Quote:
Originally Posted by lamarw
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The thing that threw me was there was not A Large N marked under the barrel. Now, I don't know whether S&W marked this particular gun this way or not.....
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We have discussed this issue here before, but I believe the underbarrel finish markings, both the B and the N (the N was always optional even pre-war anyways), were no longer in use after WW II.
Based on my (limited so far) observations, the B disappeared with the British Service model in 1940, likely because that was never produced in nickel, so there was no point in noting the finish. While I don't have the data to back this up, that might have been the end of barrel finish markings.