Thanks Waterman. I had thought that Bullard production may(?) have started a year or two prior to 1885, but I'm not sure. In any case, it's always interesting to me that examples survive and a small handful of folks have the passion to do some research. 

I had corresponded a while back with the Bullard books author. It stuck me as interesting, that there seems to be a similar number of surviving rifles per every estimated one hundred rifles built, that you had seen while recording Farrow rifles.

Were there any pistol actions made along the lines of the farrow action? Seems like it would be a sweet handling gun if so.
Thanks,
Mike

I think all of the long actions were made or at least finished in Morgantown, W.Va.  My spin on the Farrow chronology is this: 

1: He made the prototype and maybe a couple of "regular" rifles in Springfield, Mass.   
2:  Then he moved to Brattleboro, VT, maybe in late 1885.  He stayed in Brattleboro for just under 2 years.  He made a few rifles in Brattleboro, maybe the ones that have very low SNs.  Norman Brockway put one of his ML barrels on a Farrow action, and the Cole rifle was made there.   
3:  In late 1887, Farrow moved to Holyoke, Mass.  I think that is where most of the short actions were made.   
4:  About 1891, he moved to Tennessee.  I don't think he made any rifles there. I think Abby simply pitched a fit and made life miserable.   
5:  About 1893, he moved to Morgantown. Just a guess, but I think any action with a SN in the 80s or higher was made in Morgantown.   
6:  Farrow moved to Washington, DC in 1897 and that was the end of the competition rifles.   

I'm looking forward to reading what Joe Ruth has to say.  Hope I can afford his book.  My rifle $$ were in the stock market.

rodneys wrote on Mar 21^st, 2020 at 9:58am:


So it is self-published?  Who is the author?  Joe Ruth?  And is there a title for the book?

And those are just my ideas about when Farrow built stuff.  Nothing there to die on the cross for.

Went to the Blurb site, found the book.  Joe's classification of the models & their sequence makes a lot of sense.  He lists & describes 28 Farrows, at least half without serial numbers.  I'm with Rodney.  90 bucks is a lot for 34 pages.  Nobody who is not totally into Farrow is going to buy it.  I'm totally into Farrow & Farrows, but I can't afford it.  $90+sales tax+shipping.

The costs of printing books have gone through the roof.  Anything of good quality but specialty interest is not going to be cheap.  Check your local college bookstore on textbook prices, and realize that about the population of one good-sized class using that textbook is likely to be about the total market for a Farrow gun book.

And then there is the cost of locating and traveling around to see and photograph the pieces scattered in collections around the country.  If Mr. Rowe makes a McDonald’s manager’s wage out of the Farrow books he sells, he’s probably doing well.  If they don’t all sell, likely he’ll take a bath on that title.

Of course, if Mr. Rowe could see fit to lard the book’s pages with a sex&violence saturated back story of Milton Farrow as The Punisher, saving the world and its fair damsels from bad guys with his patented deadly accurate single-loading sniper rifle (see photos and descriptions), it would likely be a best-seller, and the individual book price would come down. 

In any case, the people who will surely profit from the book will be the Farrow collectors.  No surer means of amping up the interest (and price) of a “collectible” exists than writing a book about it.

Farrow was not able to sell all his rifles.  During WW1, Farrow had a contract (at one of his DC addresses) to make some sort of rifle cleaning solvent for the military.  He needed working capital and sold stock (or tried to) in the Farrow Arms Company.  The purchaser of a larger than average number of shares was rewarded with a Farrow rifle.  I have no idea how many such sales were made, if any.  That could be the source for rifles suspected of having been made from reject castings.