In one of Smoke's postings above, he quotes the Amoskeag catalog listing as including  "Pope made three barrels in this caliber, two sporting rifles and one Winchester single shot which he made for Lucian Cary." 

What do you suppose "sporting rifle" meant, perhaps bolt actions like Krag, which would sort of justify using a rimmed case wildcat?

There are some things about the rifle in this post that indeed are not the norm for a Sporting Rifle. But mainly the bulbous BSA forearm, and Schuetzen lever. Beyond that the rest would fit in with a Sporting Rifle just fine. 
But maybe the 3 guns referred to were more Sporting Rifles than bench rifles? And maybe nothing like the rifle pictured?

Appears the rifle was made for Hunting but on the other hand it doesn't. It appears to have a fold down front sight and a front sling attachment but there is nothing installed on the back. Pope did allot for his friend Lucian Cary but I haven't seen anything mentioned about Lucian being a hunter or going out with Pope to do the same. Pope also took a liking to his 30-40 Krag and one might tend to think he would have talked Lucian into also using the same.

Thank you Smoke my eyes are getting old and tired. It's a very nice piece of Pope history and it is also very unique.

That's very interesting, even with its minimal information. Since the issue is from 1905, Pope would've still been officially employed by Stevens.  Therefore, if this is the first .30-405 rifle, might Pope have been developing the cartridge for Stevens?  Also, while the "Stevens-Pope" rifle used was clearly capable of fine accuracy, the cartridge itself, especially with jacketed bullets, seems more likely to have been developed as a high-velocity hunting round, a goal which many shooters (and rifle-making companies) were working on  in those days.  In any case, it seems probable that this note references the first of the supposed three Pope .30-405  barrels, said barrel being mounted on a 44-1/2 action as well as used by Pope himself.  I wonder what happened to that rifle, especially as Pope left Stevens at the end of December, 1905?

Bill Lawrence

Here is a bit of data on L&R WA smokeless powder:

W-A .30 Calibre Powder was also known as .30 Caliber Smokeless, created originally by Whistler and Aspinwall for the Leonard and then the American Smokeless Powder Companies, for the 30-40 Krag government cartridge. It was not introduced to the public by L&R until 1898, even though it had been in production for the government since 1895. It consisted of yellow tubular or hexagonal grains .08” dia. X .04” and containing 30% NG. By 1898, all L&R powders seem to have been graphited. After 1900, the type two powder consisted of perforated black discs – (graphited) .08” dia. X .045”.

Hercules discontinued W-A .30 Caliber in 1930. A one-pound can originally cost $1.25. Thirty six grains was the standard load with a 220 grain bullet in the 30–40 Krag. It had a burning speed somewhere between that of Reloader 7 and Reloader 12.

Thanks Randy, that's a neat piece of history.

Pictured below are a case for .30-405, formed from .405 Win brass, a 168 gr. bullet, and the 7 shot, 100 yd, group shot with that bullet and 14.3 gr 4227.

I don't have a pic of the loaded cartridge because the friend who owns the gun shoots breech seated.