Printable View
I have a Quality Hardware M1 that was refurbished at the Augusta Arsenal. It has AAV stamped on the left side of the stock near the rear sight. I seem to remember that the V is a date code. I used to have a list of the codes, but I lost it.
I tried the search function, but come up with nothing. Does anyone have this info?
BTW, at my age I tend to remember things that never happened, but I am pretty sure about this.:p
Thanks.
V would be the inspector's code. If the inspector is known or if a date of tenure is known , it could be used as a rough date id'er .
Chris
For what it's worth, I saw an Underwood at a gun show on Saturday that was marked AAW. - BobQuote:
Originally Posted by emmagee1917
You see AAW a lot. I have one with AAK. I don't know of a list of inspectors at Augusta and periods of service, but it would be cool to have.
The more I think about it, I am sure that the V is a date code. I had the info on my computer, but lost it when it crashed. What I remember is the code started with AAA. The last A being the month
of the first year the refurb program started. AAK would be the 11th month. I go this info from an old milsurp forum that no longer exists. It was a scan of a page from an old book on carbines.
Think about this. How many inspectors could Augusta have had?
I have this list of Inspector Codes but am not computer literate enough to sort out the Carbine stuff from the rest !. Might be of some help to someone ??. Mike U.S. Inspectors Markings
They could've had quite a few. Remember the "old" way was to use a stamp of the head inspector ,let's say Frank J Atwood , or FJA , and everyone inspecting would use his stamps. They would stay in place as long as he did and they were used at all the plants in his district at the time ( including , in this case , but not limited to , Remington , Smith Corona and Savage ) . I was told the AA? code was for each man on the line so they could come back to him personaly . This would mean multiple stamps in use at once and a fairly rapid turn over I would think with a few being used for a longish period of time ( ergo , the reason some are fairly rare and others quite common ) .
Chris
Here's a couple more sources.
Inspectors Stamps
Images of U.S. Military Inspection Stamps and Other Items
That list of inspectors requires some correction, example SPG is NOT Samuel Green but Stanley Gibbs and Col Robert Sears also inspected Winchester M1 rifles during 1941 his cartouche was WRA RS