Lithgow No1 MkIII* marking identification

[mainly_22s]

Hi everyone, stumbled onto the forum doing some research on a recent SMLE purchase. I'm trying to determine more about the history of my rifle and figuring out some marking oddities.
What I have figured out so far:
date: 1920
Serial: A76223
Barrel date: 2'21 - February of 1921 based on research from this thread https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=52481
Place of manufacture: Lithgow Australia
Service history: based on info from this thread https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=21743 it appears to have been given to the Austrian Police post WWII, and that's all I've figured out so far.
Current state: All matching except for the stock. It was Sportserized (Bubba'd) and now has a poly stock from a shop called Advanced Technology INC.

My primary confusion is that nowhere on the weapon is there any crown marking I would expect to see a G.R. crown given the year. I know for the Lithgow's the usual crown location has an "A" in a star. But on other examples I've seen, the crown is placed on the left side of the barrel.
In that area on my SMLE there is a "P" in a heart. Has anyone seen this before, my Googling returned nothing useful.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[browningautorifle]

Welcome to the forum, the marks you show are the Osterr Gendarmerie stamp and is for the Austrian military police. Not particularly rare they're just a neat extra for a collector. How about the rest of the rifle...? The knox form looks to have been altered too, different shape possibly removing markings.

[muffett.2008]

The P in a heart is for parallel bore, a program instigated by F.E. Hart on his return from England, the proofmark for this time frame is a shield with ACP in it.


The marks on your barrel and receiver are correct for this rifle.

[newcastle]

What exactly is a "parallel bore" ??

[muffett.2008]

Bit of a misnomer really, more like parallel rifleing.
Several forms of Rifleing were trialled after the exit of the Metford barrels, Enfield tried reverse taper, progressive, and several others.
Finally settleing on equidistant lands and grooves, the lands were not square, having a narrow taper top to bottom, this was finally corrected in the early twenties to parallel lands with no radius or taper.
A variation of this was tried at Lithgow in the 1930's, but was discarded after showing no improvement in accuracy or barrel life.