I see where you are going. I was thinking 'small', like Mainz from the photo in post#2, but seeing the latest shot, that FP is a mess. Someone who really studied depot anomalies might recognize this.Gman06, can you get us a clear straight on pic of the firing proof on the barrel?
Thank you for the input, let me know if these are what you’re looking for. The circle might not be anything just thought I was seeing stuff staring at it so long.Spare barrels from 44 (or even after 1941) are very rare. I have seen exactly one, a cxm44 used on an LZa4 repair. It had no 0,2 that i could see. The mark was sometimes ground off by the Luftwaffe, but I didn't see any evidence of that. Very possible they stopped the short chamber marking later on. 0,1 and 0,3 are very rare and it may be they just made them all to 0,2mm after some point.
IMO, this looks like period work. Being late, it may just be an oddity. Mainz seems like a goid guess from the small FP, but I would still like to see a good picture of the grip area behind the rear action screw.
I wondered about this too. It really looks to me like their FP with the 37 hand stamped (you can't see they're not quite aligned) using small part stamps. I wonder how the height of those digits compare with other small part serial numbers?@RyanE, I went through pics of most of my late Sauer barrels on my k98k examples and I don’t see any of them with the large eagle 37 like @Gman06 has on the bottom of his example? It looks like a Sauer firing proof to me but the 37 is pretty big. Is that possibly consistent with late sauer supplied spare barrels to repair depots? Have you seen that before? It should indicate that the barrel was “fire tested” and approved by JP Sauer or am I on the wrong track here?
Yes, the 37 is definitely not part of that FP stamp. That was hand stamped separately and after that FP. Perhaps it’s some kind of identifying number done by the depot? Knowing how the Germans were with their record keeping and details, it wouldn’t surprise me that it must of coincided with some kind of record keeping. Now I’m just speculating here, so if somebody knows better please be my guest.I wondered about this too. It really looks to me like their FP with the 37 hand stamped (you can't see they're not quite aligned) using small part stamps. I wonder how the height of those digits compare with other small part serial numbers?