I have a high wall with a Stevens/Pope barrel and am having a booger of a time finding a bullet that will fit so it looks like a custom mould.  But my biggest problem is measuring bore and groove diameter.  The wide lands seem to have their own curvature to them and is not like what you would see in todays barrels.   When I rotate the bullet through the mic, it will vary from about .318" to .321".  I can't measure the bore diameter because the lands are so narrow that my caliper edge won't fit into them.  From what I can gather, is that the bore is about .316" because it starts engraving on the .317" band of a bullet. 
I've got the Mos mould and bullets from the Saeco Pope mould and the base band of both is around .322".  If I were to try and breech seat one of these, I think I would break the seater.  How hard is it to breech seat a properly fitting bullet?
Anybody out there with experience with this kind of rifling and have some recommendations?  Thanks

I know that this is a shock to some but Pope's bullet molds ,or at least all that I have seen, have a pretty large base band. In the neighborhood of .324 - .325. Others may want to chime in here. 
When you breech seat the the bullets that you have and knock them out have they sealed at the base? If so I think you are fine. You don't say what you are using to breech seat. If you are using a push seater most people find them tiring. I would suggest that you get a hold of Russ Weber and have him make you a breech seater for the High Wall. He will need 2 fired cases when you send them make sure that the bullet will slide into the case. If not you will have to thin the neck a little and re fire form.

40 Rod

I had and loaned to a friend (now maybe lost) a like new Pope barrel for a HW. In 33x40 and a 33 cal mold. He said the same it was a tapered bullet. But on the HW he was building it was a awsum shooter. Whitey

Strangely enough if you push a muzzle-loaded Pope bullet through the false muzzle and choke it pushes easily down the balance of the barrel. If you push one out it almost looks like a cup base.

40 Rod

Thanks Crash,
I was looking for a diagram like that but didn't find any.  It shows why I had trouble measuring my barrel because it shows bore diameter as what we would think of as groove in a conventional barrel.  Bob

Chuckster
Actually the groove diameter is quite a bit larger than bore diameter. A full groove diameter bullet, would be very difficult, maybe impossible to breech seat in a Pope barrel. Pope cut many of this moulds with a taper on the base band. I think (and I’m no expert in matters Pope) that base band flare is to seal the bore. To better illustrate my point, I attached a dimensioned bullet drawing. That flare on the base band would make no sense if the .323” diameter were full groove diameter.
Another point about Pope barrels - the bore and groove diameters were anything but standard. I had an opportunity recently to examine a whole bunch of bullets cast from Pope moulds and the 32 cal bullets ran from .319 to as much as .326 on the base band (exclusive of base band taper). There was a cluster of bullet diameters in the .321 to .322 range and the amount of base band taper on that group of bullets was as little as a couple of thousandths to over 6 thou.
According to Pope’s catalog, the bullet was supposed to expand to fully fill the bore upon firing. It’s a pet theory of mine, that he intended his rifles to be shot using duplex loads. That’s not a fact-based idea, it came to me over time as I learned more about his rifling system which included his duplex powder measure and the fact that a number of shooters I have known have had trouble getting their Popes to shoot consistently with straight smokeless powder.

Chuck
Just my guess but I think the barrel for the bullet drawing I posted would have had a bore diameter of .312 and the groove diameter would have been about 2 thousandths less than the diameter of the flare on the bullet base (barrel groove approximately .324”). That is a guess however, since the specific rifle for that Pope bullet is unknown. If  I am correct about the bore and groove diameters, that bullet loaded with a duplex charge, would have bumped-up nicely to fill the barrel upon firing. It would probably work well with a straight smokeless charge also.
I have never had an opportunity to examine a Pope rifle that had the original mould still with it, to compare bore and groove diameters with bullets from its original mould. To further complicate matters, Pope bullets for muzzleloading had less taper from base band to wiper band than bullets intended to be breech seated.
There are lots of folks out there who know far more about Popes than I, so if some one is more knowledgable, please jump in and set me straight.

From the several .32 cal Pope molds that have had bullets cast and measured from them, it's obvious that they weren't cut from a cherry.  Each one is so different.  So were they lathe bored on a foot pedaled lathe?  Knowing from reading that Harry was a skilled craftsman, I wonder how accurate he could have been taking those inside bored measurements?
I once talked to Paul Jones, who I think is one of the best mold makers around, and he told me that when coming back in with the tool he uses too cut the nose shape that he can only be accurate to within a couple of thousandths.  I would think his lathe is a lot more solid than Harry's.  It would have been fun to watch Harry work.  Bob