Congratulations appears to be very nice and looking forward to seeing your targets and hearing about your first outings results and thanks for sharing.

That's a pretty nice Pacific in a great caliber! The Marlin Firearms Co. rollstamp, and 33,000 range serial number put it pretty late in production. Guessing around 1888 or so with that high a number. 
It appears to be well maintained, and has a Ballard fixed globe, and correct rear sight with the early Ballard "ears" on the rear of the sight. Only thing I see is it has the wrong elevator, but that's a very minor issue.
Will be interesting to hear what the groove diameter is? Some can run fairly large on these old Ballards in .38-55 Ballard.

By the way, do you have any photos of what the proper rear sight elevator should look like?  Are there any correct repro elevators available?  (I suppose that an original would be tough to locate since they are likely an often "lost" part?)

I already have 4 rifle safes plus 2 smaller handgun safes, but to be honest they are getting pretty full these days.  In my defense though I have been culling out some of my older Winchester lever actions and replacing them with single shots so the numbers haven't really changed all that much.

Oh, and I have 2 more Maynards coming sometime soon as well ...

Reverend Al wrote on Jan 14^th, 2019 at 4:54pm:


I used to have a source for reproduction elevators, but no longer have one. Here's a picture of the Marlin "harpoon" elevator that is correct for Marlins, some Remingtons, and also Savage 1899 rifles. This one happens to be on a Rolling Block I own. They show up on Ebay occasionally.

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If you remove the forearm wood, Marlin serialized them on the back edge that mates to the receiver. Usually half the number on each side of the center hole for the wiping rod, or the nub on all other Ballard forearms.

I'm not a metal worker so I wouldn't attempt to make one, but now I know what to look for and can keep an eye out for a proper Marlin "harpoon" (like that term!) elevator.

Just finished loading some test loads for tomorrow and found that the loaded rounds in WW brass with those .380" / .3805" cast bullets are really tight seating in the chamber for the last 3/8" or so.  Might have to thin the case mouths a bit so that I can comfortably seat a large diameter bullet, or I might try to find some Starline brass since I understand that it tends to be a bit thinner at the mouth?  The PO replied to my emailed questions and he said that he was shooting .379" cast bullets with SR4759.  I can try that next time since I still have a bit of hoarded SR4759 tucked away.  It's a shame it was discontinued as many of my other old rifles shoot well with it.  Anyway, I'll try these IMR4198 test loads tomorrow and see what happens.

Beautiful Pacific.
And thanks to your post, I now know that I need to look for a complete rear sight for mine... Oh well...

Looking at the profile, except for the "harpoon" tip, it looks like it was made very similarly to one of the early un-numbered WRA sight elevators.

Go back further in time, Vall, to the WRA Model 1873.
Two of those early WRA elevators didn't have the widened thumbpieces like the later production 1A, 1B and 1C sight elevators had... one had the notches parallel to the top flat of the barrel, and the other had the notches at an angle like shown on that Marlin Fish-hook elevator.

marlinguy wrote on Jan 15^th, 2019 at 4:46pm:

Vall,

You raise an interesting question...  has anyone ever discovered just who that "same company" was that produced the sights that were used by so many different firearms manufacturers?
That outfit had to have a name, building(s) with street address (and mailing address if different from the street address), workers who were there at various times, purchase records for steel and other basic sight production materials, production equipment, tooling and special cutters, etc, and billing invoices that were addressed to the different firearms companies when the sights were delivered to them... and the firearms manufacturer records should have had copies of the billing statements in their own records for accounts payable that were made back to that "same company" somewhere.
Who has uncovered at least some of the records pertaining to that "same company" ?    

Bill Lawrence wrote on Jan 15^th, 2019 at 6:13pm:


But BGI had a predecessor:

"The Bridgeport Gun Implement Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut was founded in 1878 by Marcellus Hartley. The firm was one of the major suppliers of loading tools and accessories for sportsmen. Hartley purchased a company from Charles D. Leet in order to found his own firm; Leet was the manager of the Bridgeport Gun Implement Co. for a time. The company sold tools in sets that ranged from basic to very complete; sets included gun-cleaning implements and loading tools. Most of the company's tools are marked with the company name and a tool number."

From Conn. Hist. Soc. website.

I believe BGI made sights for many of the gun companies. I saw a BGI catalog years ago, and their sights looked like what I see on many guns.

Vall, 

Do you recall a catalog date?
Or any of the various models of the sights that were depicted?

Redsetter wrote on Jan 15^th, 2019 at 7:14pm:


Considering the high number of sights that would have had to have been produced to supply the demand and ongoing volume requirements for the firearm production of the multiple major manufacturers that occurred for decades, how could it have remained a secret for so long?
People constantly talk... and damned few can keep a secret... secret for so many, many years.   

Perhaps we should move this sight discussion into its own thread.

But until or if that happens, first, since the "same other company" must exist by at least the late-1870s, Marbles is out.

Second, except for Remington, all the other big boys are either in Connecticut or neighboring Massachusetts; ideally the "same other company" was too.

Third, there has long been a contention that because of the diversity of its offerings, BGI (and its earlier counterpart?) was at least initially only a distributor ala Sears.  Still, as Vall notes, BGI did eventually market its own brand of at least simple, open sights.

Fourth, Remington was not adverse to jobbing and even went so far as to rent space within its buildings, sometimes for a goodly while, to developers/inventors, especially when the company might eventually make money off them, sometimes even creating semi-independent "divisions" to do so.  Henry Quackenbush and his air guns and Christoper Sholes and his typewriter are two well-documented examples (though only the typewriter becoming part of the Remington corporate family).

Last for now, as any experienced historian will attest, it's most often the things that "everybody knows" that fail to be formally documented and/or preserved.  Plus not counting that fellow who has "written" two books by essentially reproducing catalog pages, has anybody rigorously researched gun sights and their accredited and actual makers?

That's enough for now.

Bill Lawrence

Reverend Al wrote on Jan 15^th, 2019 at 7:16pm:


Reverend Al,
That there is a FINE "working" rifle chambered for a versatile cartridge! I'm sooo envious, never having owned a Pacific Rifle. You made me go back and re-read Ned Robert's comments on his .38-55 Pacific - the one that so impressed his uncle, who believed a store-bought cartridge rifle could never be as accurate as his muzzle loading target gun.

You have reason to be mighty pleased with you initial shooting results.

Yesterday several of us "old curmudgeons" from one of my local gun clubs hosted 25 ladies from our in-club "Victoria Women Shooters" to a day of Rifle instruction and coaching.  We brought a variety of different rifles for them to shoot (mostly .22's to start out with) and one of the guns I brought for them to shoot was this .38-55 Ballard Pacific.  It got a lot of attention and many of the ladies asked if they could try shooting it.  Of course none of them had ever shot a rifle with double set triggers before and the looks on their faces when they barely touched the front trigger and the rifle "barked" were priceless.  One young lady in particular was quite intrigued with the rifle and when she touched it off the very light trigger pull really startled her and she screamed (a good, happy scream followed by a hearty laugh).  She did the same again on the second shot and on the third shot just as she was preparing to fire she said out loud: "OK ... I'm NOT going to scream this time ..."  LOL  Absolutely made my day.



The motley crew ...

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Wish we had a "Like" button, Rev. Al!