Marlinman, this question is for you, but anybody feel free to jump in. You probably remember this scenario. I have a Ballard of undetermined model that has been rebarreled to 218b somewhere in its life. This gun has a forged receiver, pistol grip, double set triggers, a small firing pin through a dovetail mortised into the face of the breech block. All the serial # match. I decided to rebarrel to 38-55 as that caliber was stamped on the extracter.and purchased the appropriate barrel.
Now the problem: My gunsmith tells me that while the current chamber is concentric with the bore and the center of the bore is in the center of the muzzle, that the chamber is actually offset at the breech end in order to face up to the fireing pin. In other words the bore is drilled at an angle to the center of the barrel, with the chamber above the centerline. His theory is that this gun was actually a rimfire. and the barrel was bored that way to compensate. My questions are: Does the description of the gun sound like any rimfire you are familiar with? Is there a fix at the breechblock end? I want to keep my double set triggers. Anywhere to get schematics for ballard? , Does it sound like this is going to remain a 218b?.
