I do really like the .40-70 SS and find it pleasant to shoot. I've never shot anything but black in mine, and don't intend to change. But I'm looking forward to doing some work to get it shooting a bit better. 

I DO NOT like the Elephant powder, but at the time, that was all I could get anywhere, and I had to buy a case at that. I now have a wee bit of Swiss and some others to work with. I'll be clearing out my 100 yard range in the next few weeks, and will definately be warming up the Ballard along with my Maynards and others. Fun times ahead! 

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Jim, I bet your Ballard is Marlin's version of the .40-70SS in .40-63 Everlasting, and the thin cased .40-70 Ballard. Unless it's a modern reproduction from Ballard Rifle Co.?

It will easily do the same breech seated at 100 yds and you might be abit overly surprised on how well it will do at 200 using smokeless.

Reverend Al wrote on Jan 13^th, 2020 at 2:33pm:


Don't know if that was directed to me or Bulseyetom, but I nearly always use a card wad, although I vary between tablet backing or thin milk carton. Varying amounts of compression, but that seldom seemed to improve things. I generally used a very long drop tube of about 30 inches. 

Almost always employ a grease cookie, because I was shooting in the arid southwest, and the fouling caked terribly hard. The goal was decent grouping without needing to clean between shots for at least five rounds. If using the cookie, I wipe off the base of the bullet carefully, and use a single disk of waxed paper in an attempt to keep the cookie from sticking to the bullet. 

One thing that always mystified me was that the grease cookies could often be found on the ground ahead of the muzzle, in almost unchanged condition. How could this be? And this with SPG or other fairly soft lube, having endured the pressure and heat of firing, and frequently in hot conditions. I even experimented with only a wax paper "wad" or very thin layer of beeswax between the cookie and the propellant, but the little grease wads could still be recovered. My desire was that the lube be vaporized and mixed with the fouling to keep it softer in the bore, but I never managed to achieve that. 

Puzzling...

Nice shooting Tom.

I came into some modern brass marked .40-70 Sharps. It dropped right into several of my original .40-63 Ballard rifles. It's pretty much identical from what I see of specs for both.

Just Jim wrote on Jan 14^th, 2020 at 12:26am:


Not really.  Even though the powder burn gets quite hot, the contact time is extremely short, so the cookie doesn't have the time to melt/vaporize.  Also, it is protected by a wad between it and the powder. And do check the card wad - not even flame marks on it.  If card won't burn, why should lube melt?
And in the barrel, where could it go - it essentially is a liquid, incompressible, between overpowder wad and the bullet.  The only part of the cookie that performs a useful function is the outer edge, in contact with the bore.  So for a more efficient cookie, you will need a thicker one - more contact surface with the bore.