Bill Lawrence wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2018 at 12:15pm:


He didn't have to--Ray Smith did it for him. Possibly Smith picked up the story from someone other than Pope--Lucian Cary, perhaps.

Have to see if I can find Pope's statement about being an MIT graduate, and the only gunsmith with an engineering degree. It may have been an interview, or in a letter to some friend?
But Ray Smith did mention it. And supposedly his book was proof read and approved by Pope's family and close friends. At least he says it was in the foreword.

marlinguy wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2018 at 10:15pm:


Which means nothing; of all possible forms of evidence, "family tradition" is absolutely the LEAST reliable.  Almost every episode of Antiques Roadshow includes some BS family story that the experts explain is physically impossible.

Kelver said he attended a "special program" at MIT that lasted one year; "one year" of college courses generally means two terms, or about 9 months.

Gents,

The following are intended as questions, please do not misinterpret them as challenges.  Just wondering if the CAD program can compensate for the fact that the rifle is not held perpendicular to the camera and the effect that angular perspective has on length measurement?   Will it make much of a difference?  Can it be used to calculate the angle?  

I know I've had some really spotty success trying to determine length by seat of the pants measurements and comparisons of objects not perpendicular to the film, which have been attempted using a known object dimension as a baseline.  However, I can absolutely guarantee my brain does not have the acuity of a computer.

Re: touchup.  I thought that his coat sleeve being visible through the barrel was a dead giveaway.

Regardless, another wonderful photo of an unknown subject, obviously proudly holding a rifle, whose identity will likely go unanswered, just like some of those now modern ones containing our mugs.

A secondary question.  Do any of you prefer a rifle that balances perfectly on the palm rest?  I personally like the rifle to be a bit muzzle heavy.

Hayface

Hayface, I think it certainly affects the measurement being at an angle. But I've found you can still get very close. I've measured guns in my collection with images printed out from web sites, and found you can get extremely close transposing the dimensions from a printed image to an actual gun. You just need one known dimension like the receiver and then the rest can be proportioned from the image.
I'd be surprised if that slight angle made even 1/4" of difference. Likely much less.

Touchup? We might be seeing a reflection of his sleeve on a highly polished barrel finish?

Even back in my high school drafting classes we could (with a process that is slow and persnickity- and forgotten) scale photos of things if we had a couple of knowns or good ideas of what they ought to be. Nowadays, I haven't any doubt that CAD and similar can do it nearly perfectly and quicker by far. I'd trust the figures Frank supplied until proven wrong. 
Those drafting classes, by the way, were almost sixty years back. The method was used to produce drawings with perspective, but reversing the process gave measurements to make drawings of things not yet on paper. Wish I remembered how to do it sometimes. (not often).

I did a lot more measuring. To begin with, my first measurements where off. I remembered, correctly the the shank of the 44 1/2 is 1.5" but, I used that as the top of the receiver length. Measuring my 44 1/2's, the actual, top of the receiver is 1 5/16" long so, there is a error of 14% in those dimensions.

So, I started over using the distance from the bottom corner of the receiver to the top corner of the octagon, as pictured. That distance is 4.6" on my rifles.

I also enlarged the picture about 25%, over what I used before but, I doubt that it helped much because it blurs more too.

Using the new reference, I get the following:

Receiver length at the top = 1.315   

Receiver with barrel stub = 1.47

Barrel length = 17.75

Octagon = 6.56

Forearm = 7.56

Scope = 15.18

Mount spacing = 6.87

LOP = 11.5

You may think, while some of the measurements are right on, you may also think that some of those those dimensions just can't be, right? That's what I thought, too!

So, I remembered from some some source, that eye spacing is pretty standard. I looked that up and the average is 64mm or 2.52 (+/- .12 on the extreme ends). I measured his eye spacing and it came out 2.49.

This guy is of slight build. His body width is about 2 - 3" less than mine, across his arms and I'm 5'8". His upper and lower arm is also less than mine. I'm going to guess that he is no taller than 5'5".

So then, I would say that he had this rifle built especially for himself and that is why he appears to be so proud of it.

Frank