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It is true that Pope used two-piece stocks on his rifles and achieved wonderful accuracy - for his time. But Pope's rifles didn't shoot into the 0.4s and 0.5s regularly at 200 yards like today's best target rifles can do. The famous Rowland group, shot in 1901 with a Pope Ballard, stood for well over a century as the smallest group ever shot with a cast bullet Scheutzen-type rifle. It was a 10-round group measuring 0.722" center to center, shot at 200 yards. It was fired from a Pope machine rest.
Clearly Pope's standard of accuracy would not cause even a raised eyebrow at one of today's benchrest matches with their plastic stocks and custom actions shooting jacketed bullets. But in the early 20th century, it was phenominal.
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