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Part IV
(click here for Part I)
(click here for Part II)
(click here for Part III)
The following Saturday Bert was at the shop early. He had stopped in briefly the day after his mother sent him to bed without his supper and Willy just grinned. He would swing by and smooth things out with his folks, he said, and he did. From now on the Boy was to limit his after school visits to a half hour but Saturday’s he could visit with Willy Newton unless he was needed at home. Willy hadn’t let him touch the reamer in his brief after school visits stating that cutting a chamber wasn’t to be rushed.
It had snowed during the night. One of those Halloween snow falls that people spoke of. Bert had seen deer tracks across the lane at the edge of the Newton place. That reminded him that Deer Season was coming on fast. He wondered if there would be many customers interrupting the work on the 22 Magnum. There had been customers coming in regularly, of course. The day to day business of a gunsmith in the fall was what kept the lights on. Bert had been in on snatches of work; drilling and tapping a rifle for scope mounts, fitting a recoil pad, forging a bolt handle to clear a scope. He hoped to learn these things someday but not during a half hour after school every day. On this Saturday he would finish the chamber and perhaps learn something new.
Willy was finishing his morning coffee and Bert was oiling the reamer when a dairy farmer from across the valley came in carrying a Winchester 30-30 and inquiring about a sight elevator. Willy nodded in Bert’s direction.
“Bert there can help you.”
Bert had seen the Old Man replace a hundred sight elevators over the last two years of hanging about. He knew just where they were kept, too. The farmer handed him the Model 94 and Bert checked to see that it was unloaded before clamping it between the padded vise jaws. He fished the Winchester elevator out of the parts cabinet next to the bench and installed it as he’d seen Willy do. As he handed the rifle back to the farmer, Bert looked to Willy.
“The elevator costs a buck. How much are you going to charge him to install it, Bert?”
Bert felt ice water in the pity of his stomach. He turned to the farmer and said, “That will be a dollar twenty-five, Sir.” The man handed him a dollar and a half and told him to keep the change. As he was leaving, the man looked at Willy with a cocked eyebrow, and then back at Bert. He shook his head and left. Bert put the money into the cash box under the big bench and looked to Willy.
“Get back at that chamber, Bert” he said. “The action is bushed and ready. We’re just waiting on you.”
Bert finished the chamber an hour later. Willy watched the progress carefully as the reamer cut the rim recess and when he determined it was “close” he reached up onto a shelf behind the bench and brought out 2 full boxes of Winchester 22 Magnum ammunition. Bert was beside himself with envy over the long, sleek case topped with a genuine jacketed soft point bullet.“How far do you think it will shoot?” he asked.
“About 150 yards” Willy replied, adding “at least on crows.”
Bert thought about the “long” shots he’d made with his Marlin and they seemed a pale effort compared to shooting anything at 150 yards. He once figured he’d head shot a squirrel at about 100 feet with a .22 Short but that wasn’t anything to shout about. He’d seen his Dad do it many times and his Dad wasn’t even a shooter.
Willy slipped a cartridge into the fresh clean chamber and laid a straight edge across the breech end of the barrel. He gently slid it towards the cartridge rim and frowned as it made faint contact. The barrel was removed from the vise and the cartridge gently tapped out with a rod. He replaced the barrel in the vise and told Bert, “Just a half a turn more, OK?”
Bert carefully obeyed and patched the chamber and barrel clean so that Willy could complete the test. As the blade of
the straight edge passed over the rim he smiled. “Perfect” he said. “Time to test fire it, finally!” He looked at Bert and rolled his eyes in a gesture of mock aggravation as he swabbed the barrel with Hoppes Nitro Solvent and patched it dry.
The barrel was mounted in the barrel vise and the action put into place. Willy installed “the works” into the action, and instructed Bert to take a few cartridges off of the bench and pick up the cleaning rod as well. With the gunsmith carrying the barreled action and Bert the other items, they went out the front door of the shop and around the back of the barn to the old manure pit. Willy swung the Ballard’s lever forward and placed a cartridge into the chamber. He pointed the muzzle at the manure pile, cocked the hammer and fired.
