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Randy, I tried to have a look, but your thumbnail pics don’t enlargr properly when selected.

Art, your questions have been answered - I corrected the typos!

It just so happens that today I made an ammo comparison test with my WIN94 in 32-40. This rifle was once inspected by an expert shooter with a professional endoscope (NOT a cheapo borescope). His...

Dusty, you need to toughen up a little. Try some of my 200-350 year-old BP rifles, and you will learn the truth of the old saying “handsome is as handsome does”. That bore has plenty of substance,...

Yes, Winchester component. Looks like the W was applied after the flaming bomb, as the leading stroke of the W has pushed in the outer ring of the bomb.

Magnifico! Wunderbar!

Some places for a very careful look:

1) Remove the buttstock. There should be a serial number marked on the lower tang.

2) Look very carefully at the top of the barrel just in front of the...

The old warning bears repeating: if it’s too good to be true, then it’s not true.

"Collector" is a description,not a qualification. And the "collector" who advised you does not appear to be an expert, but is in fact disqualified as such by the statement that a 1915 DWM would not...

Sources:
"Sharps Firearms" - Frank Sellers.
P.84 shows a New Model 1863 Carbine. Serial No. C29105. No patchbox. But no info on a changeover date.

"Civil War Sharps Carbines & Rifles" - Coates &...

I know the feeling:

„It‘s all there - the trick is to find it!“

There is a misprint!

It is obviously supposed to list the markings, going round clockwise, taking the manufacturing code as 0 degrees.
So the sequence should be 0, 90, 180, 270 (not 240).
Check:...

There is an old expression "pulling up the plant to see how the roots are growing."

Not a good idea for plants - or for perfectly functioning machinery!

Look very carefully at the C of MMMC. I cannot find anything Brazilian with PMMC

BUT

Could it be a "G"? The bottom right corner seems somewhat more squared off than the corresponding corner on...

The very detailed description I had in mind seems to have vanished from the web. But all you have to do is search for "PU scope" and you will find plenty of contributions - even a YouTube video.
...

... which sounds ghastly, but may actually have preserved the wood very well underneath!

- Search for "treacle rifle" for examples of the before and after states of painted rifles.

Eagerly...

Someone didn't like that rifle, and had a go at it with a sword or bayonet - an axe has a greater wedge effect, and would have removed chips between the cuts.

The cuts are parallel and close,...

Barrels being reworked and then added to the stockpile on the assembly line sometime later?
Yes. it's a theoretical possibility. Although I imagine that the barrel would only have been stamped if it...

"...for 130 years old I consider it amazing."

Very true. A "top Trap" indeed!

GSM44, I am sorry if you found my post unhelpful.

I was just trying to illustrate that any correlation between receiver numbers and barrel dates is of a statistical nature, not a rigid rule. The...

I am an optimist when it comes to old rifles. But even my optimism has its limits. I think I'd give that one a miss.

"Slightly more recoil" is the clue. Similar to handguns (where it is more noticeable). While the bullet is travelling down the barrel, the barrel is pivoting upwards, as the axis of the recoil force...

So there I am, it's 1918 and I'm screwing barrels into receivers just as fast as I can. There's a war on, don't cha know?

So I grab the next one out of the stack and fit it just as fast as the...

It's not Haneka - it's HAWEKA. The 3rd letter is a W, not a curly N!

Search for Haweka Zielfernrohr!

I have seen this “style” of damage several times, and regret to have to say that those scars look like the result of a barrel with a rusted front end being scoured out by a wire brush rotated in a...