Val,
I've never heard of that but I do know that there was a barrel maker in the 1940's named Gregorie from New Haven CT that made high quality cut rifled left hand twist barrels, very similar to Pope.  A local gunsmith in New Braunfels by the name of George Klaus, built hundreds of guns over the years for the local Vereins.  His work is distinctive if you have seen a number of them.  Most of the rifles I know of were built in the 1940's thru the 1960's built with Gregorie or Sukalle heavy 22lr barrels.  These rifles are still prized possessions in the club today.  I've seen his work on Ballard, high and low wall's, 44, 44 1/2 and Winchester 52's up to the B model.
The point being that I wouldn't be surprised if these Gregorie barrels could have been used as liners to restore a damaged Pope barrel.   
I suspect that Pope would have marked his barrel in some way if he took a 2nd bite of the apple.
I own a false muzzle low wall, pistol grip single set trigger 28-30 that when it was 1st offered to me was claimed to be a "unmarked Pope".  I don't buy that story, but it's still a cool gun.
That's a long way around Harvey's barn to say if Pope didn't mark it, I wouldn't have much conviction in the story.