Hollenbeck - Three-Barrel - Royal
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2026 8:46 pm
A question asked of me on another site caused me to tabulate the rifle calibers the Frank Hollenbeck designed drilling made in West Virginia came in from the ledger passed on to me by the late R.W. Harris. The ledger started with the Three-Barrel Gun Co. but includes the remaining inventory from the Hollenbeck Gun Co. and continues into the Royal Gun Co. It is 57 pages with 26 serial numbers per page but quite a few lines aren't filled in. At any rate it confirmed my feeling that of the ten cartridges in the ledger the .32-40 was far and away the most common with 878 with the .30-30 a distant second with 208. Third place was the .25-25 Stevens with 59 and fourth was .32-20 with 52. Fifth was the .32 Ideal with 26 and sixth was .25-20 SS with 24, followed closely by the .25-35 Winchester with 21. Rarer was the .25-36 Marlin with 10, .25-20 with nine, the .22 WCF with two and the rarest the .25-21 Stevens with one.
My father's old cigar box of rifle shells didn't have a .25-21 Stevens.