I've never personally owned a Hepburn, but the right one or three or four will follow me home some time. I'm not worried about it. Much as I can understand what a great action the 1885 is, I just perceive them as being relatively common. I wouldn't be overly broken up about stumbling on a bargain original Sharps '77, but I suppose I'm not holding my breath on that one.
Besides being common, the 1885 was also very late to the game. One of the last single shot rifles to be offered by an American gun maker. All the other makers had been at it for many years prior to Winchester finally buying Browning's patent.
And there's a fun story behind Winchester's evolution into single shot rifles. Their Western salesman sent a telegraph to the factory telling them he was having trouble competing with the other big sellers of single shot rifles because those single shot rifles chambered big heavy cartridges capable of taking the largest game easily. He went on to point out one gun in particular as a tough gun to beat. He said every hunter he ran into was carrying a Ballard Pacific out West. I have no idea if the salesman was exaggerating, but the Pacific certainly was the best selling single shot rifle out West, and one of Marlins best selling of the many Ballard variations.
In the Jan. 1896 issue of Shooting and Fishing magazine one reader wrote, "We riflemen want a double set trigger rifle about the lines of a Ballard Pacific, and don't let the manufacturer forget it.-wiping rod under the barrel and all."
That was 6 years after Marlin had ceased building all Ballard models.
