That little 5.6 had one more hurdle to get over to be recognized. It had a real odd ball ordnance ball on the gas cylinder. I put it out there and it was immediately thrown under the bus. "Never seen one like that" "Humped" Blah, Blah. Marty Black just told me it was an oddball marking that's all. And in the last CC copy Marty sent out showed a photo of the mark and asked anyone who had one like it to let them know. After a few months up popped the devil, several were out there, identical to the one on my gun. One guy, I forget who it was PM'd me to let me know it was legit and there was proof now. That gun had scratch marks around the front sight where someone had put one of those ugly flash hiders on it and scratched the area good and proper. In those days a lot of people used front sight scratches as proof that it had been tampered with. Why anyone would go to the trouble to remove a type 3 band and then replace it with a type 2 instead of a type 1 eludes me. Most didn't even know that Winchester assembled guns AFTER they were finished so every Winchester has some scratches around the front sight.
The only calm and sensible person on these posts was Seth who always said everything was faked. One work responses "Fake".
Just remembered to address this from Charlie's post. When you have a recoil plate that is original to a stock, they are almost glued into the wood. They are very hard to remove and there are minute milling marks on top. These marks transfer directly to the wood of the stock and the initial application of
linseed oil
preserves them forever. It is a fingerprint.