JM1542 MERRIMACK ARMS & MFG CO. BALLARD SPORTING RIFLE IN CALIBER 38 RF WITH RARE *DUAL IGNITION [A]; 26 inch octagon barrel shows most original blue with some wear and handling marks. Very good bright shiny bore. Original sporting German silver blade front and tip-up rear sights. The Breech block, lever, cast iron frame, fore-end cap and crescent buttplate show somewhat faded case hardening colors, more vivid in protected areas. Under barrel manual ejector. Walnut stocks have use and handling marks with a light coat of finish added long ago showing very light crazing. Matching serial numbers; The barrel, frame, breech block, forearm cap, buttplate and even the fitted screw at top of buttplate are numbered to match.
ANTIQUE $ 1,875.
*About Dual Ignition Ballard Rifles. The breechblocks of some Ballard rim fire rifles were made with both firing pins and nipples for percussion caps. Typically the RimFire cartridge design was limited to the single one time use of shell casings as there was no way to replace the internal rim fire primer. This limited guns using rim fire cartridges to the available factory loaded ammunition on hand. The dual ignition design allowed shooters to reuse what had previously been single use spent rim fire shell casings by reloading them. This reloading was done with a set of tools; A Punch used to put a hole through the center of the base of the shell casing. A Scoop used to measure the powder charge placed in the shell casing. And a Die Set used to seat a new bullet into the shell casing. These reloaded cartridges were then able to be fired by means of using an external percussion cap as the primer to ignite the powder. When using new unfired rim fire cartridges, the firing pin would strike the rim of the cartridge igniting the internal primer and powder charge. When using reloaded cartridges, the shooter would also have to place an external percussion cap on the nipple when using a reloaded cartridges. Then when fired, the hammer would then strike the external percussion cap igniting powder charge through the hole in the base of the cartridge.
