doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com New barrel surprise

I'm on a wildcat binge now and am working on several rifle projects at once, including Dubiel and Hoffman recreations. I have finding a few dead ends and was really amazed to see a 300 Hoffman barrel for sale on ebay. It was advertised as a Hoffman barrel, which I kind of doubted, as it wasn't marked that way and didn't have completely typical Hoffman contours but it was of the period and had a perfect bore and Mauser 98 threads, so I snapped it up. The seller said it had the caliber engraved on a filed flat but that was it. I haven't ever seen a caliber engraved like that on a bolt action barrel.

Barrel

barrel

I put it in the shop and didn't think anything about it as I had to work several days but today I went down and unwrapped it. I thought it would be fun to find it was made by A. O. Niedner or Vernor Gipson but I'm not lucky like that. So I unwrapped it and rolled it into the light.

barrel

Well that’s nice. I hope it makes a sweet project!
It confuses me why someone would have taken such a rifle apart!?&$@?

I can't imagine what it looked like. I honestly have never seen a photo of a Mauser with a Pope barrel. I was going to use a nice 1909 Argentine action with expanded bottom metal from Sunny Hill for the really long 300 Hoffman, but now I feel compelled to buy a Granite Mountain magnum length. Guess I picked the wrong week to quit robbing banks.

Does it have all the Pope markings on the bottom of the barrel, number, date, twist, & his other marks? All of my '03 Pope barrels have these markings but no caliber mark.

It has stampings on the breech. I'll take note of those today and get back. they were isolated numbers, one of them I think was "73", and two other single digits.

The front sight has been removed, also. It has a turned down section with solder, mic'ing about .645. It would have been a simple banded front sight similar to an 03's sight. Any ideas on what sight he might have put on a Mauser barrel? I don't think an 03 sight is quite that large, don't they mic at about .625?

muzzle

Photos of the numbers on the breech.

breech


breech

In all the articles I have read about Pope and his barrels over many decades, I have never seen mention of a bolt action. Is it possible that someone reused a Pope barrel and installed it on a Mauser?

I have been searching and have found a couple of Seymour Griffin Mausers and several 1903's with his barrels. I think the barrel was built for a Mauser from the ground up, the heavy breech section is full length and the barrel is 24" long. I wonder about the caliber engraving on a filed flat - I've never seen that done before. It's obviously period engraving. I also wonder which front sight it had - I found an 03 sight in my shop and it's too small by about .020. Maybe one of the Redfields that didn't have a long rear ramp.

Ryan, which way is the twist and how many grooves? I have pictures of a Pope barreled bolt gun that I took at the Colorado Collector show for Tom Rowe. Tom would be a good source to reach out to for information. He has wrote a few books on Pope guns and is in process if one on Jersey City rifles. He is including in this book guns/barrels that were not known before this book and not made in Jersey City.
Bob

Right hand twist, 6 lands and grooves. I would say the lands are about 1/2 the width of the grooves, maybe a little less. I'll send some pics.