It is not terribly unusual for dies to create a "ghost" strike when hit hard, as the die would tend to bounce and come back down onto the metal slightly off where it was originally struck.
That being said, I too worry about what I'm seeing on the barrel. It looks like the serial number was "freshened" using a slightly different font of numbers. Artificial "halos" were then added to make it look original. The C/M proof also looks buffed and not at all sharp by comparison.
I say a reblued barrel, which was then freshened to look original.
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