yup he made barrels! do beleive his grandson is on theis forum.
irish

There are two Johnson barrel makers. CC Johnson and Eric Johnson. Eric Johnson worked for Hoffman Arms in I think Ohio and then for Dubiel Arms. He then came East to I believe Connecticut, not really sure about this. But he made quite a name for small bore match quality barrels. I do know he made some quantity of center fire barrels as I have seen them and have a Martini by Dubiel that is stamped E.J. under the forend. CC Johnson from Thackery Ohio did many relined barrels and right from scratch barrels. His Grandson is active here and has been willing to lookup shop records for those who have a CC Johnson barrel. Eric Johnson barrels were notable by a series of Star stamps he put on the barrel to indicate the barrels quality. So you will hear of a Eric Johnson 2 star or 3 star barrel. Don't know how high he rated them but have not heard of a poor shooting Eric Johnson small bore rifle. It seems to me that he also made a hammerless breech block for Ballard small bore three position rifles.
But I may be confusing him with Hubeleck. HTH Regards, FITZ

There have been frequent comments on both of these fine builders on this board.  I would suggest a word search to make sure you get the ones that have not been repeated here.  One difference between tracing the work of the two respective gunsmiths is that it is Charley (CC) Johnson's grandson Jerry, who is fairly active on this board and has been most helpful in tracing histories of his grand father's work, while the shop notes of Eric Johnson are on deposit in the ASSRA archives and can sometimes be traced by a request (for modest fee) of our long-suffering archivist, Rudi Prusok.  His address is on the Home Page of this website.  Whichever of these 'smiths worked on your rifle, the metal work is likely impeccable if it has not been messed with in the intervening years!

HTH ~ Froggie

PS  As for your question about EJ's barrel quality vs that of Harry Pope, I may get some flames here, but Pope didn't really like rf barrels as much as cf and came into them later in his career.  If I were going to shoot the rifle competitively, I would take the Johnson barrel to the Pope.  As an investment, of course, the reverse would be true.  GF

I have a couple Eric Johnson .22's I believe one is has a single star (I think a very early barrel, shoots great) and one that has 5 stars with a 8 below them.