The sound was music to Bert’s ears. He held the barreled action gingerly as Willy tapped out the fired case with the rod. With his glasses firmly set on the bridge of his nose he examined the case and then let it fall to into the powdery snow that blanketed ground. He loaded another and repeated the process, and then again one more time.
“Looks good!” he said. “C’mon Bert! Let’s get in out of the cold!”
The gunsmith turned and headed towards the front of the barn. Bert quickly stooped to pick up the fired cases and hustled after the old man who was whistling as he walked with the heavy Remington barrel leaning across his right shoulder. He paused when the reached the shop door and looked skyward. It was mid afternoon and it was beginning to snow again. As soon as they crossed the threshold of the shop Willy said, “That’s enough for today, Bert. I’m closing up early so I can go to town.” He looked at the boy’s face.
“Don’t worry. We’ll put it on paper tomorrow afternoon if the weather doesn’t close in.”
The next day after church, Bert was loitering by the Rexall Drug waiting for his parents to finish
talking to the other parishioners at the Episcopal church when he spotted Norm Holloway at the Shell station loading a tractor tire into the bed of his pickup. Bert jogged across the road and caught him just as he was sliding in behind the wheel.
He called to him. “Hey Norm! Wait up a minute!”
The teenager, a highschool senior, looked at Bert with a mixture of curiosity and disgust not realizing the assumed familiarity and equality felt by the 7th grader who had just cut the chamber on his crow rifle. “Yeah?”
“I saw your Ballard over at Newton’s yesterday. It’s really neat! I got to... ”
Norm cut him off. “Heck! That thing’s a piece of junk kid.” And starting the truck, added. “Worthless.”
Bert just looked at him for a moment and stepped back as the teen dropped the clutch and roared away from the filling station. Bert couldn’t figure it. He thought about it all the way home from church.
After Sunday lunch he was off to Willy’s. The Old Man was waiting for him inside the shop. He must have skipped church today because his apron and shirt sleeves were well soiled and there were signs of work having been done. On the bench laid the Ballard.“Is it done?”
Willy nodded. “I finished the extractor about an hour ago and got the wood and glass in place.”
Bert looked at him standing with his arms crossed across his apron. He seemed to be waiting for him give the rifle a once over so he turned his attention to the Ballard.
The stocks were in place and sitting on top was a long, Litschert “Spot Shot” 2-8 power variable scope.
It was mounted on the vee-blocks that had come with the Remington barrel leaving the rear objective hanging just rearward of the hammer. The scope had a long 3/4 inch tube and a wide, adjustable front objective. The power selection was done by turning a sleeve about midway down the scope body and it had fine external micrometer adjustments. It was all Bert could do to keep himself from touching the knobs.“Can I pick it up?” he asked.
“Of course” Willy said, taking a sip from his grimy coffee mug.
The Boy checked the chamber and hefted the rifle. It wasn’t as heavy as he thought it would be and it balanced nicely on the forehand. He squinted through the scope. The fine reticle hung steadily in space.
“I talked to Norm Holloway after church today. He says this Ballard is junk! Why would he say that?” Bert looked up at the old man.
Willy shrugged. “Maybe it’s because he got himself a Model 43 Winchester 218 Bee last week?”
“Well then, what about this?” the boy said, dropping the rifle from his shoulder and holding it at arms length so as to view it all at once. “Why’d we keep working on it??”
“Well” said Willy “I paid him twenty dollars for the Ballard and didn’t nick him for the work I’d done up until he backed out of the deal. He pretty much couldn’t refuse without lightening his wallet.”
Bert set the rifle’s curved buttplate on the floor and looked at him.
“What are you going to do with it, then?”
Willy set his cup down and reached for his coat. “Right now I’m going to sight it in and see how it shoots! Want to give it a try?”
Bert grinned and nodded but was thinking, “Hell yes!”
Continued Next Month
Editor's Note: Andrew Moe is a life-long reloader and dedicated shooter. Unlike some of his past articles, this latest story is a bit different. Or, in Andy's words, "a trip into fictional writing combined with old memories".
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