Thanks Freebird for the kind words.....just trying to do my best on all fronts.

I got the beech block back from Curt Hardcastle
Curt did a excellent job restoring the block to full working order. Sadly all the internals had to be replaced or completely remade. I will try and post a picture of it soon.

As far as the barrel is concerned I have decided to return it to as close as possible to the 10.6 mm caliber it originally was based on the barrel stamping. Therefore it will either be a 40-65 or a 40-70SS.

I believe it was originally a 10.6 x 57r chambering.
Sometime later it was rebored and re-chambered to 11.3 Beaumont. Perhaps the original rifling got pitted and someone  just bumped it up to 11.3 mm Beaumont. I have checked the case drawings and my chamber cast and I believe this is what happened. The 40-70 Sharps Straight I believe would the the closest to the original chambering and it was developed around the same time  I think as this rifle was made.

The barrel will be relined. Single point cut rifled and a new chamber reamed and installed. The barrel will be stronger steel and hopefully shoot well. I just have to decide on 40-65 or 40-70 SS. I am leaning towards 40-65.
Any opinions on chambering, twist rate, bore size?

When all is done I will have approx. $550 in the rifle. Not all original but a very rare Nagant RB that is probably 150 years old and a good shooter I hope.

Thanks for the input Marlinguy. Its to bad you live so far from Winchester, Virginia. I expect you would enjoy shooting a Ballard in NSSA competition. It's a hoot to be shooting along side 500 other people and the smoke is so thick you sometimes can't see the target.

Vall, Would second your method of fire-forming.
Neck size, run through a resizing die if required to knock down a shoulder.
Usually anneal between neck sizing and resizing if required.
Load and shoot like any other cartridge. Sometimes amazing groups.
Chuck

Smokepole50 wrote on May 22^nd, 2020 at 11:33am:


Sorry, but I'm the wrong guy to ask BP questions. I've never used BP in any of my old guns, and don't in my .40-85 Pacific.
If you do choose to make it a .40-85 Ballard, and use the 9.3x74R donor cases. The only thing I'd say is make sure the rim recess is cut for the slightly smaller 9.3x74R rim. The original .40-85 Bal. is slightly larger, so it catches the 9.3 rims OK, but would be better if cut to the slightly smaller size.

That's a very good point you have Marlinguy. I didn't think about the rim being different. I don't really want to mess with the extractor position. I guess I need to check and see how close a 40-65 rim comes to the current extractor position.

Well here are a couple pictures of the receiver and repaired breech block I said I would post.

Earlier in the thread I remembered incorrectly my own rifle markings and stated the the barrel was stamped with 10.3,
that has been corrected in the post. It is actually 10.6 which I believe stands for 10.66 x 57.5 Russian Berdan or if I understand all these cartridge references correctly, is the same as the 10.75x58 Russian. These two cartridges designations come from 1867-68 time frame and were the state of the art back then so I can see it being chambered in this rifle which was built around that same time. Of course that now makes it originally a 42 caliber rifle.