5mm Rem Center Fire / Rim Fire Ballard Schuetzen Rifle - James Grant Rifle Project

Hello All,

Here's an interesting project I did a few years ago.

I had just purchased a Marlin Ballard Single Shot Rifle that was originally built-up by James Grant. This is the same James Grant that wrote the series of "Single Shot Rifles" books.

Here is the rifle, and the Grant book entry that tells of its original building by Grant.









As you can read, the rifle as received was a 5mm Remington Rim Fire. 5mm Remington Rim Fire ammo was nearly impossible to find these days, and even if found, it cost over $1 a round. However, I soon discovered a California man that had followed Grant's suggestion of using a modified 22 Hornet case so the little cartridge could be reloaded. He was offering 5mm Center Fire conversion bolts for the old Remington model 591 and 592 rifles that were chambered in 5mm rim fire. He also made the brass for the 5mm Center Fire version by reforming and machining 22 Hornet cases. He sold the conversion bolts, the reformed Hornet brass, and the reloading dies, necessary for reloading these little Hot-Shots. The brass and dies I purchased the following week.

This rifle's breech block only had a single hole in its face for a rim-fire firing pin. I added a second hole below the existing hole, and made a center-fire firing pin.



It didn't take me long to fashion the "center fire" firing pin for this Grant Ballard. Now I could shoot and reload for this rifle, at only pennies per shot. So, now I was ready to shoot the center fire ammo. But, these old Ballards had a "split" breech-block, and it took a lot of time to remove the breech-block, split it in half, change the firing pin to Center-Fire, reassemble the breech block, and then reinstall it back into the rifle. This whole procedure took almost an hour. And if you did find some reasonably priced Rim Fire ammo, changing back to Rim Fire, took an equal amount of time.

Here's how the new center-fire firing pin looked in place in the breech block.



Well, all this assembly-reassembly got me to thinking. Perhaps I could fashion a "dual" purpose firing pin that would shoot "both" the Center Fire, and the Rim Fire ammo, without having to change anything. It didn't take me long to design one, and soon I made a new dual" firing pin, and installed it into the breech block.

And, here's how it turned out:





While I had the breech block apart for the last time, I machined a small compartment into the right half of the breech block, to hold the original Rim Fire firing pin, so it would always be with the rifle.



This worked really slick. Now I could chamber either the Rim Fire Cartridge, or the Center Fire cartridge, without any changes to the rifle. When shooting a Center Fire cartridge, the Center Fire part of dual firing pin would hit the primer and fire the cartridge, and the rim fire part of the dual firing pin would simply hit the cartridge rim. (with no adverse effect) When shooting a Rim Fire cartridge, the Rim Fire part of the dual firing pin would hit the primed rim and fire the cartridge, and the Center Fire part of the dual firing pin would simply hit the cartridge center. (with no adverse effect - it just put a little "dent" in the center)





As I said, this worked really slick. But, I wasn't quite finished with this project, not yet. For Schuetzen competition, you are NOT allowed to use jacketed bullets. In fact, you aren't even allowed to use a gas-checked bullet. You had to use "plain base" lead bullets only. Where to find a 5mm Lead Bullet mold? No where, so I had to make one. I never made a mold before, but I read a lot on how its done, so I took a shot.

I made a cherry in the shape of the bullet I wanted, by altering an old end-mill. When that was done, I drilled an undersized hole in an old set of aluminum mold blocks. I put the cherry in the drill press, and while it was spinning at low speed, I slowly clamped the blocks around it, centered on the pre-drilled hole, and slowly squeezed it until it closed.





You can see in the blocks, that I tried a couple of different designs before coming up with the final design.



The first 2 attempts didn't perform very well, but the final design yielded a nice little bullet around 50 grains, +/- depending on the alloy used.



For those of you unfamiliar with Schuetzen Shooting, most shooters "breech-seat" only the bullet into the chamber, and then place a primed cartridge, with the powder charge inside, behind the seated bullet. This is the way the "old times" loaded, and its carried on to present day. To breech-seat the bullet, a special mechanical seater is used. This one is made by Vern Webber. It has an empty case affixed to the end of the seater into which you place the bullet. Then you put it into the chamber, hook it onto the action, and pull back on the lever. A plunger inside the seater pushes the bullet deep into the throat and rifling. All that's left to do is insert the charged bullet-less cartridge into the chamber and close the action. Then you aim, squeeze the trigger, and fire the rifle. Did I mention that this is done "off-hand" (standing) at 200 yards? And that each match is 100 shots?







Here is the results of testing my bullets at 200 yards. This was shot from a rest, not off-hand. I'd like to think I pulled that one "high-left". Regardless, I'm pretty pleased with how this project turned out. I'll bet I've got the smallest caliber Schuetzen rifle ever used in competition.

Cooooool!

You certainly find/create some of the most unique firearms. Congratulations on a fascinating project.
Keep them coming.
Larry

That was an interesting read, thanks.

50 years from now someone is going to open that action up and the rimfire firing pin is going to fall out. The guy is going to drive himself crazy trying to figure out where it fits.

quote:

Originally posted by Fjold:
That was an interesting read, thanks.

50 years from now someone is going to open that action up and the rimfire firing pin is going to fall out. The guy is going to drive himself crazy trying to figure out where it fits.

Hello Fjold,

Thanks for the reply.

That could very well happen ... Maybe I should hold it in place with some grease, or attach a micro-note to the pin telling its story.