Was high bidder at a local auction on this Pacific 45-100.  Beautiful bore. An original Ballard midrange sight. Cost me $1100. Bore slugs to .460” 

Buttplate doesn’t look very forgiving…

Wow - you stole it that price!  Congratulations!

I have a #7 Long Range in .44-100 and it's got the shotgun style buttplate that most #7's use. I shoot smokeless with 4198 and a 480 gr. bullet and it's not bad. But I also shoot a Pacific in .40-85 with the crescent buttplate and use a 410 grain Snover bullet. It hurts if I shoot it without my PAST recoil pad on, but not bad at all when I wear the PAST.

That's a pretty nice Pacific, and in a unusual caliber for a Pacific. You did fantastic on the price too!

A long time match shooter and good friend loved the original old single shots. Oftentimes he would show up at a match and shot one of his old guns. He told me frequently that he felt the Ballard was the best single shot, followed closely by the Stevens 44 1/2.

I wish he was still with us......

Tom

Green_Frog wrote on Oct 29^th, 2024 at 9:15pm:


The vast majority of Ballard rifles built by Marlin had no cartridge designation stamped on their barrels. Wasn't until about the last decade of manufacture that Marlin began stamping them. Out of about 3 dozen I own maybe have 5 or 6 with cartridge stamped on the barrel.

With the many decades of Ballard rifles being around it's not uncommon for them to get barrels and forearms swapped, and when a donor barrel is found it's often with a matching forearm. Especially for a Pacific that was one of the most popular actions to use by gunsmiths to build up another custom Ballard. So those old barrel/forearm combinations got set aside and fit to other actions later.

The original cartridge for your ".40-90" would have been sold as the .40-85 Everlasting, which was the thick wall version of the .40-90 standard Ballard case. Later when they began stamping cartridge designations these were all stamped .40-85 on the barrels.

marlinguy wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 10:27am:


Vall, 

I got the caliber by doing a chamber cast with cero-safe.and measuring.  I know they’re the same as 40-85 Everlasting but I have one round of original 40-90 ammo (paper patched) I got many years ago from Joe Ruth that fits perfectly, so that’s what I call it. 

I lucked into 100 rounds of Norma 9.3x74R brass which is the perfect donor brass except the original extractor just barely slips over the rim of a fired case.  Even though I have all this brass and several fine B&D 40 cal moulds, I’m having second thoughts.

The bore is marginal… what would charitably be called “salt and pepper”, so I’m thinking that rather than going to all the load development I should send the barrel to Bobby Hoyt to be recut to 45-70 (since it’s not caliber marked and mismatched anyway).  I’ve got bunches of 45-70 brass and about 5 Lyman/Ideal moulds in a variety of weights.  If I were younger and more actively shooting, it probably would already be done.  What do you think?

Charlie the Frog

Yeah, the only thing I’m wondering now at my age whether I’ll be able to get it done and back while I’m still able to shoot it!   I had said my 327 FM Ruger #3 was going to be my last build, and I really haven’t gotten to enjoy it much yet!

Froggie

PS  Does anybody have contact info for Hoyt?  I did a quick internet search but no luck.

Well, I just went to the Norma website, and they no longer list the 9.3X74R brass, but looking at the prices for their other big metric stuff… WOW!!  The three factory sealed boxes plus a fourth opened and placed in a MTM case (only about 5 rounds fired) have become an investment.  Extrapolating and calculating, I could make a good dent in the cost of having my Ballard converted to 45-70, and of course I have a pile of reloading stuff for that caliber.  That pathway is beginning to look a lot more interesting, and a 45-70 Ballard would be lots easier for my nieces to deal with after I’m gone.
Froggie