that butt plate is pretty cool. I saw one with an ebony insert, but it was not half so well fitted as that one looks. Really appealing rifle, ain't it?

calledflyer wrote on Jun 9^th, 2023 at 10:16pm:


I've seen some with ebony, horn, or skeletonized too. I have another Roller I built on an original action, and I did a skeletonized buttplate on it. I wont ever do another! It was tedious work to fit all those internal shapes!

Someone knows who built it.

Thought I posted this yesterday, but it went away.  Here is my spin on the 12 groove barrel.
 
The 12 lands and grooves got my attention.  I thought immediately of Farrow.  Many of his barrels had 12 lands and grooves.  Mine does.

Farrow did not just magically appear as a barrel maker.  Someone, maybe more than one person, taught him.  Farrow worked under contract for all of calendar year 1884 for Bullard in Springfield, Mass., but late in 1884, finances & external issues caused Bullard to cease production and lay off their employees.   

Farrow had access to Bullard machinery and knew the key production men, the chief stockmaker, chief barrel maker, chief machinist, etc.  Farrow had ideas about his own action and barrels, but the key production guys knew how to make the components.  I think Farrow employed those guys to teach him to make barrels.

Farrow's prototype rifle was demonstrated in April, 1885, about 6 months after the Bullard layoff. Going from memory, it had a 12 groove barrel. I don't think the barrel on the prototype was the first barrel Farrow (or probably his instructors) made.  The earliest Farrow barrels had "Farrow Arms", etc., hand-engraved.  The "Farrow Arms Co." stamp did not come around until much later.

My guess is that the barrel on Val's rifle came out of the Bullard shop in the winter of 1884-1885.

The Farrow connection, or Bullard is interesting, and I didn't know about the 12 groove barrels by Farrow either.
I had considered the possibility that someone at some time had purchased a 12 groove false muzzle barrel, and it might have been set aside by the owner, and never used. Then later in an estate, or just cleaning out spare parts the barrel got sold, and someone bought it to build this Rolling Block with. 
Of course it's all guessing, and conjecture, and no way to really know when this gun, or it's barrel were made, or when they got together?
I can tell from some fading in the blued octagon barrel near the muzzle end of the barrel that it appears to have been fired a fair amount. The fading is in the last 5"-6" where someone might grasp the barrel when starting a bullet down the bore. So I don't think the build is a fairly new build, but how old is impossible to say.

My source is the 2002 edition of "Bullard Firearms" by Jamison, not the earlier edition.  Bullard did not go out of business in late 1884.  They simply stopped production because they could not meet payroll.  That had to do with financing and other interests of the owner, maybe steam-powered automobiles.   

All the tooling, etc., was left in place.  And Bullard had an inventory of parts on hand, ready to resume production.  That probably included lots of barrels, maybe even unrifled barrels.  Bullard barrels came in several sizes and calibers.

Here is where my ideas jump in.  Farrow had the idea to use 12 groove rifling.  Bullard's key staff were paid by Farrow, used Bullard barrel blanks (paid for by Farrow) that were rifled to Farrow's specs.  More heresy!  Maybe those guys produced all the barrels that Farrow ever used, be they .32s or .38s or .22s.  Maybe Farrow never rifled a single barrel, but simply used up the stock he bought from Bullard and paid Bullard's key guys to rifle, or came back and ordered more.

Farrow's deal with Bullard management was beneficial to both.  Farrow paid for materials used and probably for machine maintenance.  By employing Bullard's key staff, he made it possible for Bullard to resume production in an efficient manner once financial problems were solved.

Farrow's was not the only use being made of the Bullard shops in 1885.  In August, 1885, the Bullard single shot was announced to the public, as a target, sporting, and gallery rifle, available in .38, .32 and .22 caliber.  It used many Bullard repeating rifle parts.  The gallery rifle was available in .22 rimfire.

Back to Vall's barrel:  My guess is that it could have been made at the Bullard plant during the winter of 1884-85 and was rifled to Farrow's specs.  It was apparently long enough to end up with a false muzzle.  We don't know if it was chambered then or later.  Nor, if it came from Bullard, do we know who sold it or who bought it.

They opened again in late 1885 and began producing the single shot.  They quit producing anything in mid-to late 1888.   

They were competing with the Winchester Single Shot and with the Winchester 1886 repeater.  Their economic goose was cooked.   

The founder, James Bullard, left the firm in July or August 1885, and took his money with him, never came back.  After that, he worked on developing a steam-powered car and invented an early speedometer.  He was a modernist and saw more opportunity in transportation, etc.

Bullard Firearms never had more than 15 men working in production.  Even in 1883-1884, when things were going well, Bullard pulled men off of gun manufacturing to work on his prototype steam car.

He left his brother holding the bag.