Something to keep in mind also is the over abundance of forged markings on commercial guns to make them appear military. Of course I couldn't say for sure regarding your gun, but I have seen more than I care to out there floating around on the market. Many of them are haphazardly done by folks who don't know what the gun should be marked as to begin with. Thankfully it makes them easy to spot. You may have a gun someone did half the work on in terms of an attempted forgery. I'm not playing conspiracy theorist here, I'm just throwing in one more possibility. In the end, there is probably a reason it's marked with the double "P".

For the commercial Stevens experts out there: Is is plausible that this could have been proofed by a smith after converting this from a field gun to what it is now? I know it seems kind of silly to us now, but maybe it's a way to simply show the gun was tested after altering. I don't know, shooting from the hip here. Of all the crazy and strange things I've seen on old shotguns I've learned to be open minded perhaps to a fault.
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