This is a famous photo of W. Milton Farrow with his Ballard rifle

westerner wrote on Apr 21^st, 2024 at 7:23am:


Many times when I've mentioned Bullard to various gun guys, they correct me and say Ballard.  Bullards are not very well known.  I'd love to see a photo of Farrow holding a Bullard rifle.  As he worked for Bullard for over a year, I would think he handled many.  Of course, not everyone had a cell phone camera in their hands back then.  I'd also love to hear any detail at all regarding the rifle he used during that winning year of 1884.  It's difficult to logic-it out.  On the one hand, it would make sense he used a .32-40 Bullard or a .38-45 Bullard, but these were small frame cartridges and the small frame rifle didn't come out until a ways into 1884.  However, I suppose he could have used a pre-production rifle.   

I'll try and link a photo.  Here are a pair of .32-40's.  The top one is Bullard small frame repeater in .32-40 Bullard. A very different cartridge from the .32-40 Ballard.  It was a bottlenecked cartridge with a .317 bore and was referred to in the Bullard catalog as the .32 Special.  The bottom rifle is a Bullard solid frame single-shot in .32-40 Ballard.

The top rifle is one of the earliest known Bullard small frame repeaters. It is one of two known equipped with the Schuetzen style buttplate. One would assume it was ordered for target shooting.  It is a full pistol grip checkered deluxe rifle with at least 3x wood. The Lyman tang sight was added later.

I hadn't thought of this until writing this, but I suppose this could be a rifle Farrow used.  It is one of the first small frames made and with that target style buttplate, there is some speculative logic here.   

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This is another famous photo from 1886 that has Farrow (forth from the right) holding a rifle, however I can't quite make out what it is...

marlinguy wrote on Apr 21^st, 2024 at 11:27am:


Patent dates seldom are a good indicator of when something was made. I also have to question the 1886 patent being for the entire single shot and not just for an improvement of the existing design. The only 1886 patent that applies to the Bullard single shot I've seen is US287229, applied for Jan 28, 1886 and issued July 6, 1886. That patent is in the names of Solomon Hindley and Edwin Field and was never assigned to Bullard. You have 1 year from when a design is made public to apply for a patent, after that the design is free to copy, In Jamieson’s book on Bullard he lists an article about the single shot from March 20, 1884 Forest & Stream  – that also suggests the 1886 patent is not for the complete action. Another is from the Sept & Oct 1885 Forest & Stream about tests of Bullard rifles at Creedmoor.  He does not have the article shown/ 


The majority of the single shot design is the same as the rear of the repeater, so the 1881 patent, US245700, would cover the majority of it and Bullard would have had very little need for a separate patent.
The locking design of both the repeater and single shot are basically rolling block actions based on expired patents, so those parts could not be covered by any new patents. The majority of Bullard’s repeater design was based on older expired patents, just combined together in a very unique way. 

A good example of patent dates is the Savage Arms Model 1903 pump 22, patent applied for May 20, 1901; guns went into full production in May of 1903; the patent wasn’t issued until Dec 25, 1906. 

Schutzenbob wrote on Apr 21^st, 2024 at 12:51pm:


Quite surprising to see a photo that's from 1886 and see so many ML target rifles still in use?

I found that the July 1886 patent is the one that is stamped on single shots, if they have a patent stamp. Here's patents for the repeater and the single shot for comparison, it would be interesting to compare the actual parts from the large & small frame repeaters and the single shot. I see more than just a little similarity between the two, the single shot needed an extractor added and a link to operate the breech block, but the rest looks much the same to me. The two drawings were just scaled to be close and are not to any exact scale. 

Terry Buffum just dragged me into this discussion. As some here know, I've been working on a Farrow biography since back in the last century.  This is my spin on Willard Milton Farrow (WMF):

Farrow's principal interest was his family. He needed money to support them.  He operated a successful jewelry and sporting goods store in Newport, Rhode Island, the wealthiest place in America. In September, 1874, WMF (age about 24) & girlfriend attended the first Creedmoor match (as spectators).  The match generated a lot of public interest and a lot of money was wagered.  WMF was a hustler, always after a buck.

Farrow's clientele were the wealthiest young men in America.  If he had a few dozen Creedmoor type rifles in stock (plus ammo, etc.), he could sell all of it. He became a distributor for Ballards, maybe others.  If he sold long-range rifles, his customers had to have a place to shoot them.  He started the Newport Rifle Club (or some such), with a 1,000 yard range, and organized local matches.  His wealthy customers gambled on the matches.  If WMF won the matches, he'd make more money, so he learned to shoot accurately.  

Winning rifle matches was the method he found that gave maximum reward (prize money & side bets) for minimum effort & risk.  He shot Ballards because he sold Ballards (at first) and then because he was paid by Marlin's marketing organization to shoot Ballards.

You could sell a hundred or more short or mid-range rifles for every long-range model sold, and that's what Farrow concentrated on. He toured the country, entering matches, giving demonstrations and selling Marlins (not just Ballards) until 1884.

On Jan. 1, 1884, WMF signed a 1-year contract with Bullard to tour the country selling Bullard repeaters & ammo. Same business model, just a different company. No Ballards, no single shots.

In either case, I don't think Farrow was a one-man band. He was traveling by train from NYC or Springfield, Massachusetts to San Francisco and a dozen or more stops between, with several dozen rifles and a lot of ammunition. Thieves were as bold & plentiful then as now.  He must have had assistants, probably a PR guy traveling ahead, but I've never read about them.

When Farrow returned to Springfield, Massachusetts, in Dec. 1884, after a trip to new Orleans, Bullard was broke, but Farrow wasn't. Bullard laid off almost everybody.   

Continued next message.