doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Two John Dubiel Winchester Model 52's

Randle was part of 8 US Dewar teams, while Pope was part of 3 teams - 1932, 1938, and 1940. In 1939 Pope went to the UK with the US Pershing Cup team. See photos below.

US Dewar Team, 1932
Pope on 3rd row, 4th from left. Randle on 2nd row, 2nd from left.


US Dewar Team, 1938
Pope on front row, 5th from left. Randle on back row, 1st on left.


US Dewar Team, 1940
Pope on 3rd row, 2nd from right. If you look close, you can see they're getting rained on!


Randle was given a pre-production Remington Model 37 in September 1936, and used it to win (beating Pope) the October 10-11, 1936 Oklahoma State Small Bore Championship. Randle, however, was not happy with the 37's stock, and provided feedback to Remington that by 1940 resulted in the "Randle stock". By at least 1938, Pope was also shooting a Rem 37, in addition to "Dinny", but with a custom (Dubiel?) stock.
See Pope Rem 37 thread:
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=601436

Finally, for those interested in Dubiel, Pope also had a Dubiel stocked and barreled Winchester 1885 22LR.
See Pope Win 1885 thread:
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=601424

In the Dec. 1930 AR, an ad selling Hoffman rifles as part of the bankruptcy made of point of saying that "All stocks were made by John Dubiel, the best stocker in America."

In the Aug. 1934 AR, NRA members were warned against doing business with Dubiel because he wasn't a "responsible businessperson."

This was followed by a Sept. 1936 AR note saying that Dubiel's deliveries were again acceptable, and that "He is without doubt one of the finest workmen in the business. We still wish to make it clear to our readers, however, that Mr. Dubiel, because of the quality of his work, is always busy, so that any material increase in the amount of business he is now doing will of necessity again result in delay in deliveries. .... We repeat, Mr. Dubiel is a master craftsman, and there is naturally a limit to the amount of work he can turn out, and neither he nor any other gunsmith wishes guns sent to him unless preliminary arrangements have been made by correspondence to have the work done."

It sounds like Dubiel was in high demand, and not charging enough!

According to Michael Petrov, author of Custom Gunmakers of the 20th Century (©2013), "I have seen a lot of stocks made by John Dubiel from the early Hoffmans to his last ones at Ardmore and all are first class. His inletting is just outstanding and it's not very often that this much attention to detail is seen. .... There may have been other custom makers who could make a stock as well as John Dubiel but there were none better."

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And now for the rest of the story: It turns out that Pope's grandson, Robert Paxton, isn't so much into rimfire shooting, but does seem to be a pretty good skeet shooter:
In Conversation: Robert Paxton