ballard, Harry would have put a stop to it