Swiss 1900 Serial Number Range...?

[Ron Wood]

Unfortunately Pete, I am afraid that that relieved bevel is not a â??markerâ?� for wide-trigger models. If you compare the profile pictures in Bobba of 4124 (wide trigger) on page 92 and 1420 (narrow trigger) on page 82 and you will see that they both have rather shallow relief cuts. As a matter of fact if you look at most of the earliest Swiss in that book you will note that the relief is quite small and also that there is slight but noticeable variance in the size of the relief on different guns. After you brought this to my attention, I looked through my collection and noticed that the earlier pieces tended to have slightly shallower relief bevels than later models, but even then there are variations and exceptions, even within the same model. It is almost as if the cutting of this bevel was a hand operation during finishingâ?¦a quick hit on the cutting wheel to set the bevel. It probably wasnâ??t that haphazard but there are enough differences, both in my collection and in pictures I have looked at to make me wonder. Another thought to take into consideration is that the purpose of this bevel is to aid in easing in the trigger spring when installing the trigger. It would be extremely odd to eliminate this bevel on a wide trigger since the width of the trigger would exacerbate the difficulty in compressing the spring for installation.