OLD tuck, I think you have picked a wonderful calling. Restoring old single shots to how they left the factory. I have owned three 1885 Winchesters that had been mutilated during the varmint rifle craze of the 1940s & 1950s. The mutilators didn't pick a rifle in rough condition, no they picked the very best and latest High Walls with coil hammer springs. They discarded the beautiful barrels & stocks and replaced them with long heavy round barrels and stocks that have all the grace and beauty of a canoe paddle or maybe a cricket bat. They usually heated and bent the lower tang and it looked like they did it on an anvil with an oversize hammer.The last one I bought had a Lyman STS mounted on it, which is why I bought it. It looked like the man had never fired it. I sold the gun and kept the scope.Tuck keep up the good work.

I have a very early Ballard #4 Perfection I restored decades ago. It was the 2nd Ballard I ever owned and Bubba had gotten his hands on it at some point in it's life. Unfortunate since it was a very low 3 digit serial number, and had a 34" half octagon barrel in .45-70. (originally)
Some Bubba had drilled the barrel out and then took an '03 Springfield 3 groove barrel and used it as a barrel liner. He chopped the chamber end off, and then rechambered it for .30-30. If that wasn't enough abuse, he used an electric engraver and wrote, ".30-30 Black Powder" on the top flat. Then he carved his initials about 2" tall into the side of the buttstock!
The Ballard had all the neat early Brown Mfg. parts, but was a Marlin Ballard with their internal extractor. All I could save of the original was the receiver and the buttplate. The stocks were trash, as was the barrel. So I built new wood for it, and bought a 35" 3.5 weight full octagon blank, and a friend turned it part octagon to match the original.
I'd rather have saved the original, but just wasn't possible. So I did the next best thing and rebuilt it from the receiver and buttplate I saved.
This one was done about 30 years ago.

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Beautiful restoration that totally retains the spirit of great Ballards. Is it back to .45-70 Val?

Wayne