Quote Originally Posted by Bruce McAskill View Post
Remember that Underwood made barrels on a sub contract with the military after there production ended in April 1944. So any barrels dated after April 1944 would have be a replacement barrel. Not important to a shooter but is to a collector.

To add what Jim was saying about the Herlo barrels made during Viet Nam. All were rejected by the government. The company then sold them as scrap and a dealer bought them. Turned around and sold them to South Korea. It didn't take long for the South Koreans to figure out why the US had rejected the barrels and they also rejected them too. So this dealer then sold them to other dealers who did or did not know of them being rejected. At least one knew enough that he had a fake US military acceptance stamp made and had the barrels stamped on the flats with the stamp. This helped unsuspecting buyers to shell out good money for junk barrels. On the military collecting side only buy a barrel that was made before the end of WW2 or one that was stamped SA for Springfield Armory which are replacements. On the shooting side any of the commercial barrel makers do make at least acceptable barrels. Of course you can also use a WW2 barrel but the prices are just getting much higher.
I didn't know about them stopping after April of '44, but that is information that is helpful. Luckily, the one I am looking at was made a couple months before then, so I guess I lucked out.