Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots A pair came home to roost

Last weekend's Baltimore Antique Arms Show was a good one that yielded up a couple jewels for me.

First, a Ballard #3 Gallery rifle*, .22LR. Dates to very late 1880's shortly before Marlin quit the Ballard in favor of concentrating on lever guns. Case colors are there but patinized (but the case colors on the breech block/trigger group remain vivid inside the receiver). What's interesting is that it was lined by C.C.Johnson (laughingly speculated by the seller, Gary Quinlan, with what would appear to be a Johnson job number on the bottom flat under the fore arm. No way to know for sure). (Back in the 30's-40's there were no ready-made liners to be had. A lining job entailed making/rifling the liner before starting the project.) Bore is mint, action snaps shut as the breech block cams into position - it should shoot, and if initial backyard testing is an indicator it will. Weight 7 pounds 9 ounces, 8 pounds 4 ounces with scope. Trigger breaks at 2 3/4 lbs. I hung the 30's vintage Fecker 6x Small Game scope on it the minute I got it home.



Second jewel is a Stevens 44, .32 Long RF. Low serial number and 7 o'clock extractor indicates late 1890's manufacture. (Stevens factory records are long since lost and exact dating is impossible.) Vivid case colors, absolutely mint bore, pristine barrel bluing, and excellent wood indicate that it spent most of the last 125 years in closets. Lyman tang sight and Beech front sight live on it. I'm not put off by the fact it's a .32 rimfire - I have a proper centerfire breech block which will be swapped in (and the RF breech block kept with the gun for posterity), a stash of .32 Long Colt brass (same dimensions as the RF case), and a cherry Ideal mould to cast a proper heeled bullet for the cartridge. It'll soon bark (ok, maybe "yip") again - the consummate backyard beer can destroyer!



* Gallery rifle doesn't mean it was intended for carnival gallery shooting (although I would assume some were used for that purpose). In the time period before WWI Gallery shooting was the name given to recreational/competition shooting held indoors at 75 foot distance. Galleries were to be found in every major city and were hugely popular, especially for off-season "keeping tuned" shooting.