oneatatime wrote on Aug 16^th, 2018 at 2:22pm:


Roberts was NEVER in the Army, NG, or any other military organization!  But he once taught school at a military academy where all the instructors wore uniforms & were referred to as "Major."  Afterwards, his friends, esp. Phil Sharpe, began calling him "Major" as a kind of inside joke, like the men referred to as  "Kentucky Colonels."  All this & more is related by his close friend Harvey Donaldson in "Yours Truly."

from Phil Sharpe's Complete Guide to Handloading;

It says in the artical above that Pope included loading data for each barrel. Do any of these papers still exist.

Randy, this may answer some of your questions;

I recall the first Hepburn pictured had formerly belonged to Dr. Hudson, but at the time was in the collection of Harvey Donaldson, who photographed it as an illustration for an American Rifleman article on old rifles and calibers, written in the 1930s.

The stock could have come with an extra forend, or Donaldson could have altered the forend for his own use.  A picture in Rowe’s book on Hepburns shows a Walker that Remington had made a new forend for in the 1920s.  Donaldson could have had a new one made by them as well.

Love these old photographs from the glory days! Imagine having a display rack of rifles out on the street as in the Lower store photo today! That picture of the doc's Pope rifle got me to wondering what the device that's protruding from the muzzle is. Does anyone know? Thanks for posting these photos, it's rare for me to see them so I really appreciate it.

This is one of my favorite photos, from Phil Sharpe's The Rifle in America;