Oldbee wrote on Mar 27^th, 2025 at 8:23am:


Had to chuckle just because that's my Pope Ballard set, and me telling my friend Ron about it at our annual long range shoot.
Going to miss those shoots as we had our last one last October after the property owner died.

Oldbee wrote on Mar 27^th, 2025 at 2:08pm:


Any Pope Ballard with Pope's patented takedown system will be extremely rare! I've only seen one other, and it was a single barrel. As far as I know mine is the only multi barrel Pope takedown system rifle.

My friend Mo does all the Sagebrush Longshots videos that he and our friend made together. Mo also filmed all the shoots we had at The Happenz each year. I'm glad he did them as it at least allows us to look back on all the fun we had for many years!

Yes, it is that same rifle, and I've done a lot of research on the rifle and the original owner LG Pridy of Denver, and his time on the Denver Rifle Club as a shooter. I probably have a file an inch thick concerning Priday. 
LG Pridy was a barber in Denver, and shot on the Denver team when they set the new world record for a team for the year 1919 of 9956 points out of a possible perfect 10,000. Pridy was consistently the top shooter on the team almost every month that year.
LG Pridy died of consumption just before WWII, likely contracted through close contact with customers in his barber shop.

burntwater wrote on May 20^th, 2025 at 1:57pm:


Pope really never did much beyond making and installing barrels on rifles for customers. Even stock work had to be done separately by the customer, or pay someone else to do so.
Of course we know all the neat molds, scope mounts, and tools Pope built, but no cases. 
Tom Rowe believes the offhand stock on my 3 barrel set is the work of Henry Simmons who worked for Schoyen doing stocks for Schoyen rifles. I would assume whoever built the case for my 3 barrel Pope set was a Denver case maker. It has LG Pridy Denver, Co. on the silver nameplate near the handle. One barrel is a Hartford, and other two appear to have Jersey City type markings.
No molds were in the shooting kit that came with this set, so I have acquired two Pope molds in .32-40 and .28 Pope, and one early Ideal mold for the .22WCF barrel to complete the set.