Breech seating tool, but it's missing the plunger and the case with adjustable rod to help seat the bullets in the chamber.
Both missing pieces could be made by any competent machinist or gunsmith of you wanted to use this to shoot your Ballard as a breech seater.

Not sure what it would hook on unless you had a long screw in a tang sight.

bpjack wrote on Jan 6^th, 2026 at 6:18pm:


On a Ballard it would hook into the rear of the breech block opening and the rod would be fitted to that hole in the center. A once fired case would have the primer pocket enlarged and threaded for a rod that can be adjusted in or out to set seating depth on a bullet. Drop the bullet in, and chamber the case, then hook the seating tool behind the hammer and set the rod against the case seater to push the bullet into the chamber. Remove the seater, the case/rod, and it's ready for your primed case/powder to be inserted.

I'd love to post a picture, but I don't own one or have a picture of one, but I do have a picture of one I built for my Ballard rifles.
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Mine has the same rod, but the seating case/rod is all one piece because mine has a swiveling hook that allows it to not need the rod and case to be separate as yours is with it's fixed hook.

Without measurements between the hooks on your tool it's impossible to state with any close guesstimate what it might fit, or if it's even for a firearm?

Suggestion: post another pic, one with a ruler laid parallel to the end with the hooks so we can see how wide it is.

Then, that piece of metal between the legs/hooks:  does it rotate?  Have a threaded hole in it?  (hint: take a closeup of that showing whatever detail it has.)

Maybe a 2nd (3rd?) pic of the tool showing the other side.

Thanks! Much too wide for a Ballard breech seater, and likely too wide for most single shot rifles.
But with this measurement I think I have a better guess! It could be a bullet seater for an old muzzleloader rifle of large caliber! They often had two pins that were installed opposite sides of the muzzle and the hooks went over the pins to seat a ball or bullet into the bore and then a ramrod finished seating it down against the powder. I have a friend who has a 75 caliber huge bench ML rifle and it uses a lever type starter and has pins on the side of the barrel to hook a similar tool on.