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

I've only shot them with lead bullets as nearly all of my shooting is with cast bullets. Have been competing in CBA matches for over 40 years. Have never shot any of the Pope's in a match.

Can you guys shooting Pope barrels on bolt rifles say something about groups you're getting and loads you're using?

Bill,

I haven't shot them that much and most of that was with the Pope designed Lyman cast bullet that had the big base and was tapered. But it turned out that that bullet while shooting great in issue 30-06 rifles with 10 twist, doesn't work very well with the 14 twist that Pope used in the jacketed bullet barrels. Working with a shorter & lighter bullet is something I haven't got around to yet. Dan

Dan which Lyman bullets did Pope design?

311403, it was an Ideal mold before Lyman took over.

I'm not sure my load data would be applicable since I shoot mine breech seated and not fixed ammo. So I have always used a bit more powder than those shooting fixed with the extra capacity a breech seated bullet uses. One of mine is a Pope muzzleloader barrel, so I seat the case with powder, and ML the bullets. Same extra volume as breech seating bullets, but still more powder than fixed ammo.
Mine are a 3 barrel Pope Ballard set with barrels in .32-40, .28 Pope Special, and .22WCF. Another Stevens-Pope in .32-40, and finally a Win. 1885 in .22LR Pope barrel. The .28 Pope Special is the ML barrel. These all shoot 1"-1.5" groups at 100 yds., except the .22WCF. I've played with it a lot with powder charges, but I only have two bullet molds that's a .224" and weighs 55 grs. and an Ideal 45 gr. mold I so far haven't gotten better than a 2" group with that barrel and bullet. My molds for the .32-40 and .28 Pope barrels are Pope molds, but my the other two are a Brooks and original Ideal for the .22WCF
My Ballard has Pope's 1888 patented takedown system to make switching barrels very fast and extremely accurate after switching.







.28 Pope mold




.32 Pope mold

[img]https://i.imgur.com/tlf1lsQl.jpg[/img]

That is kind of impressive. Thanks for sharing.