ML marked PU sniper

I bought an IZZY PU sniper dated 1944 from a close friend who made a hefty profit on it (all the more power to him) He got this one as soon as they became available many years ago. It has a very small import mark on the passenger side of the forward end of the barrel typical of early imports. The receiver is a pretty standard marked affair with one oddity. It has ML stamped into it between the date and serial#. I've been through a massive amount of dead tree material and surfed the internet extensively and have found no reference to this marking. Did I over look something? Could any of you fellows help me with this marking? Many thanks for your time-SDH

PS: I realize I have asked other questions regarding this rifle and may have left this one out, please forgive me, the brain cells are leaving faster than they are being renewed:help:

Could it be an MO mark that is not complete?

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Pics taken from 7.62x54r.net

Naw, its a pretty sharp ML, I just can't figure it out. There may be a very small chance the L may actually be like a squared C, but I do mean square, M/T-SDH

Might be nothing - just an inspection stamp. Can you post a pic?

Could well be my friend, I will post as soon as I can, maybe a day or so. I'm a little puzzled because from what I am told there is no "L" in the Russian alphabet? I wish I knew-SDH

There is an "L" sound in the Russian language, but it looks something like "^" or a lower-case cursive "r". There is no character though that matches the english "L", so it is probably something else mis-stamped.

Ok, I finally got a long enough break to take a few snap's of the ML marked PU. Please take a hard look and share your thoughts-M/T-SDH:D

Hmm.. I'm not sure what to make of it? Perhaps marked by whichever country last owned the rifle?

Could well be, Its not the standard marks you'd find on that type of rifle. I also found a 52 inside a circle on the stock. Maybe year of re-build?-SDH

Just an observation, but there is a serial number on the left of the receiver, and it looks like it starts with an ML (not done on Russian Mosins). Perhaps the country that owned the rifle after Russia, did not use the cyrillic alphabet, so they replaced it with an L (which is what that character translates to in the Latin alphabet), therefore the serial number may be ML5838. They probably superimposed the ML above the Mn so that they could write it down in the books. I'm curious what country would have done this. Poland, Hungary, East Germany and Romania don't use cyrillic characters - they use the Latin characters. Probably one of them.