Thanks Frank, I added the unit, - strange about the C/B on Chris's and an absence of any crowned acceptance on yours, though I am sure this is right. With only a trends of "two" for this feature we can't offer much of a guess as to why or what is "normal".
I also linked both Chris's and yours in the research thread (in-bedded a link in your handles) to link to the respective rifle posts.
As for the S.W.# markings, I can't say I have an answer or even a guess of merit, Storz (146-150) is the only reference I noted, and it is very superficial and a bit confusing depending upon interpretation,- although the translation is far superior than for his M98 volume, it is still confused and he would have done everyone a favor by treating Steyr and Birmingham separately and not mingled them together as foreign contractors. Steyr/OWG of course would have been less of a problem for such work, OWG was at least the equal of the German makers in every respect, especially in 1875, but it seems the use of an English firm was more problematic. Storz isn't clear at all, probably he doesn't know or the records are incomplete or too technical to be useful in a book for collectors needs, but I suspect the S.W. numbers are Birmingham inspectors working for their German counterparts, which Storz states (obviously) that they didn't do hands on work (which is obvious and always the case, it is well known the firms provided workers that worked under his or their authority, this is mentioned many times in several books and completely general procedure in most modern states at the time - he also states that individual inspecting was essentially random and not thorough, this too is typical practice well through WWII. sample lots are tested, not every single component in every case), so it stands to reason the German inspectors would rely upon skilled English workers and probably had their own numbers for accountability.
Anyway, all guess work, even if we could get a large sample, but for our purposes, - mine anyway - Storz books could easily be half the size for my purpose, for such large, heavy and expensive volumes you would expect more, but in most things his content or subjects could easily be distilled into a few sentences (often cloudy sentences that leave a great deal to interpretation - still great books on subjects that until his effort relied upon even less, - mostly observations)
