The meaning and significance of this term has been debated over the years. When I asked Bob Runge years ago in Del Grego's shop what he thought it represented, he said he believed it signified that all work on the barrel had been completed and that the barrel was ready to advance into the next phase of gun building.
His take on the 'K' was that it was definitely a reference to King - Walter or Charles, and that the f was in effect a final inspector's approval mark, most likely taken from the German word "fertig", meaning finished or completed.
During the era Dave cites, many of the employees of the barrel and action shop were German immigrants who had a minimal passing knowledge of English, but communicated in their own craftsman's orbit using symbols and terms that came to be used in-house as definitive codes of approval.
Personally I subscribe to Bob's interpretation of both the terms of the mark; I do not believe the 'K" has any significant distinction whatsoever as to barrel steel type, only the production era management persona (e.g., Charles v. Walter), and the adaptation of the f as as a term of significance in the vernacular of the native language of craftsmen in the barrel shop at the time makes eminent sense to me.
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