How neat! Like you, I called about the bottle cap Ballards. Also like you, I was too late. Your target press and measuring equipment look good, and are quite ingenious. I have a 22RF LowWall nearly finished that will probably be as close as I get to the true bottle cap guns, but I have high hopes for it. Thanks for sharing.

I remember the milk delivery in my early days and I remember the cardboard discs, but I missed the original matches by a couple decades...  My dad did appliance and refrigeration repair is a small rural community, which lead to trading service for goods, one of which was with an area rancher that had a half dozen milk cows.  We switched to getting our milk in glass gallon condiment jars, a tin lid screwed down over plastic wrap, or even plastic held on by rubber bands...   

We are tentatively planning another match the first Saturday in April, so with any luck a few that have consistently missed our shoots will make it.   
I was hoping to have another Ballard finished for this match as it truly is a good way to measure the capabilities of a rifle, not that the shooter has much to do with it .   But a couple other builds have trumped this project so I'll have to make do with the same "old" rifle.    
Cellargun, I have a low wall that I put together from scraps and castings, there's a tiny bit of inletting to finish it and the extractor, but after researching these bottle cap rifles, many of them never had an extractor, a small slot that allowed extraction with a tool similar to a dental pick was all they used.  I'm going to use that as my reason not to install an extractor in this rifle.    maybe I will have a different rifle to shoot after all.
Greg

Bruce,
I see there's an issue, thought Tulsa was the following weekend.  I haven't sent any notices out about the shoot yet and since it's my ordeal, I may change plans - weather permitting.  Thanks for steering me straight     
Although, I'll just be getting back from Oak Ridge that week, not so sure the boss is going to let me skip that much work...

We got our milk back in the 50's from the neighbor's small herd of Guernseys. The bottles would be waiting for us in their spring house, setting in the cold water. and all we had to do was put the pogs in them, put a couple quarters in the can, and leave the empty bottles for the next time.

Greg, Great write up and info...and of course great device!  Would love to get into the mix one day, currently one of our kid is dragging me all over the continent with her volleyball tournaments..I look forward to helping the group feel better about there abilities.   Shame the Pokes (wyoming )got eliminated by the Hoosiers...was looking for some wyo bragging rights.  take care D-

ISS wrote on Mar 13^th, 2022 at 2:53pm:


When I was a kid, we use to collect milk bottle caps.  We would meet at the city park from time to time and trace caps, baseball cards, and other junk.