Ron
Well as usual I have opened Pandoraâ??s Box with my enthusiasm for the details; I apologize for clouding your post. I sometimes do audits for a big corporation and these things just jump out at me, I canâ??t help it.
With the box opened I would like to ask Dwight one question about â??Zâ??sâ? and hopefully not put everyone to sleep.
As you stated â??Zâ??sâ? would be used as worker marks, would the military officer in charge of the sighting in of the pistol been considered a â??workerâ? or an â??official inspectorâ??
If considered a â??workerâ? this would at least explain the hidden â??Zâ? stampings on some guns.
You are correct about the â??Aâ? reject stamp, but I feel this applies to parts and not to complete guns, otherwise we would have guns with the â??Aâ? stamping, to the best of my limited knowledge this never appears ( except for a few Swiss guns not related to this topic). Also if you read paragraph 13 page 123 you will see that complete guns were never stamped â??Aâ? but simply returned for repair until accepted, to me this explains why some pristine Lugers have had their barrels replaced ( double struck alignment marks). They simply got caught up in this never ending loop. It would be interesting research to see how many barrel replacements also have the hidden letter â??Zâ? stamp. Something to look for when the subject of double struck alignment marks comes up.
Interesting gun Ron!
Thanks for indulging my obsession for details.
Vern