Research assistance requested ........

[Harlan (Deceased)]

Hello Ian,

This is a very interesting thread. Respectfully, I would completely disagree with the assumption that any damage/marks would likely have occurred during wartime days given their extensive exposure in private hands.
(At least in the case of milsurp weapons in the USA).

These rifles have been in private ownership for decades, and most were very inexpensive when they were surplussed out of our government armories care, or imported from foreign nation's armories.

They were put into open top wooden barrels at hardware stores and such, and people banged them into each other as they rummaged through them to pick out the one they wanted. Sadly, great numbers were 'sporterized' and turned into inexpensive hunting rifles, and many more were used as a 'utility gun' on a farm, etc because they were so inexpensive.

They were so abundant for a period that few people imagined that they'd be valuable as collectibles someday, so it was common to see them abused -
Many were stored bare behind, or under, pickup truck seats with bare metal floors, or used for 'plinking' and the stocks resting on rocks, against trees, ect, and simply took general beating.
Even when cared for, many have been handled for years, often by family members who didn't have any knowledge of firearms (or care about them), so dings and scratches are inevitable.

Even 'kill notches,' ect would have most likely been carved into stocks years after WWII, and they've had ample enough time to 'age' so it's impossible to ascertain if they were carved by a GI with time on his hands, or a young person to make it look interesting.
(And in more recent times marked in many ways to counterfeit in an effort to cheat people; but this is a different subject)

The few very interesting examples so far shown of catastrophic damage do sound much more probable to be a result of battle to me.
This type of damage is rare - It's very improbable someone would shoot or 'blow up' a rifle for fun!

My contribution is not 'battle damage' but it's the best (possible) 'wartime marking' I can come up with on any of the guns I have.
(I always look for guns with as little damage as possible)




There again, there's no way to know when this was actually done.
It ads no value, and it's an odd date to carve in a pre-WWII made gun so I would think it's probably period.