The mysterious and beautiful Marlin Ballard Pope Schuetzen rifles
Back at the tail end of the 19th century, shooting sports societies centered on hyper accurate rifles were all the rage in polite society. It was during this time that many Marlin Ballard rifles became heavily modified for use in these events, and many picked up finely tuned Pope Barrels to produce the uber rare Marlin Ballard Pope Schuetzen rifle.
Confused? Keep reading
What was the Marlin Ballard?
John Mahlon Marlin was a hard working gunsmith and businessman in New England in the 1870s, making Rollin White style revolvers. By 1873 the patents to the superb single-shot breechloading rifle of Charles H. Ballard of Worcester, Massachusetts were up for sale and a third party in New York, Schoverling and Daly, acquired the rights to the design. They soon put Ballard’s rifle in production with the up and coming Marlin firm.
While the Marlin Ballards are an interesting subject on their own, they are really fit for a whole ‘nother article. Suffice it to say that between 1876-1888 JM Marlin’s small factory churned out a number of Marlin-Ballard single shots in at least 20 models and subvariants chambered in every popular caliber of the day ranging from .22 short to .40-65 Everlasting and .44-90 Sharps.
To this base falling block style breechloader, we add a very nice custom target barrel.
Enter Mr. Pope
Another New England gun genius, Harry M. Pope, started simply as well, crafting his first barrel from scratch at age 12. An engineer by trade, he worked in a bicycle shop in before turning to barrels full time in the 1880s, which he made by hand– often from scrap and with nothing other than an old lathe and hand tools. He would spend two weeks or more creating a barrel and by the 1930s had made some 8,000 in this fashion.
But where these barrels any good?
Well, as retold in a 1934 article, “Once over a period of several days, he made 696 consecutive bulls-eyes at 200 yards and another time he placed fifty consecutive shots all within three and three fourths inches of dead center.”
For his custom Schuetzen style target barrels, he would guarantee all their shots into a 2 1/2 inch group or closer at 200 yards.
And when you add a Pope barrel to a Marlin Ballard you get something beautiful…
A custom Marlin Ballard Pope target rifle with shooters kit, late 19th century.Click to big up
But we are getting ahead of ourselves…