I recently acquired this rifle and am having a hard time finding info on exactly what I have here. Rifle is chambered in 40-85 and seems to be all original other than the sights.

  In all my browsing I have not found pictures of any other Pacifics with the pistol grip stock or the octagon / round barrel. The stock, fore end, butt plate and barrel are all serialed to receiver so as far as I can tell this is factory configuration.

   Any info greatly appreciated.  Thanks , Denny

Like Jerry said a Pacific with a pistol grip is pretty rare. But a Pacific with a half octagon barrel is something I've never seen in 40 years collecting Ballard rifles. 
My first reaction was "is this for real?" until you said it's all matching numbers. It's a very unusual, and possibly one of a kind Pacific.
Not doubting, but I'd love to see more pictures of the half octagon barrel, and the transition from octagon to round area to ensure it wasn't turned later. Of course I'd love to see more closeup pictures of all parts of this unique Ballard!
One thing I think I see is the thimbles for the wiping rod that appear to be color cased. That's only the 3rd time I've seen a Pacific in nice enough shape to still have color case on the thimbles. Pretty neat to see that! This is my Pacific with color cased thimbles:

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Nice clean gun !

val, i had the gun in my shop this past weekend and put the sights on it for him and his son to shoot. the gun is 100% correct except for my sights. i was concerned about the 1/2 round bbl but it is right. i have seen 1 or maybe 2 others, but not many.when i first heard about this gun i called john dutcher and he said this was the 4th pistol grip pacific.i tried to buy it but he said they were gonna keep it and shoot it. the gun is in very good shape and a near new bore.  it looks a lot better than the pictures show  tony<><

I can't imagine the pain he must have gone through. My God, that would be worse than accidentally selling one of your children. 

westerner wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2024 at 2:15pm:


Yeah, unfortunately we didn't realize at that time he had early stages of dimentia that has gotten worse since then. Wasn't until a few years later that he couldn't drive anymore because he got lost, or confused. He still comes to our collector shows, but just to look around. Last month he left his hat and coffee mug on my table, and I couldn't find him later to give them back. Had to take them home to him and he kinda laughed about leaving them.
We always had tables together, and traveled to all the gun shows together. Sad to see what's happening.

Fosjam , maybe you could start a new thread and post some pictures of it? I am sure everyone would like to see it.