doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Another under lever Rolling Block

Not long after returning home from the CGCA show in Greeley, Co. I got offered an under lever Rolling Block from a fella, and since I've wanted a Gove style Rolling Block awhile, I grabbed this one! It took a very long time for FedEx to deliver it once it hit my local depot for whatever reason? They got it Monday at 2:49AM, and didn't deliver it until today! No excuses from the driver, and no explanation from FedEx either?
It's built on an original Rolling Block Sporting action, with the long lower tang, and original serial number on the tang. I figured it would be a reworked military, so this was a big surprise. The barrel is a false muzzle .32-40, with no markings anywhere under the forearm to indicate the maker? Unusual 12 lands and groove, with very narrow lands and grooves! Action is a single set trigger that works differently than the typical Rolling Block. It only sets once the hammer is cocked.
Wood and metal work are simply wonderful, and it has an original Rem. hard rubber buttplate. Need to do a chamber casting to see what it looks like and what size bullet I should load it with.

12 lands & grooves got my attention. A lot of Farrow barrels were 12 grooves. Mine is. Farrow appears to have been involved in some experimental barrel making, along with others who were teaching him, in the Springfield, Mass. area in 1884-1885, in the months before the first Farrow appeared. Farrow was employed by Bullard as a salesman, with the title of VP, on a contract covering Calendar Year 1884. In late 1884, Bullard Firearms was out of production due to financing problems, with most of the employees laid off, but their skilled men were still working on private projects, maybe using Bullard tools. Farrow was at least working with Bullard's key staff, maybe even employing them. That might be the time & location of origin of the barrel.

Don't know much about Rollers. I assume that an original action would be available in the 1884-1885 period. Is there any way to date the composition of the barrel steel?

Not sure there is, or if there is whether it would require removing any metal? About the only test I know of is a hardness test that could be done under the forearm.
Here's the false muzzle off the end of the barrel. It's of course tapered internally to allow it the bullet to start easily, and then full depth rifling as it enters the bore. Easier to count since I can see through it and it's definitely 12 groove.

If that false muzzle is meant to start a groove diameter bullet and engrave the rifling, do you have a leveled bullet starter? They don't seat by popping a push starter with your palm.

FedEx is a company of employees...and that explains the delay

Nice win Vall. I like it!

I clicked on the "detailed tracking" while waiting, and it showed the package arriving 6 times! And two occasions the arrival was one minute after a previous arrival. One time it arrived at 2:49AM Monday, and then 2:50, and then later it showed arriving again midday. Then the next day arriving around noon. Then it showed "early delivery" for Tue. and out on the truck for delivery. Next day Wed. it showed it couldn't be delivered due to "security delay" whatever the heck that was? Then arrival back at the depot at 4:45PM, and out for delivery again the next day.
Just the craziest, most convoluted bunch of misleading, and strange tracking I've ever seen! It was missing the windage globe front sight, and seller found it laying in his safe. So he's sending that USPS, and said he'll never ship anything via FedEx again. I learned long ago not to use them when they broke wooden shipping crates and damaged two nice rifles I shipped back East.

I have 2 false-muzzle rifles. Both false muzzles are smooth bored groove diameter deep enough to seat a groove-diameter bullet, either patched or lubed, with your fingers. But both my false muzzles are made to allow the bullet seater guide to slide over the false muzzle, keeping things aligned. Vall didn't show us the starter part of his false muzzle.

I have 1 such rifle. It is smooth at the mouth, but rifled where it meets the muzzle. It has a fitted plunger seater. It takes an excessive amount of pounding to seat a patched bullet. My palm would be sorely bruised if I tried to seat more than one. My bullets are 514 gr and 16:1.

IIRC, Pope (and maybe others) made a bullet starter that had dual levers, like one of those gizmos used to pull corks from wine bottles, only with the linkage reversed. Repeated poundings would not improve accuracy. I think that is what Brent was referencing.

Yes, that's exactly what I was referencing.

I'm not sure if Pope made the dual lever starters, but there was another guy that was rather famous for them along with finding ways to retrofit a rifle with a rifled, false muzzle and starter. His name is eluding me at the moment. Mine was built as a false rifle muzzle from the beginning by Bobby Hoyt using Pope styled rifling. But I did not go the levered seater route because I wrongly thought I could pushing one down without applying egregious beatings to my rifle. I was wrong about that, but now I use bore diameter bullets and shoot the rifle at long range.