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Is there such a thing as a standard .32-40 Ballard (Read 1995 times)

marlinguy Frequent Elocutionist Offline Ballards may be weaker, but they sure are neater! Posts: 18095 Location: Oregon Joined: Feb 2^nd, 2009	Is there such a thing as a standard .32-40 Ballard Mar 12^th, 2017 at 2:21pm	Print Post
	I know the case exists and for years every gun I bought had a groove diameter around .321" Some slightly under, and some slightly over. But usually close to the .320"-.321" range. But in the last year I've ended up with 4 single shot rifles I picked up, and the bores are crazy sizes! Two of them Marlin Ballard barrels. One of them a Schoyen barrel. And another a Hepburn. Two of those have .325" grooves, one has a .326" groove, and the latest has a .327" groove! I understand the Schoyen, as it's a custom built barrel, but the others are all factory original barrels, and seem awfully large. Does anyone else own older .32-40 chambered guns with these large bores?

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Mick B Frequent Elocutionist Offline Posts: 1007 Location: 19 Ian Nicol St watson ACT aus Joined: Apr 11^th, 2013	Re: Is there such a thing as a standard .32-40 Ballard Reply #1 - Mar 12^th, 2017 at 7:28pm	Print Post
	Vall In the good ole days a lot of barrels were re rifled a few extra thou rather than being replaced. This also required a mould to be made to suit as well, still much cheaper than a new barrel and the installation costs though. I read somewhere that Pope did this work and is supposed to have stated that the barrels actually shot better because the structure of the barrel steel had been improved from constant shooting. Mike.


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marlinguy Frequent Elocutionist Offline Ballards may be weaker, but they sure are neater! Posts: 18095 Location: Oregon Joined: Feb 2^nd, 2009	Re: Is there such a thing as a standard .32-40 Ballard Reply #2 - Mar 12^th, 2017 at 11:01pm	Print Post
	Thanks Mike. It seems that a little over would work as a fixed cartridge. But get much more than a little and you're stuck only breech seating, as the bullets larger than about .323" wont chamber fixed. After over 40 years of playing with .32-40 rifles, I'd never owned one over .323" bore. Now to suddenly have everything be much larger seems odd. I know some got rebored, and the Schoyen may even have started life larger. Sure strange to me.

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SgtDog0311 Senior Forum Member Offline Posts: 391 Joined: Mar 19^th, 2014	Re: Is there such a thing as a standard .32-40 Ballard Reply #3 - Mar 13^th, 2017 at 11:43am	Print Post
	Vall, I went and looked at my notes and they show my 32-40 Marlin Ballard is .325 groove with a 1:17.5" twist. I recall doing a tight patch over and over before I wrote down the twist -- seemed odd to me but that was as close as I could get after several trips down the bore with a tight patch. What is the twist in your originals? I'm guessing 1:18 but still surprised at mine now that I revisit. Been a while since I worked with that one since I'm spending so much time on the 40 calibers.

	Best Regards, John
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marlinguy Frequent Elocutionist Offline Ballards may be weaker, but they sure are neater! Posts: 18095 Location: Oregon Joined: Feb 2^nd, 2009	Re: Is there such a thing as a standard .32-40 Ballard Reply #4 - Mar 13^th, 2017 at 12:30pm	Print Post
	SgtDog0311 wrote on Mar 13^th, 2017 at 11:43am: Vall, I went and looked at my notes and they show my 32-40 Marlin Ballard is .325 groove with a 1:17.5" twist. I recall doing a tight patch over and over before I wrote down the twist -- seemed odd to me but that was as close as I could get after several trips down the bore with a tight patch. What is the twist in your originals? I'm guessing 1:18 but still surprised at mine now that I revisit. Been a while since I worked with that one since I'm spending so much time on the 40 calibers. Almost all of my original Ballards in .32-40 have a 1:16" twist. My original Hepburn Match B also has a 1:16" twist. The oddball Ballard that Brian found for me in the gun shop in Aurora, Co. has an oddball original barrel twist of 1:15" But that gun defies so many "norms" that I don't count it. It is an original barrel, but I believe someone special ordered a different twist rate when it was newly purchased. My Schoyen surprised me with a 1:17" twist, as I would have expected a faster twist rate for the heavier bullets that gun usually used.

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Ciao998 Senior Forum Member Offline Posts: 263 Location: Kennewick, WA Joined: Oct 23^rd, 2013	Re: Is there such a thing as a standard .32-40 Ballard Reply #5 - Mar 13^th, 2017 at 6:47pm	Print Post
	My old hi wall has a .324 original Winchester barrel. Not a perfect bore, it's an early rifle that was shot a lot, but I had Jim Borton make me. 185g bullet mold and it shoots great. John


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