Jerry Cleave and I were just talking about this yesterday, and his uncle Charlie made and sold over 300 of these tools in about 18 yrs. Jerry is at close to 50 already in about 1/4th of his uncles years.
I know of those you've mentioned, but not others? The big problem is that Charlie marked his, as does Jerry Cleave, but the others didn't. So with design being identical for so many, there's no way to tell who built what? I've got a half dozen of these tools, and only Jerry's are marked. The others all look identical, except for one that doesn't have straight slot screws, and has black button head Allen screws. But all of them (besides Jerry's) take the same thread shell holders too!

Of course we also know none of them (including Pope-Stevens) were truly Pope's design. The patent was issued to the actual inventor, whose name slips my mind? Chick something I think?

PS-Jerry's grandson is learning from him, and has made a couple I believe. So hopefully he'll be carrying the torch in the future.

Left to right;
C.S. Pool #34
G.A. Cleave #16
J.A. Cleave #1

Vall, did you mistype when you mentioned Charlie?  If you are talking about C Dell, AFAIK he always used those from Jerry (“Jake”) Simmons.  I have 3 of his, and as you would expect they resemble the original Pope and the Poole and Cleave versions at least at first glance. I have never seen an original Pope unit with interchangeable heads, and the Simmons units came with primer pocket scrapers on the ends of the handles.  I’ve heard a lot about the Allen unit but never actually seen one.  Supposedly it was very close to the Simmons, and in fact Pete may have made some of the later body castings for Jake. 

I think the original designer was Chick Martines, perhaps from San Francisco which was a hotbed of Schuetzen back then. I’ve only seen oblique references to this so I may be completely off.

BTW, back to the Simmons version, I used to sit on the tailgate of Jake’s old pickup at Etna Green and “solve the world’s problems”. Over the years I bought all of the shell holders and decap rods I’m likely to ever want or need except for the 32-20 WCF and 25-20 SS
shell holders. I’d jump on those in a second!

Keep that information coming folks.  Unshared knowledge dies with us!

Regards,
Charlie the Frog

No, I did not mistype that I know of? I believe Jerry's uncle, C.S. Pool was Charlie.

I keep my Jerry Cleave tool and the various pieces in a velvet lined case I found at an antique shop. They jewelry I can enjoy and use, but I like having a box fitting of the quality.

Chick Martinez was from San Diego I believe, and held a patent for his tool, and would presume gave or sold the rights to Pope.

marlinguy wrote on Dec 7^th, 2022 at 11:09am:


Mea culpa, Vall. When I see the name Charlie in the midst of a discussion of the Golden Years of ASSRA, I default to Charlie Dell.   

Speaking of the tools Charlie Poole made, didn’t he also make some sort of self contained portable loading tool?  I seem to recall (with my admittedly sketchy memory) discussing such an item at an ASSRA booth at an NRA meeting a couple of decades ago. 

A problem with the Internet is that we read about something half a country away or more, and although it seems intimately familiar, we can’t actually see or possess one readily. 

I'm fairly certain Charlie Pool made breech seating tools, but I'd have to ask Jerry if he made any portable loading tools? Seems I recall he may have made some benchrest tools designed to simply seat a bullet similar to the old Ballard bullet seating tools?