I listed this for sale on GB, but the response has been ho-hum, with yawns. The pros are it's Pope barrel, bullet moulds, false muzzle and starter, all matching. The bore is bright and shiny in 28-30 Pope. Cons are the refinish and lack of iron sights or scope, missing palm rest and loading rod. It does have the breech seater though.
So what I'm wondering is whether or not a prospective buyer would pass on it due to the issues it has, or the fact that it's a Pope would outweigh it's detractions. I feel sights and a palm rest are easily replaced, but the numbers matching accessories, not so much. I wouldn't post it here in the Sale section only because it would have to go to an FFL and I'm a private seller.

Gunfunpow wrote on Jul 17^th, 2018 at 3:13pm:


Pros greatly outweigh the cons--as often as not, ALL the accessories have been lost, esp. the false muzzle.

GB is NOT the place to sell such a piece, & no FFL is needed to ship.

You have every right to brag, marlinguy, but I at least hardly call less that $10K total, especially when including your Pope take-down set, a going market price.

Also, where are the photos of the accessories, etc.?  Is there a third post somewhere?  Or have my eyes and brain finally cashed in their few remaining chips?

Bill Lawrence

Bill Lawrence wrote on Jul 17^th, 2018 at 8:32pm:


Sorry Bill! I went to his auction on GB and saw the accessories. Then forgot where I saw them and my feeble memory told me they were in the other part of his 2 part post.

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Hate to sound like I'm bragging, but my bicep won't fit in the plate, especially when I grasp the lever. Not really sure about shooting this rifle anyways as the rolling blocks and the billinghurst style rifle I'm building are taking up most of my time. Also, why would this rifle not need to go through an FFL?

Wow, just got done looking over the for sale pages. Found a complete Ballard sight set in it's original case for only $4500.00. So you can find original sights for it!! If you needed them that is.

Redsetter wrote on Jul 17^th, 2018 at 9:59pm:

Depends on your state.  Ammo still commercially available could trigger FFL requirements. 

Bill Lawrence wrote on Jul 17^th, 2018 at 9:11pm:


I wondered the same things Bill! But if it was a rebarrel at Stevens, then it would need to likely be a .22 barrel. Then Pope would have had to rebore to a larger caliber that would clean up the Stevens bore and allow enough metal to rifle and chamber it in the .28 caliber? Not sure a .25 caliber would be enough metal left for Pope to rebore and re-rifle? Especially since at that time frame Pope wasn't working for Stevens, and Stevens used right hand twist, while Pope used left hand twist.
Then there's the question of why someone would have Stevens put a new barrel on, and then soon after have Pope bore and rifle it to another caliber? All strange stuff.
Since the .28-30 Stevens didn't come out until around 1900, and Pope left Hartford to go to work for Stevens a bit more than a year later. Why would he have done the barrel of such a new caliber so soon?
If it wasn't for the Hartford stamp, I'd understand if he'd done it later when he was in Jersey City. My thoughts are that maybe it was a .22RF Stevens marked barrel, and fitted to the Ballard much earlier. Then later sent to Pope and opened up to .28 caliber, and the HM Pope and barrel number 127 added when he did his work.

But considering all Ballards are antique vintage, and whatever .28 this one is wont be able to buy factory ammo for, it's certainly classified "antique" by ATF and not subject to ANY FFL transfer.