When a rifle receiver was damaged beyond repair, it was often replaced with another reciever, and renumbered with the origional number. There are more than a handful of examples of this around. This might explain what you saw.....


Quote Originally Posted by S-A-M3 View Post
The rifle may have been made up from unumbered replacement parts, who knows how it got that serial No! Maybe an armourer made it up for himself?
I have seen Savage manufactured rifles in NZicon with Longbranch serial No`s, obviously made up with what ever parts were at hand!