Well..in light of the recent Ballard failure at the Quigley I decided it was time to remove the 44 caliber barrel from my gun and do a serious inspection of my No. 2 rifle. As mentioned before, this gun was re-barrelled at some point long ago and chambered for what looked to be .444 Marlin when I got it from a gentleman in Sprigfield, Oregon.I have always been very careful not to get carried away, using only BP, but even so recent events got me to thinking it was seriously over-chambered and not a good idea.I've had a lot of fun shooting it for over 20 years with nary a peep of trouble, but once I looked into the cavity of the frame under the bbl threads a chill went down my spine. The casting core design of this frame has a bump on it, directly under the area that must be bored and threaded to fit a barrel.That bump literally guarantees a crack will eventually occur in this area. On my rifle, which is still correctly threaded at .950" x 18 tpi you can actually see daylight where the major diameter of the threads were cut right through this area.. There is a visible crack .500" long running through the 6 o'clock area of the barrel threads, which was probably there from day one, and obviously when the gun was re-barreled.Draw your own conclusions, but it is my opinion at this point that many of these cast frame guns left the factory like this, no machinist could fail to see the situation as it happened. This is a fine old action, in otherwise excellent shape with one of the nicest triggers I've had the pleasure to pull.I may well make up a 22lr barrel for it after I get over the initial fright, or I may not.I suppose it could be welded up, but have yet to find a welder willing to do work inside my other cast Ballard frame, no less this one.Mr. Nagel politely declined Please see the photos, if you have a cast frame ballard, you might want to take a look in there! Bluesman, feeling very blue.
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