The interesting thing is that the serials didn’t stay re-oriented, but could be applied either way.

As the second photo shows, the 910- pre-Victory shows the same orientation as the (obviously later) Victory in the third photo, that is, the serial reads with the barrel to the left.

The OP's 972-, as well as DWL's 984-, however, seem to conform to the earlier pattern observable on my earlier BSR, reading with the barrel facing right.

So obviously there were inconsistencies in where the serial was applied in the 900's, since we can exclude a refinish/re-strike on mine.

Not too long ago we even had a high-numbered pre-Victory here with the same configuration as my 910-, where someone had later added a V to the left, creating great consternation here since that was out of any V-prefix range.