It Appears The Most Restored Commercial

[m1903a3]

Originally Posted by DavidJayUden

Ron and Eric:
Why no halos? Numbers struck before bluing?
dju

That is correct. The early pistols were fully serialized before bluing, hence had no halos. Sometime shortly after the beginning of production for the second navy contract the practice changed to bluing the barrels before they were assembled and serialized. So, ones made after ~1908 have halos on the barrel s/ns.