About 20 years ago I was working with my Ballard  No. 5 Pacific in 40-90.  Tom Ballard had helped me with a bullet mould. I had several other moulds.  But, no matter what I did or what I used bullets insisted on striking the target sides. I was very frustrated. I was at that time considering relining the barrel.  I had two problems at that time. A reamer-I knew I could have JGS make me a reamer.  Second finding someone to install a liner,  that was a bigger problem at the time.

I got distracted and started playing with the Martini's IMA brought in from Nepal. I have been deep into them ever since. In my adventures in  Martiniland I learned about John  Taylor.  John has did several projects for me on Martini's.

Recently I have seen mention of the Ballard is several different places including here on ASSRA forum.  A link posted on the Single shot forum here to a YouTube on the Ballard history features Pacific No. 5 in 40-85 Ballard.   I have been thinking more about this unfinished project.   

I know where the Ballard is in the storage vault.  It is the in the very back, the furthest back.  It will take a little effort to get it out, but can be done.

I think I will get it out and start looking at it again.

I will look again at what I can do to make it stop keyholing.   

But foremost I am  going look at relining and rechambering.

Before I buy a reamer, does anyone have a 40-90  Ballard reamer that I can borrow or rent?  I would pass this reamer to John Taylor for use.

As far as getting a reamer made goes, my first choice would Hugh Henrickson.   Only problem, I'm not sure Hugh is still in business.  Last I heard he was working for Darex. I'm not sure he had drawings for this cartridge, but we could probably could come up with one.  

Otherwise my first choice would be JGS.  The majority of my reamers were by JGS.  

My mentors when I first started out many years ago all used Henrickson and JGS almost exclusively.  That's what they told me to use, and that is what I have used whenever possible.

I have used others, but prefer JGS.

I have a .40-90Sharps Straight reamer.  This is for the Bertram copies of the original shells, which have wider bases than the mutant .40-90 Shiloh Sharps Straight chambers, based on .405 Basic brass.  Don’t know how this size relates to the Ballard, which (IIRC) was either a little shorter or was the same length but an Everlasting case that held 85 gr of powder.

Used once.  I’d be willing to sell it; PM if interested.

I dug out the old brass for this gun.  24 cases, last used in the late 90's-early 2000. All Bertram of two types-marked 40-90 BB and 40-90 Sharps  BB.  The stuff marked Sharps appears hand stamped. 

This brass was all cleaned before storage-but not decapped. Some do not look good after 25 years of storage.  Into the tumbler it goes and we will see what it looks like after that.  Might have to invest in new brass.

I am going have to look at measurements.  My dies were made by RCBS working from three fired cases. That is where I would probably have to start for a reamer. 

Except for three clean cases, these cases vary in length from 2.895 to 2.938 long with most in the range of 2.918 to 2.935.   The  three clean cases are 2.938.   

I will clean these cases up and see what i can do bout getting the majority uniform.

I was considering this gun for my Bear hunt in September.    I don't think there is enough time  to get this gun ready for that.  So, I think for now I'll just start accumulating parts and material to get this gun up and running.

This was put aside a long time ago for a retirement project.  Been retired 16 years time to get with it.

idjeffp wrote Today at 5:26pm:


As far as I know the .4085 Everlasting and .40-90 cases were the same length. The difference was the same as all Ballard Everlasting cases being just thicker walls to last longer.