Here is a Ballard 22LR I purchased off Gunbroker last month. The intention was to restock in an original style for my son. The gun got more interesting as I looked it over.


It started life as a No. 8. Based on the custom barrel and the sights used(more on that in a moment), sometime probably after 1939, it was converted to rimfire and the DST breechblock was converted to a single trigger, short hammer fall speedlock system. A single trigger hammer was lightened and bobbed, with the sear notch moved, and mated to a custom trigger using what I think is a from scratch trigger plate. It uses a centerfire style extractor. 

Both the barrel and trigger plate are marked with a one piece  stamp E.A. ZORN. From what I can find along with some help from another gentleman, Edward Zorn of Massachusetts was a small bore shooter active in the 1930s. I found scores from a 1931 American Rifleman magazine where he shot at the Sea Girt matches. 

The barrel has no dovetails cut. It has scope blocks mounted and also a block up front. A globe sight clamped to the front block is used in conjunction with a very intriguing LYMAN POLAROID TUBE SIGHT introduced in 1939. I believe this is the original sight setup for this rifle. The sight has an adjustable shutter on the eyepiece to change the diameter depending on conditions. There is also a small revolving brass disc with different lenses to pick your pleasure. One is amber, and one position lacks a lens for an unobstructed view.

Hard to catch but theres still nice color on the action. The firing pin is broken in two pieces right now. I also change the top upper link screw and the lever screw. When I first got the rifle the lock up was frighteningly tight. Even being a forged action, it scared me it took so much effort to close action. This is the second rebarreled Ballard I have had to ‘loosen up’.

This morning over coffee I replaced the extra heavy hammer spring with an original. It halved the effort off cocking it and it still reliably fires. I am going to attempt to make a firing pin, which is an L shaped flat piece, and IF I am successful, the lighter hammer strike will I think be easier on the pin. I suspect this one was dry fired and couldnt take the bottoming on the back of the dovetailed faceplate.

If I can’t successfully make a firing pin I will have to reach out and beg to someone more talented than I, which is most everyone.

That's a very nice custom Ballard with some great workmanship. I hope you'll leave it as it is as it's getting tougher to find well done custom Ballard examples. A lot of people take off stocks, and barrels, and try to return them to more traditional look. I think well done customs should also be preserved for what they are.

Rodney,
That was my thoughts and with that I'm doing a similar hammer version for one of my Worn builds.  The limiting screw makes perfect sense now and if you look close at the cast trigger in your kit, there is shadows of that notch...
Greg

I'm glad you outbid me on that rifle, and are keeping it as is.  I would have scavenged it for the action shell, replaced the speedlock and trigger and put it back to original, and built a 3F on it.  The trigger plate would have probably prevented me from effectively doing that.

Bnice, if youre referring to the Tube sight thats all Lyman. I thought maybe the rubber eyecup that was on it was something someone added but thats actually Lyman too. I also thought that it was missing a recoil spring but the Lyman ad I inspected shows no spring. And I shot the rifle the other day and the tube sight is pretty sweet. I could see how youd fall in love with it.

Maybe a slight diversion, but has anybody heard of E. A. Zorn before?  I checked through Landis' books and Crossman's book on .22 rifle shooting and found no mention.

I have a box of chambering reamers, most of which have E A ZORN stamped on the shanks.  He apparently was a serious gunsmith at one time; the reamers do not look "homemade."  I got them at an estate sale so naturally the chance for provenance was gone.

Woah. That looks like an exact copy of mine, made in London. Very interesting!

And me and Bent Ramrod had a nice conversation on Edward Zorn. But unfortunately, neither of us knew anything beyond what we had in front of us.