Legit Serial Number?

S

scorpion_tyr

New member
Recently I've noticed several Mausers and Steyr M95 rifles that have what looks like a hand written serial number etched into the metal instead of a formed stamped number. Most of these appear on the bolt. Many times it's obvious that these cover up another serial number and the handwritten one is made to match the stamped ones so the rifle is all matching.

Were these done when the gun was refurbished at the arsenal, or is it just an importer or exporter trying to make non matching guns into matching ones?
 
Not all guns have serial numbers. Older guns (pre 1968 Gun Control Act) were not required to have them. The "handwritten" serials were likely done when they were arsenal refinished.

I recently acquired a H&R 922 that had zero serial numbers. My FFL had to create one for his book to complete the transfer.
 
Like the goofy safety on the Romanian, and Polish Tokarev pistols. Or the import stamp on recently imported milsurps. More stupid government red tape, and legal garbage!
 
That is what is called "forced matching." The importer uses the serial number on the receiver (the receiver is the gun, per the law) and then electric pencils that number on other parts. Then he can advertise the junk as "all matching numbers" and the suckers will line up to buy it.

Jim
 
That is what is called "forced matching." The importer uses the serial number on the receiver (the receiver is the gun, per the law) and then electric pencils that number on other parts. Then he can advertise the junk as "all matching numbers" and the suckers will line up to buy it.
Click to expand...

Electropenciling was done during refurbishment NOT by the importers. Its usually seen on rifles coming out of com-bloc countries (Russian capture K98s, Steyr 95's, Albanian Carcanos, etc) Russian capture K98s are almost always seen with electro penciled numbers on them. Since the Russians broke down millions of K98s for refurbishment they weren't worried about matching numbers and just pieced together rifles from parts piles and then electro penciled the parts to match the receiver number.
 
That might be true of some Russian capture guns but many thousands of guns from other sources have been made "all matching" by the same method.

I say "might" because I KNOW that some of that renumbering was done by the importers or at their behest. The RC "refurbishment" was done solely at the behest of the importers and only so those guns could be sold to them. The Russians had had that stuff in depots for decades just as it was captured and didn't refurbish much, if any, of it until the Iron Curtain came down (or up) a bit and they were able to sell the stuff for hard currency.

Jim
 
Thanks for all the info! From what I've seen, it's not too hard to find a good M95 without the electronic penciling so I'll just keep looking for them. Thanks again!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top