Are the serial #'s complete or just the last 3 digits ?

4. Digit.  about 1945.       Ledball

IIRC, the only one I've personally fired was also in the 1800 range.

Lord Have Mercy for my wallet ... such beautiful wood on the Pope Rifle

Jack, the Ballard is less than 40 numbers from your Low Wall

oneatatime wrote on Jan 31^st, 2021 at 7:42pm:


I think you're quite correct Chauncey! I read somewhere that for some jobs where Pope made up batches of a certain repetitive barrel that he numbered outside his normal system. 
I've just wondered where he started at? I doubt he built 800 something .22 Krag barrels.

Thanks Laurie!
So does this mean they were in a serial number range, but within the Stevens-Pope range of serial numbers?

I'm not privy to Warren Greatbach's work.  From everything I've read to date, there appear to be just under 2,000 numbered Stevens-Pope barrels of all calibers.  The numbers on the surviving .22 rimfire Krag barrels that I know about just doubled: 832, 893, and now 900 and 903. That's a spread of 71.   

Given that these were made early in the Stevens-Pope period, and that if you were going to make them, it would be most efficient to make a batch, they were probably numbered sequentially.  How many were made?   

They were used by the National Guard units in 3 states and DC, and in sufficient numbers that they were used as intended, improved the marksmanship of all 4 organizations, and attracted the attention and ire of the Army bigshots, it was more than a few.

In "The Springfield 1903 Rifle", Brophy tells us that the State of Pennsylvania ordered 110 Stevens-Pope barrels for their Krags. If Pennsylvania ordered 110, how many did the other National Guard organizations order? 

In "The Krag Rifle Story", p. 188, Mallory & Olsen show a photo of the bottom of a Stevens-Pope barrel with serial number 1441.  In the caption, they wrote "High serial number indicates that many more .22 Krag barrels were made by Stevens than by Springfield."   

In "The Krag Rifle", Brophy tells us that Springfield made 841 complete .22 rimfire Krag rifles or barreled actions.

Al that leads me to believe that the Stevens-Pope .22 rimfire Krag barrels were numbered sequentially, but that the numbering now stretches to (1441-832) more than 609.  Were they a separate series?  Were they more than 1/3 of all the Stevens-Pope barrels made?  Why are there so few survivors?

Adding to the confusion, here is Stevens-Pope barrel # 1065.  Owner says it has a flaming bomb mark indicating US property.  Did National Guard units mark theirs?  If the State of Pennsylvania ordered 110 of them, how were they marked?

Amoskeag has 2 of these Popes coming up in their next auction.

Stevens - Pope Military Barrels;

And how do you know that Washington state did not purchase S-P barrels for their Krag trainers?

Bill Lawrence

I have a Stevens-Pope Krag barrel #1034