Somewhere there is a H.M. Pope barreled single square bridge Magnum Mauser in the sharp shoulder .300 Hoffman Magnum that was purloined from a gunsmith friend's house in a divorce quarrel, his sons sided with their mother and when Dad was out of the house sold all the rifles in the place including some of mine. The rifle had two interchangeable Noskes, 2.5 and 4x, in a G&H mount that I had fitted by G&H to the same receiver holes as the original clumsy Niedner mount - today I would not consider such heresy. The rear square bridge is slotted for a peep sight that I think is still in my sight box. A serial number, as best I recall on the bolt, is 3662. The sons told me that after they realized some of the stuff was mine they tried to get the rifles back but that they had all burnt up in a fire - a likely tale. There was also (1) a cased H&H rebounding hammer toplever .500 black powder double; (2) a 7x57 pre-64 Featherweight Super Grade that Winchester had put together for me - you can imagine what this would be worth today, and it was a very nice rifle to boot; (3) a DeLuxe H&H fully engraved Magnum Mauser .300 Super Rimless (.300 H&H) ser. nos. 2465 and/or 13776; and (4) a cased Westley Richards double percussion rifle 31 bore ser. no. 8751. The boys missed one gun, a Holland & Holland 6.5x55 Norwegian Krag, and I still have it. In the twenty odd years since this disaster, I have not seen one of these guns show up anywhere.
