Bill Lawrence wrote on Jul 17
th, 2018 at 9:11pm:
Thanks, marlinguy, for directing me to the photoset. It leads to a question, which may just somehow be related to the Stevens stamp: Just how often did our Harry supply more than one mould with a rifle?
Also with regard to the Stevens stamp (it bothers me, too), is it possible that Pope rebored the barrel on top of a Stevens' rebore? Or better yet, since the serial number stamped on the barrel is slightly smaller and in a slightly different font than the number on the receiver, is it possible that the barrel is actually a replacement barrel made by Stevens and numbered to the gun (I do believe I've heard of such) which Pope, again, rebored?
Bill Lawrence
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.