MIEagle wrote on Mar 19
th, 2017 at 10:44am:
Thank you for the info. If it is a .44 Long, is it an accurate enough cartridge/bullet for 200 yd target shooting? Is a flat nosed bullet with a full case of 3F good as a 100-150 yd deer hunting round?
If I wanted to rebarrel it (saving the original for posterity) in, say, no more than a .40-65 Win, would it be appropriate to drill and tap the tang for a vernier tang sight for sihlouette shooting?
Thank you.
All Marlin Ballards are factory D&T for a tang sight with a 1.125" spacing. If yours isn't it's the first one I ever heard of. If yours isn't a Marlin, then it may not be D&T for a sight as earlier Ballards used a dovetailed sight base.
The #2 Ballard is a cast action (as are all pre-Marlin Ballards) and not suitable to rebarreling to any centerfire rifle cartridge. The .44-40 and .44 long were the most powerful cartridge the cast #2 was built on, and even those calibers were dropped in later production for the cast #2 frames. If your rifle was the forged receiver used in rifle calibers the .40-65 would be no problem at all.
200 yds. is not an issue with the .44 Long, but it will have a pretty good arc in the bullet's flight at that distance. I've shot mine accurately enough to hit 500 yd. dingers, and 300 yd. are very accurate. But it's certainly not going to be anyone's first choice, and more likely just a fun challenge to see how far it can be pushed.
A 200 gr. bullet in the .44 Long is plenty good to take deer sized game if the bore and the shooter are both up to the task. Biggest issue is knowing your gun, the bullet drop, and gauging distance to the target. I haven't used mine for deer hunting, as I have others in better rifle calibers. But I wouldn't hesitate to use it if it was what I had to hunt with.