Originally Posted by
DaveHH
With all due respect Eddie, you missed the Inland mark on the trigger housing. Inlands are finished as an assembled unit. An Inland barrel and receiver will have an almost black finish and will have a shadow at the point where the barrel enters the receiver, this is where the band is moved to before the final finish is applied. The top of the receiver will also be sand blasted and have another shadow visible on the side where the rough surface and smooth surfaces meet. The number is a #5.4 which is a mid to late 1944 carbine. The trigger housing Inland mark is vertical which makes it probably original to the gun. You may just have a mostly matching carbine that has had the barrel replaced. The stock has what appears to be a cartouche just forward of the oval slot. It could be a Winchester stock as many Win stocks have zero markings in the left side cut out. Regardless, the checkering makes it a nice oddity and a zero collectable. The barrel definitely doesn't look like an Inland. They have a swaged on gas cylinder and it has a very distinct
looking seal at the front of the gas cylinder. Your barrel is probably from some other company or place. Not all barrels are marked beyond a proof mark . NPM proofs with a single punch mark. A Winchester barrel can have a faint W and a very faint Win Proof. Have you disassembled the trigger group and checked the hammer, sear and recoil plate? My inland is also a 5.4 and has a recoil plate mark that is almost invisible.