Quote:
Originally Posted by glowe
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The 1899 and Model 1902 were not available in a square butt. Around the time with the introduction of the Model 1905, square butt frames started showing up, but Roy Jinks book never made mention of either one being scarce? Same with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, nor 4th Changes made any statements about either style being scarce. Supica's editions have made references to this topic, but I wonder who counted them?
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So, not just beauty, but also scarcity, rarity, and uncommonality are in the eye of the beer holder.
Looking just at pre-WW II production, starting in the upper 600,000s production of square-butt guns for Britain and official contracts pretty much ended round butts for the duration in 1939/40.
So if you take the 60,000-plus round-butt guns pre-Model 1905, and then add Roy’s estimated 15% round butts of the number up to 700,000 (for simplicity), you end up with about 150,000 M&P’s that should have a round butt.
Since that number is skewed toward early, the overall survival rate is certainly lower than of square butts, but you can decide for yourself whether that qualifies as rare or scarce or just less common
