Broomhandle

[alvin]

These were pre-1922. The quality is better than wartime production, but not as good as those salt blued instances made in late 1920s and 1930s, let alone those early pre-1904 Mausers.

Thought about the lettering on panels again... "X" was probably a substitute letter for duplicate name initials.

Another myth that have never been resolved are under barrel markings. These two, s/n only 8 away, the general under barrel stamping have same layouts. But quite a few different symbols. Probably those symbol were used to identify inspectors,,, who checked what. That's a guess. Otherwise, no reason to have same layout and all those different symbols.